Reimagining Halloween in the Days of COVID

When John Woffling and his family moved into the Prospect Lefferts Garden neighborhood in Brooklyn 20 years ago, they were caught completely off guard by Halloween. They had arrived the day before and were overwhelmed by droves of trick-or-treaters. With no candy to hand out, they gave kids French fries from McDonalds.

However, they got the memo and have been passing out candy to trick-or-treaters for the past 19 years—including this year. Although the neighborhood’s famed Halloween Safe Walk was canceled in 2020 because of COVID-19, Woffling still showed up on his front steps with a mask, ladder and a shoot to slide down candy to the kids. “It’s a little bit more of a game because we still have to touch the candy,” he said.

Like Woffling and his family, many homeowners got creative this year given the new COVID-19 norm, which made Halloween 2020 scary in all the wrong ways. Many events were canceled because of the pandemic, but that did not stop some parents and kids from throwing on costumes and going trick or treating.

COVID cases continue to grow by the day, adding 5,827 in the last week. Despite the rising rates, Governor Andrew Cuomo told a News 12 reporter that he, “would not ban trick or treaters from going door to door.” He instead gave “advice and guidance” of how to keep yourself safe.

NYC is in the yellow zone for the COVID risk level, which means there are between 1 and 9 cases per 100,000 people. The yellow zone level allows New Yorkers to have a bit more freedom than other states that are orange or red. Parents and children were  allowed to trick or treat and participate in other Halloween activities, as long as they adhered to CDC guidelines.

Some schools that hold remote and in-class learning also participated in socially-distant Halloween activities. Allison Weiss, a Downtown Brooklyn resident, explained over the phone Sunday evening that her daughter’s school, P.S.32, gave out goody bags to their students instead of the trick-or-treating approach they usually take. The Weiss family also took precautions on Halloween night. “We usually go building to building, door to door, trick or treating. So we usually get huge buckets and bags of candy,” Weiss said. This year, she and her children made do with carving a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern, throwing on their costumes and hitting the road for a stroll.

The last few months of 2020 have been unprecedented and won’t be letting up anytime soon. While giving out candy in Brooklyn with her husband, Carmen Wonder said, “There’s been good things, and there’s been bad things, so it’s a mix. Which is what life is.”