All Hallow’s Eve
Halloween in Canada and The United States is quite a big and fun celebration for both kids and adults. In general people put a lot of effort to celebrate Halloween by decorating their homes and gardens with carved lit up pumpkins, constructing life-size replica graveyards or dungeons, fake cobwebs and spiders, huge blow up decorations and some people even make small haunted houses for kids to go through when trick or treating. Kids dress up in Halloween costumes and go door to door trick or treating and fill up their bags with a lot of candy! Many places of work will allow and encourage you to dress up in a costume for the day.
There is also a ton of events in Calgary to the run up of Halloween for adults and kids to enjoy. They have boo in the Zoo, zombie walks, haunted houses, ghost tours, screamfests and many other events to enjoy.
Here is some safety tips for trick or treating from Health Canada:
- Go trick or treating with your children each year until they are old enough to go with a friend. When they are old enough, make sure they go with a friend or in a group, and know the routes they will be taking. You can also follow along at a distance to keep an eye on them.
- Tell your children to walk, not run from house to house and to stay on the sidewalk or at the side of the road facing traffic. They should only cross the road at the corner and look both ways before crossing. If you are driving on Halloween, be aware of children, drive slowly and enter and exit driveways and alleyways with caution.
- Give each child a flashlight to carry, to make them more visible to motorists and others.
- Tell your children to stay in well-lit areas and only visit homes that have their outside lights turned on. Make sure they know never to go inside homes or cars.
- Take a backpack along, to empty goodies into if the loot bag becomes too heavy.
- Tell your children not to eat any goodies until you have looked them over. Throw out any treats that are not commercially wrapped, have loose or torn wrappers or have holes in the wrappers. If you suspect tampering with any of the treats, notify the police. Serve dinner before your children go out, so that they will be less tempted to eat goodies along the way.
- Be cautious about giving children any treats that could be potential choking hazards. Some treats such as chewy candies, peanuts and hard candies could be a choking hazard.
- Check toys or novelty items for small parts. If they do have small parts, do not let children under three years of age play with them.
- You might want to consider an alternative to sugar-based treats, like sugarless gum. Stickers or multi-coloured pencils can be a nice replacement for traditional treats. Ask your children for suggestions.
- For diabetic children, monitor the treats so that they fit into their specialized meal plan. Leftover treats can be traded with other children or given away. Treats may also cause severe side effects (adverse reactions) in children who have allergies or sensitivities.
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