Trunk or Treat: The Best Way to Celebrate Halloween
Reading Time: 10 minutes Have you ever noticed that if there is a reason to have a party, we jump on it and make it a “to-do”? My favorite example of this is Cinco de Mayo, you realize that this is not an Independence Day, right? This was a battle that was won and is much more celebrated in the United States than in Mexico.
We may start this “party” or celebration culture with our children with Halloween. This is one of the most loved holidays of the year among children. What is not to love? You can be anyone you want, you get to knock on people’s doors and get free goodies, and you often are out later than usual.
Trunk or Treats, which are gaining much more popularity in recent years, are the best way to celebrate Halloween. Everyone dresses up, treats are varied, friends are seemingly everywhere, there are often activities to go with the event, and it is a completely safe event.
What is a Trunk or Treat?
A Trunk or Treat is when many people come together: a school, business, church, friends, etc, and basically open up the back end of their cars for the children to come “knock” at instead of running through neighborhoods.
Why should you participate in a Trunk or Treat instead of traditional trick or treating?
We lived in one of the best neighborhoods for kids to trick or treat in when my boys were young. A lot of people would come to the neighborhood to have their children trick or treat there as well. Most of the houses were “lit up” so the children knew that they could get a treat. The main problem was that the traffic, both foot and cars, was heavy. The trick or treating went into the darker hours. I was always worried that someone would not pay attention, whether on foot or in car, and a terrible accident would happen.
With a Trunk or Treat, the cars are all parked. The children walk to each car. It is done in a parking lot, typically. There are no moving cars, so there is only one type of transportation: walking. As a mom, I felt so much safer with a trunk or treat that I could actually relax and enjoy the occasion, instead of constantly counting heads, looking at traffic, yelling not to run and to pay attention.
Usually, all of the cars are connected to each other in one way or another. When I ran a non profit, we participated in our largest sponsor’s, Prescott Findlay Subaru, Trunk or Treat each year. The cars at this event were all businesses or non profits that had a connection to the car dealer. I have seen entire schools, churches, individual businesses with their employees, and families offer trunk or treats. Because all of the cars/families are connected in some way, the feeling, from a parent’s perspective, is that the entire event, from traffic to candy will be safer. Do you remember your mom going through all of your candy before you could eat it? This event allows parents to feel better and be more connected with each of the “givers” of the “goodies.”
Trunk or treat checklist
- Your children want to dress up
- You want them to be safe
- Know the people giving treats
- Create a party for all ages.
- Easy to plan and execute.
- A Halloween everyone will remember!
Is a Trunk or Treat as fun for the children?
Absolutely! If you have a car decoration contest, the whole family can get in on the planning! You can all coordinate your outfits to be in the same theme as the car decorations. Have you ever had one of your children help you pick out a really special gift for someone? They are almost bursting at the seams to tell that person, or anyone, how amazing the gift is that they were able to help pick out. The planning and decorating of your family car will create the same kind of anticipation and glee for your children to show off to others.
Typically, children love to be around other children. A Trunk or Treat, typically has many families from a place they all have in common. The children know each other. They can “ooh” and “aah” over each other’s cars and costumes. They can giggle over the parents who are dressed up the most outlandishly. They can have a mini “party” simply by hosting this kind of event.
Because a Trunk or Treat is in a limited area and because parents know most everyone there, the children can often “take off” in groups to go check out and visit all of the cars without direct adult supervision. Kids love to stretch their independent wings; this is a great opportunity for them to do this.
Another huge advantage to a Trunk or Treat is that eventually, your children will get to an age where the whole “Halloween” experience may be something they want to do, but it just isn’t “cool” at their age. These, most likely, teens will also find others to hang out with. They can all go to the activities, if you have them, together. They can also oversee the “People’s Choice” category for voting if you have one of those.
Dinner Time-can I incorporate it into the Trunk or Treat?
I have seen this done two different ways. When a business hosts the Trunk or Treat there are usually food trucks available, but kept away from the main foot traffic or the decorated cars. I also know of a church that hosts an enormous Trunk or Treat each year and they have one car bring hot dog buns, another brings hot dogs (they actually grill in the parking lot, but you can have them pre cooked and in crock pots) and someone else brings condiments.
If you are not planning on having dinner in some way, definitely bring or tell everyone to bring water bottles. Also, adjust your time for set up and start accordingly. If people have to get off of work, help the kids dress up, feed everyone, etc, this will add to your start time.
I do recommend making your Trunk or Treat a big event. The amount of planning it takes to coordinate the cars, families, if you will have prizes for categories, etc. is pretty easy. This event creates a disproportionately huge amount of great times and fabulous memories for the cost and effort it takes to plan it. I would go the extra step and plan your Trunk or Treat for 3-4 hours. Include food, activities, and contests to go with the decorated cars.
Should I have a car decoration contest?
My husband will go “full out” if he knows there is a contest and it is even better if he can win a trophy. My husband is 54. It sounds silly, but he loves to get creative and the thought of a prize at the end makes his efforts worthwhile. There are a lot of people who will put much more effort into the decorations if they know there is a contest with prizes to be given out. You can create as many categories as you want, so you the number of “winners” is not limited. This will also lead to more excitement the family has, together, decorating their car.
Crown Awards has eight Halloween themed trophies from $4.99 – $6.99 each. You could choose a base where you can add names for each year and have the trophy “travel” from year to year.
Amazon has Halloween costume ribbons, 12 for $9.97.
You could piggyback from this idea and do fun book marks, painted rocks, or buttons with the category and the year.
If you know someone who can do silkscreening, or I believe you can do this with your Cricut, you could have T-Shirts made.
Possible Trunk or Treat Decorating Categories:
- Movie or TV show theme: Frozen, Nightmare before Christmas, Mandalorian, Mickey Mouse
- Game or hobby theme: Minecraft, Exploding Kittens, Ticket to Ride, Origami, Painting, Gardening
- Sports Theme: from professional sports to croquet
- Transportation: Pirate Ship, Space Ship, Cruise, Bicycling, Skateboarding
- Random Items: Radio, Juke Box, Pyramid, Space, Clown, Mermaid
- Animals: Bats, Cats, Farm Animals
- Superheroes: Storm, Jane Foster, Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange
- Creepy: Webs, Ghosts, Creepy Music, Cemetery Stones
- People’s Choice Award: this is for that amazing car that everyone loves that doesn’t necessarily “fit” into any of your categories
- Costumes match the Car which matches the treat: Donut car, give out donuts, Ice cream Truck can give out ice cream sandwiches
Plan activities at your Trunk or Treat
You can easily make this event into a fun party. Have various Halloween themed activities sprinkled throughout your cars. This way, the focus is not just on the treats, but also the fun things kids can “do.”
You can ask each car to come up with an activity and bring it, although this will create extra stress for many. I recommend that after you choose your location, who or from where you will invite people, and the general “look’ of your event, you reach out to parents and ask for 3 to be on an activity “committee” that will oversee any suggestions, donations, etc for games, crafts or activities for the kids.
10 Possible activities: (there are hundreds online)
- Pumpkin Decorating
- Painting Rocks (monsters, Halloween theme, fun messages, etc)
- Ghost lollipops
- Mummy candle holders
- Craft stick spiders
- Spider web art
- Slime
- Pinecone bat
- Yarn pumpkin
- Halloween pencil broomsticks
How to plan the event
Are you convinced you need to plan a Trunk or Treat this year?
I want to quickly go over the steps for you to do this.
1. Schedule the event:
What day will work best for everyone. I highly recommend having your Trunk or Treat before Halloween, not after. Fridays and Saturdays seem to be the best options for most families. This way they do not have to worry about preparing for the next day and they can “fudge” early bed times. Have a rough outline of what you want to include in your event, for example, if it is just the cars, or cars and dinner, or cars, dinner and activities. This will allow you to find a more realistic time frame for the event.
2. Your location:
Where will the people you are inviting coming from? If they are mostly from the same school or church or business you may be able to go to one of these places and ask if you can use their parking lot.
Remember: people will always need to use a restroom. See if you can use a restroom onsite. If not, this may complicate your event, you may need to get a port-a-potty.
If you do talk to a business, they may be willing to host, sponsor, and publicize the event. This will need to be planned out far in advance, so keep this idea for next year.
Also for future reference, schools may love this idea. Talk to the PTA-they may take all of your work away from you, or ask you to head the committee, but they can give you a lot of resources if they want to host a Trunk or Treat. They may make it an annual event.
Some places may require a fee. I did not talk about requiring each car to pay a fee, because, that is not much fun and may limit who can attend. However, if you are required to pay a fee, do ask that your families contribute.
3. Logistics
You will want to be able to tell your families how many treats to have, or how many children are expected. This is always a tough number. You will need to give families some kind of estimate, however, or you may have a family who only brings 100 pieces of salt water taffy and not expecting many, is giving out handfuls to all of the children in the beginning. Well, after 20 or so kids, they are out. No one wants this to happen, it is embarrassing.
When should people arrive?
The best part about a Trunk or Treat is that it has no traffic. This can only happen if everyone is on time. Tell your families that are participating with a car that has treats, to be one hour early so you can block off the entry and exit points to the actual decorated cars.
Most people will be driving in to visit, if they are not participating in the event with a car. You will need to have a specific place set aside for moving vehicles that can get in or out during the event.
Make sure that if anyone needs electricity, for a blow up scarecrow for example, they tell you of their needs ahead of time so you can accommodate.
If you have any rules or guidelines, for example if the cars cannot be decorated too scary, make sure everyone has these far in advance. I would attach these to the time it starts, when cars should arrive that are decorated, how many children will be expected at each car and if dinner and/or crafts will also be a part of the event. If there is a cost, include this as well.
4. Photo Booth
Entire families are looking fabulous or goofy, together! This may be the one time this year they have all been in the same place, everyone has been happy and everyone is participating. Make sure there is a great place to have a picture. You could easily set up a car as a the background and just label it the Trunk or Treat (year) Photo “Booth.” If possible have a time, 6:00 – 7:00 for example, when a volunteer will be available to take pictures with people’s cell phones.
A Trunk or Treat is the best way, economically and “fun meter” to celebrate Halloween. It also appeals to a variety, if not all, ages. The amount of time, effort and money is minimal compared to the size of event you can plan, the entertainment had by all. There is also a wonderful peace of mind that occurs, knowing that your children are participating in a very safe Halloween celebration.
“Life’s no fun without a good scare.”
~Kids in Nightmare Before Christmas
***I have a couple of links to Amazon in this article. I only recommend products I use and love. If you follow my link and buy, Amazon will send me a little “thank you.”***