Discussions

Can anyone tell me what is happening in Brandon for Halloween? Has anything official be said about handing out treats at the door or going out for Halloween?  
 
Thanks!

The province has officially released guidance for celebrating Thanksgiving and Halloween. Anecdotally, I hear lots of families not doing trick or treating this year and having alternate activities at home with their kids instead.  
 
https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/updates/holidays.html

Monster Mash - Canceled  
 
https://starfm.ca/news/news-details/newsarticle/Halloween%20Monster%20Mash%202020%20cancelled%20-%20Brandon%20Police%20Service%20

We’re not going out or handing out. Our personal decision.

We will be going ahead with Halloween. Decorating. Handing out candy. Of course, with new precautions. Normally, we have a bowl of chocolate, and a couple bowls of different candy's, and give them out a certain number of each per kid (lets us figure out the number of kids after). This year, I will sanitize a surface, and my hands, mask up, and pre make bags of treats. Going to get those long grabber things typically for seniors to distance hand out the candy. Probably dress up as a doctor, so the mask fits or something like it.  
 
If my kid was young enough, we would go, but also with precautions (mask, only prepackaged candy's, all candy washed by us when home, etc.). Too old for that now, so I don't have to do that.  
 
Saying that, I expect a LOT less kids this year. We average between 50 and 100 each year. Probably won't get more than 20 or so this year.  
 
Edit - note, this is unless we take a dive down to orange again. Then it is a no. Still will decorate. But no to handing out. Really hope that does not happen.  
 
Edited by theeagle, 2020-10-03 17:17:19

Has decided that we will celebrate Halloween differently.  
 
I bought a couple boxes of our favourite treats, will hide them around the house and have a treat hunt, we will order supper out, carve pumpkins and watch scary movies. We live in the country so don’t hand out candy anyway. There is always next year

That sounds super fun!

As someone who really enjoys Halloween, seeing all the kids dressed up and handing out candy, it has been a difficult choice for our house. We do not have kids and have small social circles with fairly closed work groups, so to have 100 kids we would not have a link to, come to our house seems daunting.  
 
I bought the candy, selecting chocolate bars I could repurpose if need be. We haven't decided fully but the more I think about it, I feel it might be an unnecessary risk to ourselves .  
 
I don't know what the best answer is to this. Honestly, I am having a hard time with the people who say "let the kids have this, they have suffered enough and let them have one night of fun". I agree in a sense, the kids are back to school and people go shopping etc. But as someone living in town I feel that argument isn't fair because I don't know if I want 100 kids at my house. Maybe I'm overthinking it but its a more difficult choice than I expected.

Especially for those that enjoy Halloween but the way I see it is this, if I give out treats then I am putting the kids at higher risk , encouraging them to congregate in groups and providing potential for them to introduce covid into their circles and homes putting even more people at risk. This is exactly what we should try to avoid. People must remember that this virus has no available treatment ( only relief of symptoms) and no cure or vaccine. It’s about protecting others and the best way to do that is to stay home where possible, and follow protocols, distancing, hand washing, wearing masks, limiting travel etc.

Unfortunately, the other problem with the "just let the kids have this one night of fun" is that the potential for contracting a deadly pathogen is there.  
 
RC had a great idea. I think parents need to consider just making something different out of halloween for their kids this year. Hang out with them, they'll love it.

This will be an amazing memory to tell their kids one day - they year they skipped Halloween.

I think it’s important to remember that Halloween isn’t and doesn’t need to be cancelled....it’s trick or treating that may need to be though.  
 
There are so many other ways to celebrate Halloween and honestly, they all sound more fun than trick or treating in MB and her unpredictable weather lol.  
 
I feel like in the past few recent years, houses handing out candy has become less and less anyways. There are only like 2 of us on our street that do and every year I say I’m not going too. This might be the year that I actually don’t

Last year we didn't trick or treat. We went to a party instead. It was, hands down, our best Halloween ever.  
 
My kids are not sad that we're not trick or treating this year. We're going to carve pumpkins/roast seeds, have a scavenger hunt in the dark for treats, and watch a (kids) Halloween movie.  
 
They cheered when I told them the plan.

We have decided we will do Halloween! We've already decorated and will be handing out individual snack size cookies packs! We will have it on a sanitized table and will be wearing a mask, using tongs to pick up the packs and putting inside the trick or treaters bags.  
 
We had about 13 last year so not expecting much but figured why not!  
 
Happy Halloween everyone! And Happy Thanksgiving!

Last year I had 300 kids before 7pm, which was essentially a steady stream of kids up and down my steps. Even if only half as many kids go out that’s just too many for me to feel comfortable handing out candy. I won’t be participating this year.

We won"t be giving out treats this Halloween.  
It's sad but better to be safe than sorry.