AROUND SNOHOMISH COUNTY — Gatherings of ghouls and goblins won’t be the same for 2020 as the scourge of the coronavirus disrupted most plans.
Even so, there are still opportunities for fun.
The Monroe Chamber of Commerce plans to host a trick-or-treat event for kids Saturday, Oct. 31 from 3 to 6 p.m. Walk Main Street and visit with shops to receive candy. If you forget your mask, free masks will be available at the chamber, 125 S. Lewis St.
It is one of the few outdoor events happening in cities.
Snohomish’s informal downtown trick-or-treat event is canceled. The Historic Downtown Snohomish Association arranged its Zombie Walk as a go-on-your-own affair. Event proceeds benefit the Snohomish Community Food Bank. Visit www.historic
downtownsnohomish.org/zombie-walk for how to register and participate.
In Everett, there won’t be a trick-or-treat event, either. However, the Downtown Everett Association is doing a scavenger hunt that started over the weekend. People can walk downtown and write down letters to form a phrase — the map is on the association’s website, www.downtowneverettwa.org. The first 100 people who send the association their phrase by Sunday, Nov. 1 will win a goodie bag.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit Historic Everett is hosting a series of horror stories online called “Gruesome Everett: Tales of Untimely Death.” Gene Fosheim is presenting on Thursday, Oct. 29 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Visit www.historiceverett.org to get the link for a suggested $10 donation.
In Mukilteo, a free, drive-through trick-or-treat event will happen at Lighthouse Park from 1 to 3 p.m on Saturday, Oct. 31. It's sponsored by the chamber of commerce and city parks and recreation.
Should you trick-or-treat?
Trick-or-treating isn’t the same as usual, and in fact the county’s health district is discouraging it this year because it is “considered a high-risk activity for COVID-19 transmission,” the health district writes.
If you plan to hand out candy, then to stop the spread, health officials say to wear face masks and gloves, and to hand out treats from your porch or garage instead of your door to not have visitors touching your doorbell.
How about leaving a candy bowl out? Nope, that’s inadvisable. The health district suggests to “place candy in treat bags or spread them out on a table or in the yard.”
A few have engineered novel ways to give candy during the novel coronavirus, using chutes and mechanical arms to deliver goodies.
For those in costume, the usual cloth face covering that fully covers the nose and mouth is required. “Halloween masks are not a substitute,” the health district said.
And, yes, skip it altogether if you feel sick.
Farms get packed
COVID-19 required numerous area farms to reimagine their Halloween activities, and some have filled up their events as crowd capacities are being limited.
At Stocker Farms, its “Stalker Farms” drive-through haunted house sold out of car slots on Friday, Oct. 16, and its no-scare night maze is filling fast. They’ve also had to turn away hundreds of people to follow COVID-19 crowd
guidances, owner Keith Stocker said.
A sellout sounds great, except the farm is serving a fraction of how many people they’d normally see, he said.
Thomas Family Farm is
hosting a Trick or Treat event Saturday, Oct. 31 from 11
a.m. to 3 p.m. in Kid Land, and their haunted hayride is selling out fast.
At-home
Stay inside if you’d like: A computer programming lessons company called CodeSpark is offering a set of children’s Halloween-themed challenges to learn how to code. The lessons are oriented for kids ages 5 to 9.
The health district has a webpage of kids’ activities with coloring pages, a fall scavenger hunt event, recipes and Halloween bingo and word searches in both English and Spanish. The link is https://www.snohd.org/558/Activities
