Our 2020 Halloween Movie & Cartoon Special Bucket List

Because of COVID-19 we don't know whether or not we'll get to celebrate Halloween this year with Trick or Treating. Since Halloween is a pretty big deal in our house we've decided to celebrate with as many social distancing and self-isolation activities during this spooky time of year. There's nothing quite like watching some Halloween specials or scary movies to get you into the holiday spirit. 

Last year our list was a little too ambitious, so this year we went a little smaller, knowing we can add on extras if we watch all of these. This is what is on our list for this year.

Being Introduced To The Kids This Year

Hocus Pocus✔

None of us have watched this before and we figured it was time it was added to the list.

Practical Magic

I quite like this movie and look forward to watching it with Molly.

Clue

Chris thinks this doesn't count, but as a murder mystery I feel it embodies everything fun about Halloween.

Tim Burton's Batman

Dark, brooding, people dressed up in costumes, what could go wrong?

The Witches

We may end up renting this Roald Dahl new release direct from Cineplex Odeon as a special Halloween treat.

Classic Family Favourites For Repeated Viewing

Nightmare Before Christmas

Ghostbusters

The Wizard of Oz

Molly says this counts as a Halloween movie because it has witches, a scarecrow (for harvest season), and creepy monkeys - it also doesn't hurt that they just added it to Netflix).

Paranorman

Coraline

Coco

Halloween Cartoon Specials

Simpsons Halloween (Seasons I - X)✔✔

Captain Underpants Hackoween Special✔

Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin✔

The Garfield Halloween Special✔

Disney cartoon version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow✔✔

They even managed the Tim Burton Version This Year

✔

For the Grown Ups

The Birds

Never seen this classic and it's about time.

The Craft

Another movie that I haven't seen in many years, but I want to revisit.

The Crow

I haven't watched this since the early 2000's and I'm curious how it holds up.

Jennifer's Body✔

I read an article that this is a fantastic feminist horror flick.

If you have any other suggestions please share them!

To see our list from last year click here.

Maker Halloween Costumes: The Green Goblin

Jack loves Spiderman and everything Spiderman related.  His choice to be a Spiderman Villain, The Green Goblin wasn't much of a surprise.  One of the neat things about his costume was that he wanted to make it his own.  He keeps on talking about becoming a film maker when he grows up, so reinventing characters is something we're seeing more and more of from him.

Image Courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games

When Jack first saw the Toby Maguire version of Spiderman a few years ago we had to turn it off because he was so scared of Willem Dafoe as The Green Goblin.  At first we talked about a robotic mask like Dafoe's, but anything we found was way too expensive (like in the $60 to $90 price range), so we decided to take another approach.

Image Courtesy of Movie Web

He wanted his costume based more in horror and less in cartoon, but still with a nod to the original comic character.  Here's what we came up with, how we did it, and how much it cost us:

The Face: We decided early on that face paint was not a good option.  We saw some half masks that looked closer to the comic Green Goblin, but it would still require green face paint for the bottom half of his face.  On a trip to Once Upon a Child we were able to find a used Zombie/Goblin/Warrior mask that Jack fell in love with for $8.99 - bonus points it has red eyes that light up.

The clothes: We went traditional with the clothes for Green Goblin.  At Value Village used we were able to pick up a men sized small purple t-shirt for $3.99 for me to cut into a shredded tunic, we were also able to get a green long sleeved t-shirt for $2.99.  We are borrowing a pair of purple leggings from a family friend,  purchased a pair of purple gloves for $1.99, and a pair of purple socks for $2.99.  For the belt we used a pirate belt that we had in our dress up box.


The Accessories: Jack really wanted me to build him a hoverboard on a skateboard or a flutter board, but because he doesn't know how to skateboard, I couldn't find a flutter board for less than $23.99 on Amazon (and knew I'd be carrying it all night anyway) we skipped it.  We purchased a brown leather purse to use as a satchel at Value Village for $3.99 and bought a set of pumpkin lights at the dollar store for $3.50 to make our pumpkin bombs.  For the light up pumpkin bombs I glue gunned in sparkled pipe cleaners (for $1.25) to be the lit ends of the pumpkin bombs and zipped them into the purse to keep them in place.

I am particularly happy with the 'light up' aspect of this costume as it will increase his visibility to cars on Halloween night!

Total cost of this costume to us: $33.54 tax included.


To check out Molly's Raven costume click here.

Should We Move Halloween to the Weekend?

I don't know if you've noticed, but there are some rumblings picking up momentum to move Halloween from October 31st to the last Saturday of October.  People are creating and signing petitions to send to their local, regional, and national government officials.  To read more about this click here.

I used to have little to no opinion about this debate, but now having been a parent for eight Halloweens, I've decided I really like this idea of a moving holiday instead of a set date of October 31st.

Princess Leia

Pros

• It's on a weekend so more people will be off of work/won't need to leave work early and will be able to enjoy in the festivities with their kids/in their community
  

• Safety - there will be no rush hour traffic while kids are out trick or treating in the dark

• Bars restaurants and clubs will have two days right around Halloween to plan awesome celebrations with people in the mood to celebrate
  

• Kids can stay up later and sleep in the following morning from their sugar coma (and so can their parents)
  

• When schools celebrate Halloween on the Friday before the 'holiday' it gives time for parents to launder and repair costumes before they go out trick or treating the following night (Molly I'm talking about you and the chocolate you got all over your pristine white Princess Leia Costume a few years ago)

• Kids may be a little less keyed up about Halloween at school making lives a little easier on teachers, because it's still a day away (just speculating this one)
  

• Parents who have kids who constantly change their minds about what they want to be on Halloween will have a little more time to help put something together (the more I think about this one it might not be a benefit)
  

• As someone who loves to see many kids in my neighbourhood out and about in their costumes, there is nothing worse than the low level of kids out on a Tuesday Halloween compared to a busy weekend Halloween

Cinderella & Dr. Scorpion

Cons

• It messes with tradition
  

• It may take a few years to really catch on

One of the biggest kids of all, me! In My Princess Vanellope Wreck It Ralph Costume circa 2017

Just because we've always done something, doesn't mean that it's the best thing to do.  This goes for business, family, and holidays!  

Am I missing anything here?  Is there a concrete reason why it should remain where it is that I'm not getting?  What do you think fellow Halloween super fans and parents?  Are you going to sign or start a petition for your area?

Make your own Anne of Green Gables Halloween Costume

I don't like to buy pre-packaged Halloween costumes from the store.  Somehow it feels like cheating.  Halloween costumes are one of the few 'crafty' things I do as a mom and I love to figure out the best ways to help my kids make their costume visions come to life.

This summer Molly and I began watching the CBC re-imagination of the classic Lucy Maude Montgomery Series Anne of Green Gables.  It's darker, grittier, and probably a little more mature than the version I grew up with, but Molly instantly fell in love with it, watching together and talking about big themes like bullying, loneliness, sexism, and racism thanks to the show.

When Molly told me she wanted to be Anne of Green Gables for Halloween I knew that she was a kindred spirit to my childhood self, so we got working on it in the summer.


The Anne Hat - Straw hat purchased at Dollarama for $2.  Fabric Sunflowers also from Dollarama for $1.25 and secured on with a glue gun.

Anne Hat

The apron was made by purchasing an old white flower girl dress from Value Village and cutting out the back to make it into an apron for $5.99.  The prairie dress was the toughest item to get, since they aren't exactly in fashion for little girls right now and you could either order them online for $40-$50 or try and figure something else out.  Finally we went to the women's section of Value Village and found this traditional Anne style baby doll blouse that is so sensible that even Marilla Cuthbert would approve - purchased for $7.99!  Although it's a little big on Molly the apron works to keep everything together (along with some stitches to keep the straps of her 'apron' in place.

Sideview Anne

To make things authentically Anne, we're using eyeliner to give Molly darker freckles, that I placed over her own freckles.  We also purchased a bottle of red hair spray from Value Village for $4.99 to spray her red braids on Halloween.

To keep Molly warm on Halloween she'll be wearing black leotards with black shoes and her light pink ballet body suit underneath the costume.  For added authenticity Molly will be carrying a brown woven basket to collect her candy (like the one Anne uses to carry her lunch to school).

Total costume cost: Just over $25 tax included!

Authentically Anne!

To see my Wreck it Ralph & Princess Vanelope Costume from last Halloween click here and here.

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I Don't Want to Grow-Up

When Chris and I first found out that I was pregnant we had one of those classic stereotypical, "I'm not sure I can handle this" moments.  I'm sure that each generation has these concerns, but I think that my generation (late Gen X early Gen Y for you Douglas Coupland fans), has brought growing-up panic to new levels.  Around month three of my pregnancy at 11:03pm we discovered we'd run out of cat food AGAIN (our corner convenience store closes at 11:00pm - of course).  Chris turned to me, as I opened a tin of tuna from the cupboard to replace the forgotten food for the screaming cats and said, "We can't do this crap when the baby arrives, running out of food isn't an option, we need to grow-up."* I agreed and we both vowed never to run out of food, diapers, clean clothes, wipes etc. for the baby - which to date we haven't.**

Back to Generation XY - Chris and I are in our early to mid-thirties and among the first handful of our friends to have children, which is a little odd, but not uncommon in a big city where people finish school late and get married later. Last year when I was at a friend's baby shower her father commented, "I don't know why you all think it's so funny that you're knocked-up. You are in your early thirties, this is what you're supposed to be doing."  And that's our problem, we still think of ourselves as teenagers, or at the very oldest in our early twenties.  I can barely believe I have a mortgage let alone two kids.  When did all we get so old?  Maybe this is why the baby boomers keep on calling sixty the new forty.

So, today is Halloween, Molly and Jack's first Halloween, where they will be dressed up to "help" us hand out candy to all of the Junction area children who come to our door.  We spent about a month organizing their costumes to make sure their first Halloween would be perfect.  Yesterday afternoon we decided to pick up a pumpkin to carve.  We went to 5 grocery/convenience stores and even a Walmart in our area - who were all sold out of pumpkins before we finally gave up.  We were at two farmer's markets last week where they sold pumpkins, but we didn't buy one because we knew there would be plenty of time, right?  It's the first Halloween that I can ever remember where we haven't carved a pumpkin.  Epic Holiday Failure.  It's a good thing that the twins are babies and are too occupied by the pattern on our living room couch to notice let alone care.  Next year we will be prepared, we'll grow-up and buy our pumpkins early.  So if on October 30th 2012 you see me standing in a Walmart parking lot don't worry, I'll have my pumpkin and I'll sell you one too - for $20.

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*this moment was before the additional "holy crap we're having twins" epiphany. 

**mainly thanks to the hand-me-down clothes and gifts we've received from friends and family, not because of our new found superior laundry skills.