Halloween Holiday Family Traditions

Happy Halloween to Everyone!

I still get excited thinking that I could be a princess for Halloween if I wanted to. Halloween is the time of year when you can be whatever you want to be for one evening, and I have such fond memories of dressing like a fairy tale princess on Halloween and feeling like a princess as well. For one day, I was a princess.

Traditions are an important part of family life and children find comfort and a sense of belonging in yearly traditions. I just can’t stress enough how important this is for everyone to build traditions into your lives.

Holidays are a great time to share your past holiday memories with your children and let them get to know a little bit about who you were while you were growing up. The funny things you did and maybe some of the good things you did as well.

Traditions create memories and memories & experiences are what we are made of. Memories can bond a family together like glue and provide conversations that will last a life time. Future generations will enjoy hearing the memories as well, and memories will keep a sense of the extended family alive.

Traditions are eagerly anticipated and give us something to look forward to along with the upcoming holiday. Every year my Mother and I would make Halloween Pumpkin Cupcakes and she would let me decorate them. Even though I have moved away and don’t get home as often, I still eagerly look forward to making these cupcakes myself for Halloween and will start including my children in this tradition when they are old enough to help in the kitchen!

Easy Pumpkin Cupcakes

Just mix together with an electric mixer:

1 box of yellow cake mix
1 Can of Libby’s 100 pure Pumpkin
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
2 tablespoons of brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Spoon batter into 24 paper-lined muffin cups filling each cup 2/3 full.
Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean.

Another awesome Halloween tradition, aside from haunted foods, is pumpkin carving! More and more families are getting away from the traditional pumpkin carving, family fun-fest, but this tradition should definitely be a keeper.

Make a family fun night and go pick out the best rounded pumpkins you can find. Bring them home (don’t forget to stop and buy a newspaper to lay on the table,) and using a black marker, draw a face on one side of the pumpkin. Using a sharp knife, cut out the eyes, nose and mouth. You don’t need to be Martha Stewart, you just need to have fun, be a little messy and end up with a pumpkin you can proudly (or not so proudly) display on your porch. Don’t forget real candles for the pumpkin, adding real candles will help to create an eerie glow. Make a big mess and have fun doing it!

Halloween Dinner

Who has time with all the pumpkin carving to cook on Halloween? Well dinner is another great tradition that you can start, and here is an easy idea for a healthy Halloween meal.

Chili! Chili is perfect for Halloween because everyone loves it, it’s simple to prepare, and you can make a big pot for not a lot of money.

Here is our favorite Simple Chili Recipe that you can try out this Halloween.

Another great Halloween Tradition is roasting pumpkin seeds with your family. Pumpkin seeds are not only delicious, but very nutritious. Make some pumpkin seeds to pack in school lunches.

Roasted Spicy Pumpkin Seeds.