A GAPS Halloween At Home

Let’s be honest, what is one of the toughest holidays on GAPS? Halloween! Whether you are a fan of celebrating Halloween at home or prefer to head out for a traditional trick-or-treat, Halloween can get very tricky when you are on the GAPS nutritional protocol or have any dietary restrictions.

Past Halloweens had us trick or treating and then employing various strategies to get rid of the candy, which we will discuss in more detail below. Recently we’ve found, one of the best strategies for navigating a GAPS diet Halloween season, is celebrating in the comfort of your home.

If you’re on the GAPS diet, Halloween tends to be one of the trickiest holidays. Traditional store bought candy is the antithesis to GAPS, so trick or treating has presented a challenge from year to year.

The “at home” time of the last couple of years, almost made things easier for GAPS families. We could legitimately bow out of the whole collecting candy event, and focus on other activities at home. Read on for our simple and easy Halloween at home celebration!

GAPS Halloween: Ideas for Celebrating Halloween at Home

A successful home Halloween celebration is perfect for younger kids, but there are also strategies for having a fun Halloween event with older kids and adults.

For our home bound Halloween celebration, we did a number of fun family oriented activities. You could do all of these Halloween ideas, even if you still go trick or treating in the evening!

Trick or treating is of course…tricky…while on GAPS. So I have a list of ideas on how to manage that as well!

Here are all the details for non-food Halloween activities, treat alternatives, and GAPS cooking extravaganza!

1. Take A Halloween Hike

You guys know how important outdoor time for kids is, especially when we’re working on detoxification and nervous system regulation! So of course a Halloween hike is a great way to get some nature time in.

What does that mean? We used our observation skills to find spooky trees, and ghostly branches. A little bit of imagination and enthusiastic parents are all it takes for your little ones to be bought in.

Another option? Collect creepy specimens! Use common sense and don’t destroy the environment, but it’s amazing what kids can do with a few stray rocks or broken sticks!

2. Make Halloween Decorations

There are so many ideas for things to make with kids for Halloween, a quick search will bring up dozens of Halloween decoration ideas, both traditional and creative.

You could:

  • carve a pumpkin to make your own Jack O lantern
  • decorate pumpkins with paint, or glue, or stickers
  • make paper pumpkins, or bats, or witches hats
  • draw a cobweb with white crayon on black construction paper
  • and so many more ideas on Pinterest

3. Have a Halloween Costume Parade

Walking around in costumes is definitely one of the highlights for younger kids celebrating Halloween.

While some towns host parades down city streets, you can also get together with friends or family and have the kids put on a parade for the adults.

Let them raid your costume box, change multiple times, and have a fun time!

4. Host a Halloween Scavenger Hunt at Home

One of the most fun activities you can do at home with kids, is a scavenger hunt.

I am a big fan of keeping things simple! So all it took was a couple minutes on the internet to find this scavenger hunt printable! It was great and the kids loved running around the house.

They ended up in their closet with treat bags, which included some non-candy items and a few sweet treats! Let me tell you, they got a good high from running around and loved sitting around with their bags. It was a VERY good alternative to trick or treating.

5. Halloween Movie Night

You could end the evening by letting the kids watch a movie! There are plenty of options depending on the ages of those involved.

This is a huge treat in our house because most of the times screens are off limit. They loved it, and got to stay up late and be tired the next day! Ha!

6. Cook a GAPS Halloween Dinner

What would any holiday celebration be without food? If you’re hosting a Halloween party or just having some friends or family over, Halloween themed food is where it’s at.

We have found that a lot of Gapsters really enjoy cooking, so it’s a great way to get the whole family involved.

There are some really great ideas for making creepy food for Halloween on Pinterest. That said, the vast majority tend to be unhealthy. (Understatement much?)

With some brainstorming, and based on seasonal ingredients from our farm share, we came up with a yummy GAPS Halloween menu!

GAPS Diet Halloween Recipes

The trick is just a little creativity with naming your dishes! Our Halloween GAPS menu consisted of:

Blood Soup

The easiest GAPS blended tomato soup! We use home made meat stock, with all the soft parts blended and tomato puree. Season with herbs and spices to taste (basil, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper are favorites).

Fingernail Carrots

Small carrots roasted in the oven! So good! Smother carrots with fat of choice and roast at 350 degrees until soft!

Boo Biscuit Eyeballs

This was a brand new recipe I made, and may still need a little tinkering (I will update this post if I make changes in the next batch).

Ingredients

  • 1.5 cups almond flour
  • 3 T coconut oil
  • 1/4 cup applesauce
  • 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • green olives (1 per eyeball)

Method

  • Combine all ingredients, except olives.
  • Divide mixture into 12 muffin liners, only about halfway up.
  • Stick an olive in the middle of each muffin.
  • Bake at 350 F for 20-25 mins.
  • Let cool before removing from muffin liners.

Shrimp Pasta Brains

This dish consisted of lentil pasta as a base. Feel free to use any type of pasta if you are not on the GAPS diet.

We then cooked shrimp in the pan with garlic, salt, red pepper flakes, and lemon. Pour shrimp on top of pasta for a brainy look!

Ghosty Greens

For the ghosty greens (or ghostly greens), sauté greens in fat of choice with garlic to taste. We used kale.

Cover with any creamy white sauce. We used a homemade cashew cream sauce, but you could easily use coconut cream, homemade sour cream, etc.

My son shaped the greens into a ghost like shape and put two garlic cloves as the eyes! Ok so it takes a little imagination… 🙂

Zombie Gummy Bears

The zombie gummy bears were the only part of our meal which involved special equipment: silicone gummy bear molds.

Make a tea of choice- we like hibiscus for the color, with honey to taste. Then dissolve 2 Tablespoons gelatin in 1 cup of tea. Use the droppers that come with the molds to fill. Chill until hard, then pop out of mold.

This is such a fun activity for kids! My four year old, loved filling the molds, and we ended up with a healthy GAPS approved treat!

Trick or Treating on the GAPS Diet

As I mentioned before, we opted out of trick or treating during the year we were most strict. However, in past years we have let the kids go door to door for a bit. Then what do you do?

Here are some options:

  • Exchange junky candy for healthy-ish treats
  • Exchange candy for a bigger present (otherwise known as the Switch Witch)
  • Let them have the stray healthy treat (raisins)
  • If your kids are still very little, make the candy disappear overnight
  • Make a big deal about donating the candy

Healthier GAPS Treats

Here are some ideas for store bought (Advanced) Full GAPS treats. Note that these are high in (nutural) sugars so they are best for those that no longer have digestive symptoms, and can easily tolerate fruit.

Have you celebrated Halloween at home? What was your favorite part? How do you navigate Halloween on the GAPS diet?

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