My first child was born less than two months before Halloween so you can bet that celebrating a holiday was the absolute last thing on my mind that year. By the time it rolled around I hadn’t even figured out how to get a daily shower yet, so there wasn’t really time to consider doing much for the holiday.
New moms are quite literally just trying to figure out the new and daunting task of how to keep a new human alive and may not have time to pull out the pumpkins and carve a jack-o-lantern. So how is a new mom likely commemorate the holiday? Well, here are the ten possibilities:
1. Buying candy for trick or treaters…
….but eating the entire bag before Halloween because breastfeeding gives you more cravings than pregnancy. Admit it, you have done it.
2. Spiderwebs everywhere
This year she’s leaving up the cobwebs and call it decoration because she has only just now figured out how put real food on the table every day instead of TV dinners so spiderwebs are just not a very high priority.
3. Minimal decorating
Along with the cobwebs, there might be a reusable, pre-carved pumpkin on the table or a real pumpkin on the porch that may or may not sit there until it rots. She put it out because she happened to find it when she was looking through her cabinets or because it was on clearance when she made an emergency grocery store run the other day. She meant to decorate more than that but fell asleep instead.
4. Baby costumes
Her mom, her sisters, and her mother-in-law all purchased adorable costumes for the baby. On the rare day that she has gotten enough sleep and she’s feeling that new mommy glow, she tries them all on the baby, takes photos, and then puts them in a drawer.
They might go with her to Grandma’s house long enough to take more photos before she puts the baby in a zippered sleeper. Otherwise they may not see the light of day until a sibling comes along.
Read also – 10 DIY Halloween Costumes for Babies
5. Falling asleep to seasonal movies
The only seasonal movie she’s watching this year is Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin because any really scary movies might rob her of precious sleep and remind her of all the ways her precious new bundle could be endangered.
6. Enjoying trick or treaters…
… from the couch with the porch light off. She meant to hand out candy but first, she accidentally ate it all, and second, tonight is not a good night for the door bell to be rung repeatedly because the baby hasn’t slept all week and he’s finally asleep now.
Consequently, she has checked three times to be sure her porch light is off and then added a “Shh, baby sleeping!” sign to the door just in case. She is really only watching out the window now in order to head off any trick or treaters who can’t read or don’t notice the extinguished light.
7. Pinterest Halloween
While she sits on the couch with a warm drink enjoying trick o treaters from the quiet of her dark living room and comfortable couch, this new mom has her smart phone out and she’s perusing Pinterest, celebrating Halloween vicariously through the creativity of the collective super moms who live in the Internet. She feels badly she hasn’t done anything this year, but at least she is proactively planning all her child’s Halloweens for years to come.
8. Drive thru
When the baby is having a fussy or colicky day, nothing puts him out like a trip in the car. She and her husband have taken to having drive thru dates to put the baby to sleep and they have sampled the pumpkin spice drink latte of every coffee place with a drive thru within a ten mile radius of their home while they enjoy the absence of screaming and dreamily discuss the future.
9. Taking photos
Whether with the fake jack-o-lantern that’s hiding underneath a pile of diapers, pacifiers, and bottle parts on the table or with the cute pumpkin hat her cousin just crocheted, this Mama is taking holiday photos of her baby. In fact, she is pretty sure she has taken more photos in the past couple weeks than during the whole of her life that came before.
Read also – 9 Surprising Ways to Celebrate Halloween
10. Snuggles
The biggest way that this Mommy is celebrating Halloween life this year, is by snuggling her baby and just forgetting about the holiday craziness. She knows this exhausting stage, though it seems long, will be fleeting; and she wants to cherish every second.
A new mom does not have tons of fun on Halloween like others do, but she is happy she has been blessed with a little bundle of joy this fall season. Nothing else, especially creepy, does not matter at all.