Halloween 2020: The Game Plan
A pandemic can’t ruin the one good thing we have left.
There is a not-so-funny meme making its way around social media that suggests for Halloween this year, kids can stay on their lawns and adults can drive by, throwing candy at them.
If this is the best answer we’ve got for social distancing during Halloween, we’ve got problems. We’ve got 3 months to strategize and we only have one night to make it a success. Hell hath no fury like a child who skipped Trick or Treating.
Here are our options.
1) Skip Halloween altogether
I’m throwing this out there as an option, but it’s not really an option. My kids will bleed out their eyeballs before missing going out for candy.
Halloween Plan Score: 1 out of 10
2) Parking lot Trick or Treating
In fancy and affluent areas, this is “Trunk or Treating”. In poor neighborhoods, it’s “Give Me Your Candy Before I Run You Over With My Car, Dickface” (only celebrated by teenagers).
Parents park in a parking lot, open their trunks all decorated Halloween-y with bowls of candy. Kids then go car to car to get the goods.
This doesn’t solve our social distancing problem. While the virus may not spread as easily outdoors, no kid is going to ruin their Captain America costume by wearing the emoji-printed mask made by mom. Plus, it gets cold at night and those kids will crawl into each other’s cars, thus rendering the outdoor strategy useless.
Halloween Plan Score: 4 out of 10
3) Trick them and use other countries’ ideas
We could convince our kids that October 31st is actually November 1st. That buys us a full day to copy whatever they’re doing in the UK and Asia. I hear they love and respect Americans, naturally they want our traditions as well.
Once the real October 31st has passed, we bombard the internet and decide what worked best. Then we have a full day to copy them. While the United States doesn’t have the best track record at copying good ideas from other countries, this is one area we should outsource the problem.
The downside is the gamble; if they bombed it then we’re all fucked. That and we’re disrespecting a sacred holiday (Día de los Muertos, aka, Day of the Dead) for 28% of the United States’ population. So that’s like, you know, that’s a whole culturally insensitive thing.
Halloween Plan Score: 4.5 out of 10
4) Bribery
My kids will do anything for a buck. Maybe we can just offer our kids a Ben Franklin and call it a night. Problem is, the value of a dollar plummets on October 31st as kids want costumes and candy. The economics of money versus candy is not in our favor.
Halloween Plan Score: 3 out of 10
5) Zoom Trick or Treating
We use video conferencing for happy hours, chatting with grandparents, birthday parties, and occasionally for actual work.
The kids can dress up and show off their costumes to their friends. Then they can throw candy at their monitors. Since they’ll inevitably have a violent tantrum if you cancel Halloween, you might as well channel their rage at your monitor (like you do every Monday morning when you log in to work from your living room).
Halloween Plan Score: 5 out of 10
6) The best plan yet: the Costco strategy
Just like every other October, head by Costco to buy the usual bag filled with Twix, Almond Joy, Kit Kat, Snickers, and Milky Way. Buy two or three for good measure.
Filter out the Almond Joys for yourself because kids are little assholes who don’t like them anyway.
On Halloween, have your kids dress up, go outside, and ring your doorbell. Gasp in surprise at their adorable costumes, then dump the entire Costco bag of candy and chocolate into their Trick or Treat bags. Now they’ve got three hours of whoring for candy done in 30 seconds.
Halloween Plan Score: 7 out of 10
Looks like we’ve got a lot of decision-making to do but we better do it quick. This will need serious coordination across the country for consistency. We must work ahead and ensure this is a success, given that we only have one night to pull it off.
In other words, we’re fucked. Buy some tequila and brave the Halloween apocalypse of hell.
