Making choices about Halloween Fun
Traditionally (meaning, every year since our son was born), we do two Halloween-related fun trips in the month of October. We go once to our local children’s zoo for their Halloween “Merry not Scary” trick or treating which runs every night for two weeks before Halloween, and we go to a local pumpkin patch that also has hayrides, a corn maze, and a kid’s carnival.
Well, this year, with the conference we attended with my spouse, and other general busyness going on, we haven’t done either yet, and Halloween is almost upon us. Both of these outings are pricey. The zoo outing is $20 ($6 per kid and $4 per adult) plus $2/person if we choose to go on the spooky train ride (we haven’t before but might this year). I sincerely dislike that the adults have to pay an entrance fee. We don’t get the treats! All we do is chaperone the kids and yet we have to pay almost as much as they do. Bah. And the pumpkin patch outing is anywhere from $20-$40 depending on if we do the hay ride and if we go in the carnival area, and if my spouse buys an elephant ear. Yumness! And he does share :).
I wish I could say we are making a purely financial decision for the betterment of our own financial picture to skip one of these outings this year, but I think we are going to be forced to decide on just one based on our own time constraints. I know my son would really enjoy both outings, which makes me want to take him to both. But I also know that overloading him with experiences in a short time is not going to add to his overall enjoyment, and really, I should be focusing on giving him less experiences and bringing as much quality to each of them, versus cramming as much as I can into a tiny bit of time. I have a taekwondo tournament Saturday, so Sunday is really the only day we can do either of these activities (Halloween itself would also be a possibility but more on that in a bit). I haven’t decided which I am choosing yet (leaning towards the pumpkin patch because the corn maze was a really big hit last year, and being 9 months pregnant at the time, I don’t think I let him enjoy it as much as he could have) but choosing one activity and making the most of it will benefit him more than doing both activities and cramming them into a short time frame. And if we choose the pumpkin patch I am going to go at it with a plan to make it as frugal as possible (sorry dear, no elephant ears).
Besides, Halloween night there is a free party at the neighborhood fire station, and that’s a much more frugal idea than carting my kids off to the zoo and paying $20 for them to collect a few treats and run around. So I am being a little considerate of financial constraints as well. A little. It’s a start!
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October 26th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Neighborhood fire station sounds like fun. It’s such an exciting place when you’re a little kid! Pumpkin patches/corn mazes are also really fun. Perhaps next year you could visit the zoo—set up alternating visits and get the most out of each.
October 26th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Making your son pick one thing will be a good lesson for him, too! It’s a reminder that in life, you can’t always do everything you want.
But it’s also important to do some things. You could sit at home and play games together, but you’d miss the special excitement of the trip.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Doesn’t the fire station sound fun! I hope they get to go on the fire trucks. We only moved to this neighborhood this year so we haven’t done this before.
My son’s a dragon and it is very cute
@beth - my son doesn’t communicate well enough yet to have him pick abstract things (he has a developmental delay in communication), so we are going to choose for him, but having him choose in the future is an excellent idea.
October 26th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
It’s funny to me sometimes how your life seems to mimic mine a lot.
This year I had to make a choice about where we would go for our halloween activities because of our budget contraints. We decided to pass on our Zoo Boo because it was very pricey and even though we have went the past two years, I felt like it wasn’t as fun as the pumpkin patch would be with the hayride, suspension bridge, pumpkin picking, and story.
I think that we picked correctly. DD loved the pumpkin patch!!! She is still talking about the shakey bridge and the hayride that went bumpity bumpity. I don’t think she missed out on much missing the Zoo Boo except seeing the animals and we go to the zoo enough where she will see them in a month or two anyway and with our free zoo pass.
Sometimes it’s hard to make a choice like this, but really the kids don’t have to do every activity that comes along, they just should enjoy the activies that they do go to. Everything worked out fine for us and I think you’ll find that is true with your own kids as well.
October 28th, 2007 at 7:24 am
You’re children are young. They’ll have fun regardless of the activity you choose. Allowing him to pick (as thisisbeth) does help teach him about choices. But there is also a lesson for him when you stick to your budget.
Have fun! I really, really miss those days.
October 29th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
We ended up not doing either after all! Life is just so weird sometimes. Glad your daughter loved the pumpkin patch!