The longer COVID drags on the more it changes our plans for 2020. Many schools have gone remote, some birthday parties are now drive-by events and public places are still, in large part, off-limits.
As with any pandemic, there isn’t a firm date as to when the chaos will end. With Halloween fast approaching, we’re going to have to get a little crafty about how we party our costumes off and follow social distancing rules. Need help with Halloween decorating ideas? There are plenty of high-tech ways to add some spook accessories to your home this year.
One Ohio dad has already started in on the holiday innovations. He’s created a pretty cool way to stay socially distance on Halloween while still filling bags with sugary goodies kids take to the streets for. If you’re looking for ideas on how to safely celebrate Halloween this year, check out this brilliant concept.
The socially distant candy dispenser
The reality is COVID is likely to put a damper on Halloween celebrations this year. But Andrew Beattie is determined to make sure the party goes on, even in the midst of a pandemic. Rather than scrapping Halloween festivities altogether, Beattie built a candy chute to help with social distancing.
The premise of Beattie’s chute is simple. A tube attaches to the slanted railing that runs along stairs to the family’s porch, and you just toss candy into the chute as it slides down to trick-or-treaters below. How cool is that!?
How did he build it, you ask? A little creativity, a cardboard shipping tube — and a lot of duct tape. He also got some help from his 6-year-old daughter, who has a vested interest in keeping trick-or-treating alive in 2020.
To construct the chute, Beattie and his daughter started with a 6-foot by 4-inch shipping tube. These tubes are easy to find at any shipping store. They spray-painted their creation orange and finished up decorations with a spiral of black duct tape and some green and purple Halloween lights.
Once they were done with Halloween decor, the duo attached their chute to the railing outside of their home, and operation Halloween candy chute was complete. It’s now ready for use, well before those masked monsters and mermaids make their way down his street.
Related: Apps to keep your kids safe on Halloween
Beattie, who is immune-compromised, told KSDK 5 News that he thought a plan for socially distant candy distribution made sense this year, “especially at the time of year when people are having colds and things.” As a Halloween lover himself, Beattie also wanted to make sure the holiday went on, even if it needed a few modifications for safety reasons.
“[Halloween] is just something I’ve always been passionate about,” Beattie said. The festive shoot also adds some flair to the home’s Halloween decorations — and a little more fun to an unusual set of circumstances.
Response to Beattie’s creation has been overwhelmingly positive — if we’re judging by social media, anyway. Beattie’s chute went viral just a few days after he posted it on Facebook, garnering more than 62,000 shares.
“Even if people are completely comfortable with how things are, there are a lot of people who aren’t,” Beattie told CNN. “If they can see people doing things like this, it can give them a little bit of grace, and that it might encourage more people to get involved and get out there and get us back to looking the way we want to look.”