Have you ever done a Trunk or Treat? I noticed them popping up a few years ago, and they've only been growing in popularity since then. It's such a neat idea that allows groups of people (churches, schools, etc.) with people who don't necessarily live in the same neighborhood enjoy a trick-or-treating experience together.
You gather in a parking lot, decorate the trunk of your car, and the children trick-or-treat from trunk to trunk. As a kid, I would have been all over that; less distance to travel between treats means more treats! Very efficient for candy gathering.
Last year, I started the Trunk or Treat Blog Hop to bring you fabulous Trunk or Treat ideas from some of my favorite bloggers. Last year, I decked out my minivan as a Spiders' Den. This year, it was the Bat Cavern.
Bats everywhere! Stalactites and stalagmites growing in our car, and populated by cookie bats.
Cave crystals, cave bacon (candied bacon), and Fruit Bat Skewers!
Full moon cookies (I LOVE how these turned out!) and some delicious cookie bugs. I adore bats, mostly because they eat bugs. True fact: my brother's Boy Scout Eagle Project was building bat houses to help control Florida's mosquito population.
I love how my little ribbon-winged bat treat bags turned out. They're filled with candy corn shaped marshmallows!
I attached toothpicks to the backs of my sugar cookies with royal icing, so I could mount them on my foam insulation stalactites and stalagmites. I love creative ways to display cookies!
I had to have a bucket of trick-or-treating candy, of course. But I couldn't find any bat themed buckets, so I bought a green pumpkin bucket, added some felt, wings, and googly eyes, and made my own.
It was outrageously, unbelievably hot here in Phoenix when I shot these photos, but I well remember trick-or-treating in my childhood in Ohio. It was chilly--sometimes downright cold!--and we'd come home to have a cup of hot cocoa and warm up for a bit before heading back out to gather more candy. I pulled out my silver samovar (badly in need of a polish, but I thought that totally worked with a spooky Halloween theme!) for hot chocolate, and made some no sew bat cozies for styrofoam cups.
I found some GIANT marshmallows at the grocery store, and came up with the idea to turn them into full moons, with bat silhouettes flying past. Coolest cocoa ever? I think so!
I made a seriously easy, no sew bat costume for my daughter to go along with the theme. She's my little horror-loving, Stephen-King-in-training, and she LOVED it.
I always like to provide a healthy option at any of my events, and the fruit is usually gone before the cookies! Easy fruit kebabs in Halloween colors were perfect, especially when the skewer was topped with a googly-eyed, friendly bat.
Some bats like fruit, some like bugs, so I made some bug cookies, too. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a housefly cookie before. Honestly, it was pretty gross how well I did on them. ;-)
"Look mom, I'm eating a bug! Ewwww!"
I designed the Bat Cavern Trunk or Treat for this year's Trunk or Treat Blog Hop, so be sure to come back tomorrow to see all the other fabulous Trunk or Treat ideas from some of my very favorite bloggers!