Have a special meal
Set an extra Ancestor Seat to your dinner table and let the children decorate the chair. If your children are older, you could hold a Dumb Supper, where dinner is served and eaten in complete silence in honor of the Spirit. Be sure to give thanks. If your children are younger, you could have them leave a plate outside for wandering ghosts on Samhain (like leaving cookies for Santa).
Visit ancestors
Pick an especially beautiful day and visit a cemetery with your children. Choose an interesting cemetery - one that is especially old, has leaning headstones, statues, and beautiful gardens. Walk around examining the headstones, piecing together stories from the family burial plots or mausoleums, reading about lives well lived. See the old headstones and image what life was like in the 1800s and early 1900s. If you find a neglected grave, tidy it up a bit. Leave flowers and other offerings such as breads or sweets. This is a good time to answer children's questions about death, ghosts, and other mysteries. In the bright sunshine and peaceful quiet of the cemetery, they'll be less afraid, more likely to respect death, and find added joy in life.
Visit family
Let your child spend time with older family members, a grandmother for instance. Encourage your relative to tell your child stories about the family. What is the family history - did someone immigrate from Ireland, Russia, and so forth? Did anyone grow up during the Great Depression? How did grandpa and grandma meet? Share your family stories with your children. Bring out old photos.
Carve pumpkins
This is practically a Halloween must. If you can, go to a pumpkin patch. Later, as you help your child carve the pumpkins, tell them the history of pumpkin carving and Halloween in general.
Make special treats
If you're not too handy in the kitchen, you can buy ready to bake cookies in the frozen aisle of your grocery store. At this time of year, you'll find many already come decorated with Halloween themes. If you're really handy in the kitchen, borrow from Mexican tradition and make sugar skulls. Prepare any dough for sugar cookies as you normally. Divide the dough into golf-size balls and sculpt them into skulls, using toothpicks and other kitchen tools to make the skull's features. Decorate them with frosting.
Share a great story
There are many Halloween books for children, but beware if you're trying to pass on positive images of witches to your children. Be sure to look a book over before giving it to your child. The same goes for movies. Some book recommendations appear at the end of this article. You can also share your own stories and stories about the Goddess and God and their roles at Samhain.
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