Every Family Needs a “Thing” And Ours is Halloween

I know, I know. It’s November. Why am I writing about Halloween? Well, given that Halloween is the last day of October and is a crazy day for most moms, there isn’t much time to write about what happened that day until after it’s over. Also, I ❤ Halloween. It is probably my favorite holiday, and here is why- the decorations are easy, there are no big food preparations required, and we get to dress up! While my family does not have a lot of traditions, mostly because we are really busy, I’m so grateful that Halloween has become “our thing.”

Choosing a Halloween Theme

For the past several years, we have decided to dress up as a family. Each year we have a different theme. People always ask me how we come up with our costume theme, and the easy answer is that we tend to dress up in whatever theme we happen to be into that year. We have no desire to play into what is “trending,” and we’re often off by a year or so when it comes to what is popular for Halloween costumes. But, we honestly do not care, so long as it’s something we happen to be enjoying that year.

Past Themes

This post prompted a walk down memory lane for me and my family. In past years, we have been the Skywalkers (you know, Star Wars’ Padme, Anakin, Luke and Leia characters), Harry Potter, Coraline (Wybie and family included), the Inside Out emotions, the Back to the Future Cast (with a dressed up Prius Delorian time machine), Superheroes, and last year, the Addams Family.

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This Year’s Theme: Bob’s Burgers

Over the past year, we have started watching more of the prime time cartoon series, “Bob’s Burgers.” I know, it’s a little grown-up for our 11 year old, but she usually doesn’t get most of the jokes. If you haven’t seen the show, you should. It is a riot. No matter how bad a day I’ve had, this show always makes me laugh. The jokes are spot on and the characters are voiced perfectly. We even got my mom into the show, which meant she was willing to be our fifth family member, the boy-crazy teenager, Tina. (She also joined us as Sadness for our “Inside Out” theme. Given how much we enjoy the show, it is no surprise we all unanimously decided on it as our theme.

Indoor Trunk or Treat

For the second year in a row, our church decided to have a trunk or treat the Wednesday of Halloween week. We decided that the Bob’s Burgers would be the perfect theme to contribute to the church-wide event since all you need are a few basics: ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles, a chalkboard with the Burger of the Day, and the characters. I decided to paint a Bob’s Burgers sign and make a Grand Opening banner, which is used in the opening sequence. Because it rained that night, we set up our trunk decorations on tables instead.

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How We Made Our Costumes and Indoor Trunk or Treat Decorations

I am not as crafty as people think. At first, I wanted to buy a burger costume, but none really looked like what the Gene Belcher character iconically wears in the cartoon. So, I decided to make a burger costume myself. I hunted around on the internet and settled on this set of instructions by A Thoughtful Place. Her directions were perfect- no sewing required and the materials consisted of cardboard, felt, a hot glue gun, and scissors. I made a few tweaks since the burger we made for my son was bigger than the one in the original instructions. We reinforced all of the felt with a staple gun and made the straps out of small bungee cords we found at Home Depot, which had hooks that we latched into the costume by cutting holes on the inside of each burger half. It was a bit time consuming, but pretty easy overall.

The grand opening banner was just white denim with black felt letters that I cut out and glued on. We attached it to the table (and later our banister) with rope. I hand-painted the Bob’s Burger sign using craft paint on a 3’x1′ canvas. The chalkboard is my daughter’s, and we brainstormed for a while to come up with the perfect Halloween-themed burger of the day: “The Hocus Poke Burger, served with raw tuna and Monster Mash Potatoes.” I also bought a few things to round out our costumes and theme:

• Dollar store red sandwich basket and metal spatula
• Ketchup and mustard squeeze bottles (#ad)
• Red glasses (#ad) for the Linda character
• Half (#ad) and whole white aprons (#ad) for Linda and Bob
• My husband found theatrical hair and spirit gum adhesive and remover at the pop up Spirit Halloween store.
• Louise’s bunny ears hat (#ad) was not something I thought we could make ourselves. Luckily, Amazon had one.
• Of course, we needed a burger. This burger squishy toy (#ad) was the closest we could find.
• The rest of our costumes were just clothing we already owned or were happy to add to our wardrobes like the green dress for my daughter and yellow shirt for my son.

Keeping it Simple- Our Annual Decorations

Because we put a lot of work into the costumes, I would literally lose my mind if I had to come up with a unique and fancy decoration scheme for my home every Halloween. So, each year we basically set out the same decorations. If anyone feels like reconfiguring the set up, that’s fine too. And, we’ll often use a prior year’s creation (like the Wybie mask I made my son or the Cousin It trick or treat basket I made for my daughter) as an additional decoration. Here is what the setup was like this year, and it took less than 30 minutes to set it all out:

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Families are busy, especially in the fall. Taking a little time to celebrate a fun holiday like Halloween is a good way to stay connected and make memories. Making that process as simple as possible will keep the tradition going from year to year. Is there a tradition your family keeps? Leave a comment below!

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