How to Enjoy a Socially Distanced Halloween on Campus

Anyone who loves the spooky season will be particularly excited about this year’s Halloween. 

Why? Because this year’s Halloween not only falls on a Saturday (a whole weekend dedicated to Halloween- yes please!) but there will also be a full moon, which we all know is when the werewolves come out.

Although this year might have made you want to scream, don’t let coronavirus completely ruin your Halloween. Here are several ideas of how to celebrate Halloween while socially distancing.

Bake some spooky treats

If you’ve been baking lots of banana bread during lockdown, you’re probably a seasoned baker by now (pardon the pun), so why not branch out and try baking some Halloween themed treats? 

BBC good food has devised a list of tasty Halloween recipes to try making either by yourself or with your roommates.

For particularly ambitious bakers, try making this delicious Halloween slash cake that looks good enough to eat in one sitting. Halloween cookies are always a pleaser amongst housemates and the recipe suggests adding popping candy to the biscuits to give them an extra shock factor when you bite into them.

Try a tarot card reading

Let’s be honest, there’s very little that’s scarier than thinking about the future when you’re a student. Why not learn to read your friends’ futures using tarot cards?

Tarot readings can be focused on a specific area of your life (such as love, career, friendships) or they can be used to answer a specific question.

Particularly terrifying questions include: ‘will I pass the upcoming exam?’ and ‘will I ever find love?’ 

Host a scary movie marathon

A classic Halloween activity. Gather your housemates, switch off all the lights and light a candle. It’s time to watch some scary movies.

There are so many brilliant scary films out there and streaming platforms now have entire sections dedicated to scary films.

However, there are several requirements to hosting a scary movie marathon in your flat:

1. You must have plenty of snacks (maybe even the cookies you made earlier)
2. Blankets are an essential – you’ll need at least five
3. You’ll need cushions to hide behind during the particularly scary parts

Make some Halloween cocktails

No Halloween is complete without the appearance of some spooky cocktails (or mocktails).

There are plenty of recipes online for Halloween cocktails. If you’re sharing the cocktails with roommates, you might want to try using a carved-out pumpkin as a bowl. To make your cocktails even more spooky, add jelly sweets to float in your cocktail.

Whether you try to make the fancier cocktails, or simply go with warm apple cider, you’ll certainly get into the Halloween spirit.

Decorate your flat with Halloween themed arts and crafts

The obvious DIY decorations is carving pumpkins, but why stop there? Make your own scented Halloween themed candles, or simply decorate the flat with Halloween bunting, homemade spiders’ webs and lots fake blood.

When my roommates did this at university, they went on to turn their Harry Potter themed candles into an Etsy business, so you never know where it might lead. 

You could also try making your protective face mask spooky. Well, if you’ve got to wear a mask, you might as well make it Halloween themed, right?

Also, just a warning: fake blood can be incredibly difficult to get out if you get it on furniture or on your walls, so be careful – for your deposit’s sake!

Try pumpkin bowling

Never heard of this? It’s where you stack up a group of toilet rolls to make the pins and try and bowl them down with a pumpkin (it’s more fun than it sounds, I promise).

Throw a virtual Halloween party

Although you’re probably sick to death of Zoom parties now, seeing everyone dressed up in their costumes and having some fun activities planned, whether it’s a pumpkin carving competition or a costume contest, can really help you have an exciting Halloween in lockdown.