Healthy Party Alternatives & Keeping Safe This Halloween

As the 31st October comes round again, the shops are filled with multi-packs of sweets and chocolate, fancy dress outfits for all ages and enough decoration ideas to turn your entire house into a haunted mansion.

Children and adults alike love the chance to dress up as a frightening alter ego. Whether you're going trick or treating with the kids or having an night in with your friends watching horror movies, one thing is almost certain – sweets and treats will be involved.

A lot of parents are worried about how many sweets their child will consume around the Halloween period – they are literally handed to them on a plate, especially if you let the kids go trick or treating. There are other safety issues too – a lot of parents don't like the idea of letting their child wander the streets in the dark.

We've come up with a few tips to make sure your little ones stay safe and healthy this Halloween...

Your Halloween Party

1) Make Party Bags

Instead of filling bags with sweets for children to take home after a Halloween party, why not hand out party bags instead? They're much more fun, last longer and cost no more than multipacks of chocolate.

2) Make Healthier Alternatives

Just because it's not chocolate, doesn't mean you can't create some tasty treats on Halloween. Play around with different ideas to make spooky-themed food such as:

• Stuffed peppers with carved faces
• Mini pumpkins filled with dips and carrot stick fingers
• Hot dogs as fingers with onion finger nails and bloody ketchup
• Yoghurt with green food colouring
• Satsumas with celery stalks to create pumpkins
• Peeled bananas cut in half with chocolate drops to make ghostly faces

3) Make Juices

Make blood red fruit juice in a juicer using different berries and grapes for a Halloween-themed drink packed full of goodness. The kids will love it, and its a much healthier alternative to fizzy drinks that they would usually drink at parties.

4) Make Everything Look Attractive

If you present your healthier options in an attractive way, people are much more likely to choose them over the sweets and chocolate on offer, especially the kids. Arrange them on big display plates alongside Halloween decorations and spooky pieces to keep with the theme.

If you're not hosting a Halloween party this year, the children may want to go out in the street to show off their outfits, chat with their friends and go trick or treating... but there are a few dangers with this. Here are a few rules to put in place before you let them loose:

Safety When Trick Or Treating

• No matter how old your children are, never let them go trick or treating alone. Make sure they are always in a group.
• Get your kids to carry a torch so they can see where they're going and other people, including motorists, can see them clearly.
• Ask your neighbours and make sure they don't mind your children coming and knocking on their doors – some people don't like it.
• Set some boundaries. If they're going with friends they should only be allowed to go up to a certain house or street and no further. 
• Set a time when they have to be home by too.
• Only knock on doors of houses that are decorated for Halloween or have a pumpkin outside. Bothering other people will be a waste of everyone's time as they probably won't have any treats for you anyway, and may be elderly or have very young children.
• If they don't want you to cramp their style and come with them, stand outside the house where you can clearly see where they are. If the other mums on the street are out too, the children won't mind as much and you can all have a chat.

The Switch Witch

If your child comes home with a huge bag full of sweets, you may worry that they will demolish the lot in one night, which isn't healthy. The occasional treat is great, but you may be worried about the sugar overload.

The Switch Witch is a tradition mainly used in America, and may well work out to be a huge success for you.

Similar to Elf On A Shelf at Christmas, the Switch Witch is a good witch who loves sweets so much that she happily swaps them for toys, games and money. Your child can write the Switch Witch a note, politely asking for a toy they've had their eye on for a while, or a game that they just can't wait until Christmas for, and see if the Switch Witch is willing to swap their trick or treat sweets for it.

You can then control how much sugar your children will be eating by asking for a large portion of the haul in return for the toy they would like.

Halloween Fun

There are so many different ways to have fun and celebrate Halloween that you can be imaginative and creative to make it the best one yet.

Let us know what you're doing this Halloween in the comments below!