Happy Halloween! While trick-or-treating is off the table for this year, Halloween can still be a thrill! There are lots of ways to stay in the appropriate mood for spooky season, and many of them don’t take much preparation at all.
First, make yourself a playlist of your favorite spooky tunes, scary movie soundtracks, monster-inspired songs and classic Halloween anthems to jam out to. Remember, if you don’t like to make playlists yourself, someone on Spotify or YouTube has almost certainly created a mixtape that is to your tastes.
Next, I would recommend decorating your space to create a proper atmosphere. You don’t need a very large budget to give your residence a ghastly feeling. Drape fake spiderwebs on the furniture, decorate the windows with clings, scatter plastic bugs around the room and don’t forget to get some pumpkins. If you don’t want to spend money on decor, then it is time to get a little crafty. Just with black construction paper you can make bats that you can string up, spooky trees or black cat silhouettes.
Don’t forget the most classic Halloween decoration: the jack-o’-lantern. If you do not have access to tools for carving pumpkins, try painting or drawing on the pumpkin for a less messy and safer alternate. Not into these ideas? Check Pinterest for more inspiration.
Once you have your space decorated, maybe it’s time to decorate yourself! Dressing up is still fun even if you do not get to show your costume off to the neighborhood. Like decor, a store bought costume and a self-assembled costume are equally good. Check your wardrobe — you can probably be a cowboy, a vampire, a pirate, a celebrity or a fictional character without any struggle or money out of pocket. Alternately, take the SFX makeup route with fake blood, face paint or just normal cosmetics applied creatively.
When you have your costume, you should still show it off to people somehow. A spooky photoshoot with your roommate playing photographer is a great way to get those magnificent shots worthy of your social media page. Or, take the photography studio outdoors and take pictures for the friends you do not live with from a safe distance. Make sure you get good angles!
If photoshoots aren’t quite your thing, have a Halloween party on Zoom! You and your friends can show off what you’ve come up with and can take a group screenshot.
Need more ideas for a Zoom Halloween party? How about doing tarot readings? If you don’t have a tarot deck yourself there are programs online, or you can actually do tarot readings with a normal deck playing cards. Scary stories are another good idea for a Zoom party. You can either read ones written by others or tell your own. Bonus points if the stories are true!
Have a fantastic, fright-filled and fanciful Halloween, Etown!
