It’s time for CoronaWeen

Sometimes, you’re just having such a rough time that there’s nothing left to do but put on your elastic waist pants and start day drinking. If you can combine your booze, snacks, and ice cream into one sitting, preferably surrounded by cats and a Netflix queue, even better.

I feel like the world has been living in its sad pants for months now. But now that the kids are finally back in school, it’s time to stop our collective sulking, put away our booze cream, and look forward to the most wonderfullest time of the year: fall. 

Think back to when you were a kid. Was there anything more promising than back to school? Sure, sixth grade was a literal hellscape wherein you prayed a meteor would wipe Foster Middle School off of the map so your parents would be forced to send you away to some fancy witch school where Tim Curry was your headmaster and you’d make all the best friends a tween could ever dream of. 

But finally, after months of sleeping in and swimming and riding bikes with no homework anywhere in sight, the thought of fall semester brought new promise. As you lovingly filled your backpack with Lisa Frank school supplies and a Mead Super Shades Trapper Keeper, laying out your new acid wash denim skirt and peach henley you bought on sale at Target, you told yourself that maybe this would be the year where you would have a chance to prove you weren’t the same kid who dragged toilet paper on her shoe down the hallway not once but twice last year. 

Even though I’m all grown up, I’ve always kept that sense of fall as the true beginning of the new year. After spending the summer in a timeless haze, there was always something refreshing about returning to a schedule and a structure, marking off days on the calendar and counting down until Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the six-week multi-winter-holiday magic times surrounding Christmas. 

Although Septembers are typically hot here in Oklahoma, each evening gets a little cooler, and by mid-October, we’ll be welcoming the days with cool mornings and sometimes, when we’re lucky, enchanted fogs. Normally, I loathe cold weather, but I’m so ready for my house to be draped in gaudy holiday kitsch that I’ll gladly take that deal. 

And although we won’t have the Tulsa State Fair to look forward to, the event which normally takes place the week that more often than not has kicked off the cool season since I was a kid in the 80s, we’ll still have the holidays to look forward to, and y’all. We need them bad.

I’ll ask your forgiveness in advance for getting absolutely giddy when the first Halloween decorations pop up around town far too early for reason and for polishing my Halloween playlist while I gradually sneak pumpkins and twinkle lights into my home decor hoping my husband doesn’t complain. 

And I’ll ask your forgiveness for being the bearer of bad news that trick-or-treating is a bad idea this year. Our family typically loves nothing more than getting dressed up and hocus pocusing our way through more affluent neighborhoods with HOAs that host lawn decorating contests. For a brief minute, I thought that trick-or-treating should be fine because kids are mostly outside and they could wear masks. But then I realized something: many of the sweet folks giving out Halloween candy are older folks. With the recent study indicating that kids are actually silent spreaders, it seems like if we want to enjoy Christmas cookies from our adorable little grandmas, we should probably find an alternative to tricks and treats for our little Peanuts this year. 

We’ve tried to teach our kids that feeling sad about what we’re missing out on will only make the COVID year feel longer. Instead, I choose to look at this year as an opportunity to really take our holiday game to the next level. Maybe we have to make a few adjustments, but what we lack in close-quarter monster mashing and elbow-to-elbow wassailing, we’ll make up for with good old-fashioned patriotic throw-downing and American ingenuity. 

Here are a few things we can still look forward to this Halloween in Tulsa:

1. Overdecorating our Houses and Lawns

If you love driving by looking at Christmas lights, this is going to be the best Halloween ever. I predict this will be the year that Halloween decorations become bigger and better than ever before. Think lawns decked out in ridiculous cheesy inflatables, gorgeous orange, gold, purple, blue, and green holiday lights. I’m excited to see how people go all out to make Halloween extra special. 

And just because you can’t trick or treat doesn’t mean you can’t still get all dressed up and walk around the neighborhood snapping pics. Pack up some hot cocoas, glow sticks, and treats for the kids. You can even end up at a beloved friend’s or relative’s house for socially distanced Halloween tidings. 

2. Booing

Booing is when people ring the doorbell and sneakily drop off Halloween treats, gifts, and notes. It’s normally an anonymous pay-it-forward game, but it doesn’t have to be this year. Ask your grandparents, cousins, pals, and PTA frenemies to participate in a boo bombing on Halloween, and in return, make a list of kids you want to boo as well. The great thing about booing is that mom bloggers love a good booing, and you can find loads of resources for it on Pinterest.

3. Autumn Leaves

Although Tulsa doesn’t reach its full color until November, by October we’ll still have plenty of gorgeous autumn leaves to take in. This year, I’m planning to take our family out for autumn leaf tours complete with hot apple cider. 

4. Pumpkin Patches

I’ve always wanted to do the whole photo shoot in a pumpkin patch thing. This year, in my quest to deck my front yard in Halloween goodness, I’ll be making a point of stopping by a few of our favorite local pumpkin patches. 

5. Halloween Parades

Creative parents answered the rallying cry to save birthdays this year with some of the coolest birthday parades. Why not take that creativity to the streets once again with a neighborhood Halloween bike or car parade to give kids a chance to show off their awesome costumes? 

6. Scary Movie Marathons

If you’ve read my blog for very long, you may already know that our kids love a good scary movie or sci-fi. This year, I’m already working on the perfect haunted holiday movie bucket list that transcends eras and genres from sweetly spooky to psychologically terrifying. Don’t worry, folks. I’ll be sure to share!

7. The Haunted Castle in Muskogee

One of our favorite things to do every holiday season is to spend an evening at the Castle’s Halloween village in Muskogee. The great thing about The Haunted Castle is that you can enjoy visiting without ever getting close to anyone or even going indoors. I spoke with a Castle representative who told me the attractions will be slightly modified and there will be fewer attractions this year, but that they will still have plenty of awesome Halloween magic for us in store including our favorites, the shopping village, Halloween train, and haunted hayride. You can bet your Great Pumpkin that I’ll be there on opening weekend to give you guys the skinny. 

Next time you’re feeling a case of the Rona Blues, stop by one of my new favorite YouTube channels, Autumn Cozy, and pick out an enchanting autumn or Halloween background and start thinking about all we have to look forward to. Are you feeling it yet? We all know the holidays go by too fast, and that’s exactly what the world needs right now. 

Let me know what you’re looking forward to in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading, keep spreading that love, and have a beautiful week in your little nebula.