Trick-or-treating, but first, a glowing grand entrance.
Your mission
The Glowing Goblin Parade
Everyone makes a jar lantern, gives it a spooky name and shows it off. Then lead a ten-minute parade around the block at dusk, lanterns glowing, and finish with a cheer on your own front step.
Bonus challenge: Back home, vote on awards like Spookiest Glow, Best Name and Most Likely to Scare a Cat.
Spend Halloween afternoon making glowing jar lanterns with your kids, then lead a ten-minute parade around the block as the sky turns dark. Picture orange tissue-paper pumpkins and wobbly ghost faces lit from inside, bobbing down the sidewalk in a line of costumes.
Halloween afternoon always feels endless when the kids are already in costume and the candy is still hours away. So use that time to build lanterns: clean glass jars covered in tissue paper, painted faces and a little LED light inside. At dusk you'll line up, switch on and parade around the block before the first doorbell. If you can tear paper and spread glue, you can make one. Your mission is to give every lantern a name and lead the glowing line home.
Kids love Halloween because for one night the whole street feels like it belongs to them. Walking their own glowing creation past the neighbors, with you at the front of the line, gives them something to be proud of before a single piece of candy shows up. Years from now they'll still ask, "Are we doing the lantern parade first?"
Top gear to make this quest great.
Pull it off
They make the lanterns glow with no flame anywhere near the paper or the costumes.
It lets the light shine through in bright colors, like stained glass.
It sticks the tissue to the glass and seals it with a smooth finish.
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Messy hands are part of the fun, so throw down some newspaper and let the gluing begin. Essentials: a clean glass jar for each lantern (jam or pasta sauce jars are perfect), LED tea lights, tissue paper in Halloween colors, white school glue or a decoupage glue like Mod Podge, and craft wire for handles. Handy extras: a black marker for drawing faces, glow sticks to give the littlest walkers something light to carry, and reflective bands so drivers can see your parade.
Every good parade starts at the kitchen table. Cover it with newspaper, rinse and dry a jar for each person, and peel off any labels. Grab your tissue paper. A pack with 20 colors means there's orange for pumpkins, white for ghosts, purple and green for goblins, and plenty of black for faces. Tear it into small pieces about the size of a cracker and sort them into piles by color. Pour some glue into a dish and mix in a splash of water so it brushes on smoothly.
Time to get sticky. Brush a patch of Mod Podge onto the jar, press tissue pieces on, then brush a little more over the top to seal them. It works as the glue and the shiny-free top coat all in one, and it dries clear, so your colors stay bright. Overlap the colors and keep going until the jar is covered. Want a pumpkin? Go orange all over. A ghost? Use white. Leave the rim bare so the handle has a place to go.
Once the jars are mostly dry, draw spooky faces with black marker or glue on black paper shapes. An adult wraps craft wire tightly around the jar's neck and makes a loop on top for a handle. Then draw the curtains, drop in an LED tea light and slide the little switch on the bottom. It starts flickering right away, just like a real candle, but with no flame at all. Watch everyone's faces as their lanterns glow for the first time.
A lantern this good needs a name. Go around the table and have each person hold up their creation, give it a spooky title and tell everyone one thing about it. Sir Glowsalot? Gloria the Goblin Queen? The sillier the better. While you're at it, add reflective bands and pick who gets to lead the parade and who will bring up the rear.
This is the big moment. Right as the sky goes dusky blue, line up in costume with your lanterns switched on and an adult at each end. Walk a ten-minute loop around the block on the sidewalk, chanting, humming or howling at the moon. Wave at neighbors putting out their candy bowls. Plenty of them will come out onto the porch to watch the glow go by.
You made it home with every goblin still glowing. Gather on the front step and give out awards like Spookiest Glow, Best Name and Wobbliest Ghost. Make sure every lantern wins something. Then set the lanterns on the steps to light the way for trick-or-treaters, grab the candy bags and head back out.
You built a glowing parade with your own hands and walked it proudly around the block. Now set the lanterns on your steps and invite a neighbor family to join next year's line.
You bring the curiosity. We've found the tools.
Pull it off
They make the lanterns glow with no flame anywhere near the paper or the costumes.
It lets the light shine through in bright colors, like stained glass.
Thin colored paper sheets in orange, purple, black and white.
Get on Amazon · $17.99 — Tissue paper assortmentwhat to look for & our pick →
It sticks the tissue to the glass and seals it with a smooth finish.
A brush-on glue that dries clear, like Mod Podge.
Get on Amazon · $6.99 — Decoupage gluewhat to look for & our pick →
It makes a sturdy handle so the lantern can swing along in the parade.
Bendable wire, about 18 gauge.
Get on Amazon · $7.99 — Craft wirewhat to look for & our pick →
They help drivers spot your parade as it gets dark.
Snap-on bands that shine in headlights.
Get on Amazon · $9.99 — Reflective safety bandswhat to look for & our pick →RELATED GEAR GUIDE
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