A Parent's Guide: Fun Halloween Activities and Events

But with parties and Halloween activities also comes concern for those with coeliac disease or a gluten intolerance. Children love to go trick-or-treating and plates of ghoulish treats will be passed around at festive gatherings. So how can we make sure they have a fun fright, but stay safe from gluten?

Here we suggest activities and events that coeliac individuals and their families can enjoy safely for a gluten-free Halloween!  

Sending coeliac kids off to Halloween parties can be scary for parents, so Schär has come up with a fun idea for a wearable gluten-free sign that will help keep gluten away. The Gloo-hoo-hoo-ten ghost-like symbol can be drawn onto a tote bag, stencilled onto a Halloween costume and even face-painted to make sure it gets noticed by all; it looks cool and you can have fun doing it. Just look up Schar’s crafty tutorials to get the materials you will need.

One of the great things about Halloween is that there is no fixed menu; you can make any food you like – as long as there is a spooky theme! So seek out gluten-free recipes for your terrifying treats. Schär has some suggestions, including a spicy pumpkin cheesecake and some ghoulish grissinis

You can go the whole hog or just be subtle – but what is undeniable is that there are myriad ways to get creative and make your home more ghoulish at Halloween. Going big, you can drape scene setters and build the decoration from there, creating an immersive Halloween theme. Or you can create corners inside and outside, with fake cobwebs (don’t forget spiders!), skeletons and skulls, witches on broomsticks, and maybe some bloody fingers on a doorframe!

Take a healthy walk around your neighbourhood and see what others have created for Halloween! Who has the best decorations and is next years competition? The brightest lights? The darkest, scariest themes…? Have a stroll around your nearby street(s) and see who can spot the best!

If you want to take things a little further and really get yourself into a terrified lather, why not do some research and find out which local buildings have a history of hauntings and pay them a visit? Pushing the boat out, you could stay in a haunted hotel where it is always Halloween!

If you have a favourite horror film, Halloween is the night to watch it! Tastes and age suitability vary, of course, but there are classics for all needs, from the Halloween slasher movies to the fun but still scary The Witches by Roald Dahl, or just something silly like Ghostbusters!

With all the inspiration that Halloween brings with costumes, decoration and trick-or-treating tales, now is the time to give full rein to your creativity and come up with your own scary stories. You can have a party: read out your blood-curdling yarns and vote for the best one!

With the growth in popularity of Halloween, there are more and more festivals and special events held to mark this time of year. Costumes will abound and expect themed activities such as very silly coffin races!

Lucky for us Visit England have compiled a list of the top family-friendly Halloween events taking place across the UK this year.

Much more intimate and potentially quite scary depending on the time of day, maybe one for the big kids...

Why not locate a beautiful and atmospheric cemetery or graveyard and take a Halloween walk? You can tell ghost stories as you go or just enjoy the silence…

Making a jack-o'-lantern is fun and it’s double the fun when you do it together with friends and family. Get the right shape of pumpkin, make sure it’s not too ripe already, select candles or other lighting for the interior and prepare those sketches – sometimes improvising can lead to unwanted results in our pumpkin face! Make pumpkin soup or pie with the scooped-out flesh, and roast the seeds for a delicious snack. Pumpkin is gluten-free!