Greening Hallowe’en

Pumpkin patch. Photo: Kent K. Barnes kentkb

Holidays are always great times to consider the implications of the choices we make, and to create moments where we can pass on lessons about our values to our children. With this in mind, I’ve been looking for ways to make Hallowe’en a little greener in our home.

Costumes are one of the major semi-disposables of the season, but my fondest costume memories have always been thrift store finds or repurposed everyday wear, so I’ve tried to continue that with my kids. This year, DS is all about being Sir Knight The Brave, so he’s using mostly stuff we already had in our dressup-play box. We found a great, well-made fabric knight’s tunic at Gymboree, and got it a size too big so it’ll fit over winter layers (necessary in a climate where you often trick-or-treat in the snow). He’ll get lots of playtime wear from it, and likely wear it next year as well, before it gets handed on to other families. DD is obsessed with being Kiki, from the Japanese children’s film Kiki’s Delivery Service, and has been curating the costume-creation process with a cosplayer’s attention to detail. We’re making her costume using a purple adults’ scrub top from Value Village, a vintage transistor radio found on eBay (she was insistent on a real one), and an old hairband that lost its decorations refurbished with an extravagant red ribbon bow. The red shoes had to be bought new, but will double duty as fancy party shoes – and my girl loves to dress up, so they’ll get plenty of wear. We did get an inexpensive decorative broom from Michaels’ as well. I’m hoping it will hold together well enough to get reused in future costumes or as part of a scarecrow.

Oh, and we totally splurged on a stuffie of Kiki’s cat Gigi. I know, I know. A super-mom would have handsewn one from locally-produced wool felt and lovingly stuffed it with kapok, instead of buying one made in Japan from synthetics. But look how cute it is! Bad, bad eco-mom. Luckily DD loves it and has been bringing it with her everywhere from school to dance class since it arrived.

Alberta has an unusually high incidence of eczema, thanks in part to our super-dry climate, so suggestions that we replace masks with makeup and candy with temporary tattoos won’t work for many families here who (like us) have sensitive skin issues. Besides, recent news about cosmetic chemicals showing up in teenagers’ bodies makes me worry about the ingredients in those products. But soft plastic masks offgas lots of putative endocrine disrupters (see: vinyl shower curtains), so I’m a big fan of old-fashioned homemade masks made from felt or cardboard.

While I love the idea of less candy being handed out, I’d like to remind people that inexpensive, easily-broken toys are probably non-recyclable and destined for the landfill. Ditto for dollar-store crayons and pencils, which most parents will toss out for fear of exposing their kids to lead or worse. So please choose your alternatives to candy carefully. (We’ll be giving out PlayDoh at our place.)

We’ve always hoarded our change and handed it out to kids with Unicef boxes on Hallowe’en, so you can imagine my disappointment when they discontinued that programme a couple of years ago. They have reinvented it as a school-based fundraising campaign, but I’ve seen hide nor hair of it locally. This year, as an alternative, we’re going to donate to our local food bank when we buy our groceries. Here in Edmonton, Save-on-Foods have a laminated card at each checkout counter to donate money, instead of food, so that the Food Bank can get what they need most.

Finally, every year I have to throw away about 3/4 of what my kids bring home, because DD’s peanut allergy means we can’t take a chance on anything that’s inadequately labelled. (That includes your lovingly homemade organic goodies, dear neighbors. Sorry.) So spare a thought for kids with allergies, and please choose foodstuffs whose labels clearly indicate allergens with a ‘may contain’ warning.

Here are some great tip lists for greening your Hallowe’en:

• Green Halloween (they have lots more great links under Resources)
• Green & Clean Mom’s “Halloween Gone Green?” post
• Crunchy Domestic Goddess’ “Halloween Candy Alternatives” post
• Twisted Plot’s Halloween tip list
• GreenMuze’s “Eco-Hallowe’en” post
• NatureMom’s “Eco Friendly Halloween” post

A note about the image used to head this article: Found on Flickr, and licensed under a Creative Commons licence. The giant pumpkin in the shot is almost certainly descended from those bred (yes, bred, there’s no GMO involved) by noted Nova Scotian record-holder Howard Dill, who sadly passed away in May of this year. More about Dill’s record-breaking pumpkins can be found on Library and Archives Canada‘s website. He was also a passionate hockey historian, and Windsor’s Long Pond candidate site for the origin of the game was on his land. Dill’s Atlantic Giant seeds are still being sold if you’d like to try your hand at growing a record-setting pumpkin of your own next year.