The end of the year is full of holidays and holiday traditions, and a lot of them are awesome. It’s hard to choose a favorite. I love decorating a Christmas tree, I love cooking Thanksgiving food and getting everyone together. October brings up totally different traditions, which I am absolutely nuts about, but recently a friend and I decided to add a new tradition to our Spooky Season celebrations: Spooky Baskets.
I am forever in love with October. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that’s been around the blog before, but if you haven’t…
Here’s a list of 25 things I love to do to get in the mood for Fall
Here’s a bunch of my favorite horror movies (I love horror movies)
Here’s a full plan for a simple but awesome Halloween party
Here’s a roundup of over 300 pumpkin carving ideas
All things I love about October, Halloween, and Fall in general. I do love a good horror movie, creepy podcasts, and that ~spooky aesthetic~ any time of the year, but of course, October is the best time to really hype up the spookiness.
What is a Spooky Basket and what should you put in it
To help kick-off October a friend of mine suggested we do Halloween gift baskets after seeing something about it on the internets. These are also called “spooky baskets.”
Spooky baskets are gift baskets you put together for friends or family that are Halloweenish-themed. You can pick and choose what sort of items you want to add to the basket. For instance, you might add:
- Candy
- Horror movies
- Scary books (or not-so-scary books – I’d HIGHLY recommend The Halloween Tree for that, see the quick review here)
- Witchy books
- Cups, clothes, etc. with Halloween themed artwork
- Halloween decorations
My friend and I have pretty different preferences when it comes to livin’ that spooky life (I’m more Trick r’ Treat, my friend is more Nightmare Before Christmas if that makes sense…) so it was a balancing act figuring out what to give each other as gifts. I had to reign in my love for horror and channel it toward the more wholesome side of Halloween.
It was a challenge, but after opening our respective spooky baskets I can confidently say we done good. Seriously, this is my favorite new tradition of the holiday season. It really starts Fall off on a great foot.
Spooky basket themes and gift ideas
Horror Spooky Basket Ideas
If you’re giving your basket to someone who’s a bit of a horror junkie, here are some spooky gift ideas.
- Horror movie (or a gift card for a digital movie) – check out this list of horror movies to get ideas.
- Classic horror movies – there’s nothing quite as good as a black-and-white classic and some popcorn, check out this collection of Hitchcock Essentials.
- Horror Funko Pop figures – here’s a spooky advent calendar with mini-figures from some of the best movies.
- A horror book – if you’ve got a reader in your life look through the top horror books of 2020 on Goodreads.
- A book about horror movies – we’re getting kinda meta now, but there’s this awesome book called Screaming for Pleasure: How Horror Movies Make You Happy and Healthy that the horror fan in your life will love.
Wholesome Spooky Basket Ideas
If you’re giving a spooky basket to someone who’s not crazy about the scary stuff, you can still find lots of great Halloween items that they’ll love.
- Vintage Halloween cards – give someone some lovely little Halloween greeting cards that they can use to say ‘Happy Halloween!’ to their loved ones.
- Funny Halloween items – cups, clothes, doormats, there’s a ton of great spooky stuff out there that’s much sweeter than it is sinister.
- Homemade sweets – use these recipes to make homemade pumpkin cookies or candies.
- Pumpkin carving supplies – help your friend get prepped for their pumpkin carving with a good set of carving tools, rather than the normal cheap plastic ones.
- Halloween crafts – you can find different sorts of craft kits like knitting or cross-stitch that are Halloween themed.
Spooky Basket Ideas for Kids
The Halloween basket for kids is obviously going to be a little different than for adults, but think of it like an Easter basket, but for Fall/Halloween and you’re off to a good start.
- Halloween movie for kids – there are some great kids Halloween movies that you’ll actually enjoy watching with them, including Nightmare Before Christmas (a classic), Frankenweenie, The Witches, Hotel Translyvania, and tons of others.
- Candy – obviously candy. Not a ton, let’s not overdo it before Halloween, but yes, candy.
- A Halloween costume – if you know what your kid wants to be, you could go ahead and surprise them with their whole costume a little early.
- A spooky friend – a plushie or some other Halloween-esque character that you know your kid will love, even if they’re a little on the spooky side. Check out this adorable bat plushie.
- A pumpkin to carve – add their very own pumpkin, to carve any way they want (here are a ton of carving ideas) to their spooky basket.
What I Added to My Spooky Basket
Like I said, my friend isn’t big on scary stuff, and I am, so I had to go against some of my natural, horror-loving instincts to find things that would actually be fun for them to open. I really like everything that I ended up finding, here’s the list:
- Dancing skeletons cross-stitch kit
- An oversized, witchy mug
- A skull-themed tea set
- A classic goosebumps book
- A witchy wellness book
- Classic horror stamps
- Some spooky stickers
- An awesome starry solar lantern (one of my favorite things)
- Some celestial hairpins
- This tarot card set inspired by folklore around the world (another one of my faves)
Arranging your spooky basket
You can put your gift basket together any way you like. Find a literal basket for cheap practically anywhere, second-hand stores included, wrap the basket in some kind of fabric and tie it on top with a ribbon or some twine. There’s a handy guide to making pretty gift basket arrangments here. You could also just box it all up or wrap it in tissue paper.
Spooky gift baskets are such a rad way to start enjoying fall. I highly HIGHLY recommend it.
Still looking for more spooky basket ideas?
Awesomewithsprinkles.com put together a handy “boo basket” roundup of lots of cool ideas for things to put in your spooky basket.
Have fun guys!
P.S. If you do put a spooky basket together feel free to hit me up on Instagram so I can see it!
One Comment
Midtowngirl
October 28, 2020 at 9:48 amIt’s funny to watch this tradition evolve each season as it becomes more and more mainstream. I was first introduced to “Boo-ing” about 16 years ago at a new work place. Colleagues would surreptitiously decorate each others’ cubicles, usually around a theme. The decorations could get pretty elaborate, and sometimes lean toward prankish. (One time a colleague completely filled our supervisor’s office with balloons. And once I completely cocooned a co-worker’s cubicle in spider webs!) In addition to the decorations, the “Boo-er” would leave a small Halloween themed gift on the “Boo” recipient’s desk, like a nice decoration for their home, or a mug filled with candy. The most important part is the “You’ve been Boo-ed” note left behind, instructing the Boo recipient to carry on this anonymous tradition by Boo-ing someone else. The underlying idea was to create a sense of seasonal fun and good cheer in the weeks leading up to Halloween. And it does work to great affect!!
I’ve taken the tradition to every place I’ve worked in the years since, and have been thrilled to watch as the tradition caught on and spread like wildfire!
The Boo baskets you describe were obviously born from this tradition. Moving the tradition from the workplace to emphasize more on family and friends makes sense, as we all are working from home.
But I’m saddened to see (in your iteration) the loss of the playful, slightly mischievous nature of anonymous Boo-ing, and underlying spirit of spreading Halloween cheer. Giving friends and family elaborate baskets without any of the “Trick” in “Trick or Treat”, feels like what would happen if “Nightmare Before Christmas” was flipped on its head, and Santa tried to take over Jack Skellington’s job.
I think by scaling back on the scale of the baskets, as you describe them, and re-incorporating the anonymous “You’ve Been Boo-ed” (be sneaky – doorbell ditch, if necessary! 🙂 , would go a long way toward keeping the original intent and spirit of the tradition alive.