The Lazy Genius Podcast - #180 - A Pandemic-Friendly Halloween

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

We’re less than two weeks out from Halloween, and of course my kids are already asking what we’re going to do. It’s uncertain times, y’all, and it’s tough to know how to do this Halloween thing. Let’s do a quick check on what matters and some ideas for people staying in on Halloween and people going out. Helpful Companion Links A throwback blog post on 10 Lazy Genius Halloween Ideas Other thoughts on Halloween costumes Download a transcript of this episode This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Amazon presents Laura versus Fruitflies. Swarming your fruit and terrorizing your kitchen, these little freaks multiply at a rate that would make a rabbit say, yo. Chill. But Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes, and fly traps. Hey, fruit flies, your baby boom ends here. Save the Everyday with Amazon. Hi there. You are listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 180, a pandemic friendly Halloween. How do we get one of those? We're less than two weeks out from Halloween. And of course, my kids are already asking what we're going to do. It is uncertain times, y'all. And it's tough to know how to do this Halloween thing.

in these times. So today in a fairly short episode, let's just do a quick check-in on what matters and some ideas for people staying in on Halloween and for people going out. First, what matters? That's up to you, of course. But when you really think about Halloween, especially if you have kids, although I'm truly psyched if you don't have kids and are still listening because you just love Halloween as much. But if you have kids, the things that likely are the most important, are these four things. Candy. Candy, costumes, connection, and adventure.

The candy is obvious. You know, getting a lot of it is what we love about Halloween. Costumes. Again, that's kind of obvious. We all love picking something special to dress up in. Fun fact, my daughter, Annie, is going to go as a rainbow. Ben, my almost nine-year-old wants to be Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback.

and Sam is going to be Christian McCaffrey, an injured running back for the Carolina Panthers. So we will have two football players and a ringboat walking around. It would be great. Okay. Actually, and side note, just because my favorite costume I ever wore, it was a few years ago as a grown lady when I dressed up as the mayor of Muncheon City from the Wizard of Oz. I made a hat, like a big, that tall green hat, and I bought the whole outfit at Goodwill. That year, I had hosted a Wizard of Oz costume party, which was part of the reason for she. using that particular character. Why would you pick, why would you pick to dress up as the mayor of Munchkin City for no reason unless you're throwing a Wizard of Oz costume party? But I ended up wearing

that costume to a fall festival. And I also worked trick-or-treating outside, like after the party, you know, and I will never love another costume better. One of my favorite parts about it was I had a pillow in my shirt to mimic, you know, the big enormous belly from the mayor. And Koss took a picture of me, literally asleep with my head like drooped forward on the pillow belly because I was tired. That's good times. Okay. Costume corner over. So candy and costumes, they're kind of no brainers, right? We will talk about a couple of specifics for those in a second, but the last two things that matter are likely connection and adventure, some form in there. There is connection in seeing neighbors, in trick-or-treating with friends or family, and being part of something.

collective. Even kids feel that. It's just really special to be out with everyone else connecting in all these ways. And then adventure. Okay. This can include being scared, which some people really love about Halloween. I personally do not, but that's okay. But the going out, like the walking the streets, turning corners and wondering what you're going to find, seeing friends and costumes and like wondering if it's really them. There's this huge element of discovery and anticipation in that adventure, right? We're anticipating what we'll get in our candy bucket and what costumes will see and what decorations will scare us and who will see on the street or at the festival or whatever. That's usually what is true about Halloween, right? There's a lot of adventuring in Halloween.

Now, if you can think of other things that matter to you, please do, of course. Make your own list in your head or on paper, whatever, as you think about these things that we're going to talk about. But I feel like those are some four big hitters for most people. Okay, so now that we've named to the bigger picture of what matters. Let's go through those four categories under two bigger umbrellas, staying in or going out. All right. So I'll share some ideas on how to think about Halloween. So it's still fun, but like safe and not stressful in both of those scenarios. Okay. So first, candy. Let's talk about candy from a staying in perspective. Um, so maybe if you don't have kids or your family is just staying home, you know, this is, this is your call. Like, uh, passing

out candy for trick-or-treaters if they come it could get a little dicey so a couple of thoughts a couple of thoughts for this one if you are going to just legit give candy out from a bucket you need to wear a mask and probably even gloves to make sure other people and other parents of those trick-or-treaters that are coming that they feel comfortable right it just puts everyone at ease now I'm a big mask person regardless but like because all states are different and people are different like all the mandates are different. It would be easy to be like, well, I don't really need to do that because, you know, my particular law doesn't require that. And of course, you get to make your own choice. But this is an opportunity, I think, to serve our neighbors by masking and gloving up so that there just aren't any

question marks, you know, for people who might be nervous about that kind of thing. Another way that you could give out candy in a safe way if you're staying home is by making like a path of candy along your front walk or your driveway or your steps or whatever. So you can sit outside, you know, far away from anyone who comes, but you can still talk to the trick-or-treaters when they come, you know, be like, take a piece of candy or whatever. So it's spread out. Yes, it is on the ground, but it's wrapped, you know, it's fine. And it adds a little bit of that adventure because it's like a candy path. You can even draw a path with sidewalk chalk around it. So it doesn't look like you just threw candy on the ground for people, which I feel like is like the risk there. But you know what I'm saying?

you could draw like a like a windy path with chalk and put candy inside and people can walk the path and get it. Another idea kind of in the same vein is to hang little bags of candy from your tree outside or put candy in like little punch cups on a table in your front yard. I do like the tree idea better just because it just seems really fun, but not everyone has trees that you can hang candy from, you know, or for that matter, a yard where you can set up a table. Or, or for that matter, a yard where you can set up a table. or even a table. I mean, really. So in that case, you could set up like little bags or cups or, you know, whatever, something in the trunk of your car and pull it up to the road, wave at kids and neighbors from a safe distance. There are creative ways that you can kind of give out candy.

One final way to give out candy in a pandemic-friendly way is to have bigger candy. Like, go full-size, man. Full-size candy bars. You could go ahead and do little goody bags, but that might take more work you want to do. Like, it's easier to like have a kid, like a little hand reach into a bucket and get a full-size candy bar or just pick one up from the path or for you to hand one to a kid without touching hands. You know what I mean? Like I realize that's kind of specific. But it's also important to mention if that feels like a good idea also full-size candy bars, you'll be the hero. Are you kidding me? Okay. So what about candy if you are going out? Well, if you're going out, you know, like trick-or-treating, then you're kind of at the mercy of what your neighbors do

and how they give out candy. So you can sort of, I feel like if you are choosing to trick-or-treat, then you're okay being at the mercy of the people who are giving out of candy. So we'll kind of skip that one. But for, let's jump into costumes, though, which could kind of help in this a little bit. So for both staying in and for going out, if you're going to do a costume, you could, you could totally consider choosing a costume that already has a mask and gloves built in so that it doesn't feel as clinical, you know, that you're walking around with like a, I mean, clinical isn't bad at all. But costumes are way more fun than just wearing a mask and gloves for pandemic reasons, right? So think about how you and your family can merge the two. I mean,

you still need to consider like a mask that is, you know, like cloth and double layer and it's going to protect you and all that kind of stuff. But you can, you can costume however you want, but you could, you could let pandemic living inform the costume that you choose so that your face and hands are protected without, again, unless you could go as a doctor. Then you could be super protected. It would look totally normal. But you could just think creatively about your costume in that way. Okay. Again, the candy and costume part are just like a little bit more, like, easier to find solutions to. Let's talk about connection and adventure. The ride that steals the spotlight every time it hits the road, that's the Volkswagen Tiguan.

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Is it just your nuclear family? Is it the neighbors from the comfort of your front porch? You know, you don't really want to leave, but you want to wave at people. Is it church friends, school friends, extended family? This could be a really easy answer for you, or it could be kind of complicated. For my family, it is a little more complicated. I mean, it's not like dramatic complicated. We just have a lot of connections that we love making that we could make.

We have two sets of grandparents. We have neighbors on our street that we really love. And we're one of the few families of little kids on our street. So that's just kind of fun for our neighbors. We have some friends who live close enough to be our neighbors, but like a little bit too far to walk there and still be able to do other Halloween things. And so often we'll drive. We have family and family friends who live in other neighborhoods,

but we do a lot of life with them. And so it's fun to, you know, celebrate and mark holidays and moments with those people. and then we basically have two hours to do all of those things because of tiny children and bedtimes and stuff. So I just want to say I get that it can feel a little bit overwhelming when you think about the connection part. It might not, but just I just want to give you a little bit of solidarity if you're like, what do we do? But even if you're the same as me or you're not, it doesn't matter, still start from a place of connection. What could connection look like for these different groups of people? Is it that the grandparents really just want to see the costumes?

You know, they really want to get a picture of their grandkids in their costumes and give them a hug. Is it that the neighbors really want to give out candy to your kids? Because like us, the kids are really the only kids on the street who, you know, they get any Halloween action. Even thinking about what connection looks like categorically like that could help. Like what are you connecting over? Like what is the thing that's driving the connection? Is it costumes? is it candy? Is it walking together? Is it exchanging pictures or trading candy or comparing your

candy halls later if your kids watching a scary movie? You know like try and be specific about what it is even that you're connecting over with specific people. And I think you'll likely land on some really great ideas when you get specific. It's the big broad like, what are we going to do for Halloween question? That's where we get stuck and overwhelmed. So don't ask, what are we going to do for Halloween? try to try to think smaller think more specifically also in this whole connection conversation don't forget to ask other people for help and ideas you know this is such a great chance to come together with people in your life in your life and let people in and creatively solve this particular problem together like you don't have to be the one to figure out what you're going to do okay so

as you think about those ways to connect think too about the adventure again Halloween is so much about surprise, right? So how can you and your people experience adventure together or how can you provide a little adventure and surprise to people who might come to you? Okay. You could do a costume parade before or after like prime trick-or-treating hours to connect with some friends, you know, have some fun that way. You could even do that on like bikes or scooters, like not just walking. That feels kind of adventurous to do like a bike parade. You could host. You could host. You could host. a little Halloween party at your house where different parts of the yard have games you play to win candy or you know you just have adults positioned around the yard giving out candy we actually last

Halloween there was a tornado warning it was kind of dramatic like it was rainy it was it was very dire and it came kind of out of the blue and so we were like a a bunch of my friends we were all kind of scrambling like what do we do so we had five or six now obviously this doesn't work now because of COVID. But we had, it was like five or six or seven families come to our house and we literally positioned the adults around the house and the kids like went around and trick or treated through the house. We don't have a big house. Like it was just, it was so simple, but it was still like a, it was still a fun adventure and we all got to be together. So to kind of think creatively about that kind of thing is really lovely. You could have an ice cream Sunday party where everyone puts the

candy that they just got on top of ice cream after trick-or-treating. If you're not going anywhere, if you've decided to not leave your house, but you do have kids. You could set up some sort of scavenger hunt with candy throughout the house, you know, in costume if you want. You can carve pumpkins. You can hide glow sticks in the yard and hunt for them. You could have everybody wear glowstick bracelets and turn off all the lights inside and play some kind of tag or something in the dark. You know, you could do a drive-in movie and watch something scary, like set up a drive-in movie in your backyard or in a church parking lot or something. This is the time for us to embrace things being different, but also to name the bigger picture ideas of what we love about Halloween and let those two things kind of hold hands.

Name what matters. Candy, costumes, connection, adventure, and then be a genius about that thing. Also, name what doesn't matter so much and let yourself be lazy about that this year, you know? there's no best pandemic-friendly Halloween idea because we all care about different things. So simply name what matters most to you and your people and then ask them how you can embrace those things together. I hope this episode got just a few juices flowing. We will talk about this a little bit more on Instagram this week and kind of crowdsource some ideas and perspectives. We're going to try to make this 2020 Halloween work for everybody. the way that you all want it to work for you.

So we'll do that together. And that is it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I'm so glad you were here. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week.

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