Halloween During a Pandemic

With everything going on in the world, I’ve got to be completely honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to halloween this year. Halloween has and may always be my favorite holiday. I have thrown parties in the past with Matt, and they’ve been the highlight of my years. I have always loved hosting, but this year that was most definitely not going to happen. Last year, Max was born right before the holiday, and we knew going into it that we weren’t going to have a party last year. I was MORE than okay with that because I was going to be welcoming my child to the world and everything else in my life would permanently take a back seat for the rest of my life. But this year, at the beginning of 202, before the world fell apart, I really thought it would be different. Despite everything unraveling the way it did, I really still wanted to try my best to snap out of my own mental cloud and do something special with Max… for Max.

So this year, we decided to keep things easy. I didn’t plan an elaborate costume or anything, and the majority of everything for Max’s costume was found in his own closet. We went with an easy garden gnome concept. I took one trip to Goodwill to find a checkered shirt, a perfect little sweater, a basket for our homemade mushrooms and that was all I needed to get! I had the perfect hat from our Christmas photographs from last year, and cut a piece of random fuzzy white blanket for his makeshift gnome beard. I sewed the beard to the hat with a needle and thread. The most elaborate part of his costume was actually not even a necessity but like all of my past costumes, there needed to be a prop! The mushrooms were really simple to make and definitely added to his costume in my opinion.

I used foam cones and balls from the craft store. I cut the balls in half, and then the tips of the cones were cut off as well. I glued one half of the ball to the top of the cone with hot glue, then painted. Literally could not have been an easier task – and like I said, definitely made for the perfect prop.

We tried to take some photos at our house, and it most definitely didn’t work out. But Matt was able to snap a couple of Max on the move with our makeshift photo set. Later in the day, we headed to the park to meet with a couple of close friends. We set up our blanket, and Max didn’t stay still for very long – really no surprise there. He is constantly on the move these days – especially now that he can walk. We was exploring the park, getting his hands dirty in the rocks and dirt, watching the ducks on the water, and trying to get into everything he could. It’s funny how the toys that are made for children are usually the least interesting things to them. Max was more interested in playing with tupperware and shoes.

Although holidays and life are all very different this year, it is the little moments with my little one that truly give me any reason to get out of bed and try. I want to make things special for him as much as I can. There is still a pandemic going on, so we can’t do it all, but I have faith this will pass and things will find a normalcy again.