Green Halloween

This is kind of a repeat blog since I talked about this in the summer, but I thought since it's now ACTUALLY Halloween time it would be worth mentioning again. This summer when I was attending my second Webinar on Greener birthday parties, the seminar leaders mentioned a website they host called Green Halloween. Although I don't usually think of Halloween as detrimental to the Earth (Christmas strikes me as much less "green" with all the wrapping paper, junk toys, energy use from lights) I guess that Halloween has a little of that too. It looks from the website like their biggest thing is the Costume Swap Day which is the second Saturday in October. This I understand since MOST kids get a halloween costume, wear it once, and throw it out or it never gets used again. For my family, the costumes my kids pick are worn and worn and worn until they're 3 sizes to small, ripped and falling apart. My oldest was STILL wearing his Spider-Man costume (under his clothes of course...he couldn't reveal his TRUE identity) two years after it was his Halloween costume. Even though the costumes are expensive, I really feel like my kids wear them enough to get our money's worth, not only for the Halloween season, but throughout the year for dress-up.

The Green Halloween webiste also talks about hosting a greener Halloween party, how to conserve energy (although it's mostly year-round stuff, not really specific to Halloween.) They have a section for kids that has games and activities, that are, of course, green. There's also a section for schools, giving info about making their Halloween parties greener. They also mention the healthy aspect, so decreasing emphasis on the junk food aspect. I thought this was interesting:
"Green Halloween participated in numerous Halloween events last year and came face to face with thousands of children. We asked them what they would think if someone gave them one of the alternative goodies we had on our display instead of regular candy. After seeing the alternatives, not one single child of any age said they would rather have candy. Not one. Kids feel good when the adults around them model positive attitudes. If you’re excited about it – they will be too."

It's a neat idea and I think it's kind of cool to start with baby steps in going green, one holiday at a time. And who are we kidding, the best holiday of all is Halloween, so why not start there?!?!