Halloween is less than a week away. Do you have a costume planned? If you have kids, I imagine they’ve already changed their costume plan several times. Maybe you have a Halloween party on the calendar? I’m all about the last minute costume these days, but I have several friends who look forward to this holiday all year long and spent months preparing.

There is no holiday quite like Halloween. When else do you get a chance to dress up in elaborate costumes or step out as your alter ego or celebrity persona without feeling the least bit conspicuous? As a kid, it blew my mind that for a few hours every year, you could simply ring a doorbell and have access to allll the chocolate.

Now that I’m a parent of two young kids, my perspective has shifted somewhat (though I do still enjoy the chocolate). I shudder in anticipation of Halloween night. Not just because rural Nova Scotia can be seriously spooky on cold, windy nights – but, because the magic of the holiday sometimes feels overshadowed by the astonishing waste.

All you have to do is set foot in a store this time of year to see what I mean. There’s an endless amount of cheap plastic decorations, packaged sugary treats, and polyester costumes. To be honest, I find all of this prefabricated Halloween stuff kind of takes the magic right out of the holiday.

Okay, so I’m only going to romanticize my childhood a little bit here. I know that there were plenty of candy wrappers, glow sticks, and synthetic fabric in the 80s. And if buying ready-made décor and costumes was as easy as it is now, my parents may not have done as much sewing and crafting.

But, the holiday hype and consumerism today makes me seriously nostalgic for the homemade Halloween of my 1980’s childhood. So, if we’re looking for ways to cut down on Halloween waste, why not throwback for a little inspiration.

Ode to the homemade Halloween costume

I was a truly lucky kid. My parents gave me free reign in the costume department and were very supportive of my creative ideas. They also stepped in to help with sewing or painting so that my vision didn’t turn out to be a total flop. I had access to fabric, cardboard, paint, glue and our dress up trunk. I have more memories of making my costume than any other part of Halloween.

Okay, some were pretty terrible and even downright ugly (I’m looking at you pink bubblegum costume), but others were absolutely amazing (at least in memory). One year, I decided to dress up as the Energizer Bunny. I used cardboard, paint, and tinfoil to make a drum and mallets and a giant battery and attached it to my homemade pink bunny costume complete with pink slippers. It was so original and fun and I remember feeling so proud of myself.

Homemade costumes don’t have to be elaborate. Something a trip to the thrift store and the recycling bin is all you need to make an amazing costume.  Sure it’s easy to zip on a pre-made animal suit (and they are great for squirmy babies and toddlers), but I guarantee it won’t be as memorable.

Check out my post 10 Zero Waste Fall Family Traditions for more ideas for thrifted Halloween costumes and to see a cute picture of my kids’ in their costumes last year.

Trick or treat nostalgia

The best treats when I was a kid were homemade candy apples on wooden sticks, candied popcorn in paper bags, and caramels in waxed paper wrappers – nearly zero waste! What do you think about bringing back homemade treats? To be safe, why not trick or treat at neighbours houses you know and trust? And if you give out homemade treats, make sure they are allergen free and attach your name and contact info.

There are also lots of alternatives to candy you could give out. We get about 25 trick or treaters in my rural community. It wouldn’t be much more expensive to give out something like coins, pencils, or polished stones. If you do buy candy, see if you can find treats that come in cardboard boxes (I’m partial to chocolate covered peanut butter or mint).

When we were kids, we used pillowcases for trick or treating. We didn’t decorate them, though you could. We thought they were great – they were large enough to hold a lot of loot, easy to tell apart by colour or pattern, and easy to tote around.

Safety was just as important then as it is today – everyone needs to be visible when walking unlit roads or crossing streets on this dark night. Instead of the glow stick necklaces of the 80’s and 90’s, consider giving your kids headlamps and reusable reflective bands so that they are easily seen by cars.

DIY Halloween decorations were cool before Pinterest

Visiting well-decorated houses was a Halloween highlight when I was a kid. And for the most part these impressive displays were DIY (before Pinterest!) – aside from the gauzy fake spider webs (which would be stored away in the Halloween box until next year) and the spooky recorded Halloween tape cassettes (remember those??)

Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a ghost out of a white bed sheet and a sharpie! Making new, creative decorations every year was a big part of the fun. We especially enjoyed making tombstones with scrap wood or cardboard, adding creepy names and like “Ima Goner” and “Will B. Back.” A zero waste Halloween often just requires some thought and imagination.

Some of dad’s weekend clothes, a pile of leaves and branches from yard clean-up and a few pumpkins were all we needed to make pumpkin people to stand in shadowy corners or sit, vigilant, by the door.

Things seem simpler in memory, of course. But there is something to be said for holiday traditions that don’t come in a package and can’t be purchased at the store – there’s a lot less waste, and a little more magic. 

What are your favourite childhood memories of Halloween? Do you still get trick or treaters in your neighbourhood?

Margaret Hoegg is a Simple Local Life Contributor, writer, editor, and sustainability advocate on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. She muses on food, minimalism, homesteading, and simple family living on her blog dulse and maple and on Instagram @dulseandmaple or @margaretannehoegg.