COVID-19 prompts Charlotte-area parents to change how their children trick-or-treat
Laquia Terry’s daughter and son will dress as Raph the Ninja Turtle again this Halloween, but they won’t trick-or-treat door-to door.
“My concern is I don’t know if someone in a house has been exposed to COVID-19,” the 28-year-old Statesville mom said of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“My son easily gets sick, and I don’t want to put him at risk,” she said of 2-year-old Jacolby Lowe.
Terry said she feels far safer having a small party at home with just Jacolby and his 11-year-old sister, Jaquavia Lowe.
That’s how all the other parents with children enrolled in a day learning program at the Winnie L. Hooper Center in Mooresville feel about Halloween 2020, center director Barbara Johnson said.
“I have 15 children here, and they’ll all do stuff at home” to celebrate Halloween, she said.
“They want to stay close to home. They don’t want to go out,” Johnson said of Terry and the other parents.
“If you’re going to someone else’s house, you don’t know if someone in that house had or was exposed to COVID-19,” Johnson said.
“And being that more kids in general are having it,” she said of the virus, “parents feel their children are safer at home.”
“It was a 360-degree turnaround,” Johnson said of parents’ thinking about Halloween since the pandemic began.
The children just want to wear a costume that day, she said, and their parents are lining up fun activities at home such as decorating pumpkins.
Such activities at home with your children are among the safest ways to celebrate Halloween during COVID-19, officials with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. On Monday the CDC updated its list of recommended Halloween Do’s and Don’t’s in response to the virus.
Candy sales rise nationwide, trade group says
The national trade group for chocolates and other candies endorsed the CDC recommendations this week.
“There’s no question that Halloween will look different this year, and innovative approaches endorsed by the CDC like outdoor, one-way trick-or-treating can bring a little fun to the fall,” John Downs, president and CEO of the National Confectioners Association, said in a statement.
“Hyperlocal decision-making will determine whether this Halloween season means trick-or-treating with the appropriate safety precautions, more candy bowl moments at home with family and close friends, or just more time for celebrating the season in October.”
Candy sales, meanwhile, are up over last Halloween, the association reported.
For the four weeks ending Sept. 6, Halloween chocolate and candy sales rose 13% over the same period in 2019, according to the association. Halloween chocolate sales led the increase, up 25.3%.
Some parents will let kids trick-or-treat
Even parents who will let their children trick-or-treat said they will do so with COVID-19 precautions in place.
Ashley Durant of Mooresville said she will let her son and daughter, both 12, trick-or-treat on Halloween.
She said her children already know the importance of adhering to such COVID-19 prevention steps as wearing masks and maintaining social distance, because that’s what they do each day attending Lakeshore Middle School, which is on Lake Norman in the Mooresville area and part of the Iredell-Statesville school system.
“They go to public school, they ride the bus,” the 30-year-old Durant said. “What’s the difference? When trick-or-treating, you can still social distance, and they’ll wear a mask.”
Durant was referring to the same type of government-recommended mask her children wear at school. Her daughter, Landry Durant, and son, Shannon Spears, will not wear Halloween masks over the masks when they trick-or treat in costumes they’re still deciding on, she said.
Homeowners split on handing out candy
Homeowners seem likewise split on handing out candy.
At Carrie Zackery’s home in Charlotte’s Highland Creek neighborhood, it will be lights out as usual on Halloween.
“I don’t believe in Halloween,” Zackery said. “It’s a sinful holiday.”
And it’s always been dangerous, she said. Even when she was a girl, the 82-year-old Zackery recalled, people would put harmful things in trick-or-treaters’ candy.
Trick-or-treaters have been robbed, she said, and COVID-19 adds yet another reason not to go out that night.
She’s not against costumes on Halloween, however. If the novel coronavirus didn’t exist, she feels it would be fun and safe for costumed children to gather in churches and community centers.
Still, she said, with COVID-19, “It should be canceled.”
That would be a nightmare for Candy Rosenbaum and others determined to keep the tradition going despite the threat of COVID-19.
Halloween is Rosenbaum’s favorite holiday.
“I’m a Gothic person, and I just like spooky stuff,” she said. “I’m not going to shut the lights out, but I don’t feel safe enough making contact with people” given the pandemic.
“You don’t want people putting their hands out and taking candy from the same bag,” she said.
The CDC agrees, saying traditional trick-or-treating where homeowners hand out candy to kids now ranks among the riskiest of Halloween practices.
So Rosenbaum, whose teenaged son stopped trick-or-treating years ago, is borrowing an idea from friends in Asheville:
She will leave a tray with candies in baggies outside her home in the Cheshunt neighborhood in northeast Charlotte, she said.
This story was originally published September 24, 2020 at 1:23 PM.