Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is halfway through Ocsober already, and we are hurtling
towards November, Bonfire and I Christmas or we've not even
had Halloween yet. So that's what we're going to talk
about today. We got a lovely episode coming up for you.
This is all Team Tom's Halloween ideas, how to have
lots of spooky fun, environmentally friendly, pocket friendly if you're
(00:20):
on a budget, all of our ideas together so that
you don't have to be lacking your brains, because you've
got enough to think about, haven't you. And hopefully you'll
be like, oh amazing, I've got some of that in
that's going to take no time whatsoever, and I can
have some good Halloween fun with the kids. So shall
we get going then? The first thing that I want
to say is do not miss hallow Clean Week. This
(00:41):
is my little tradition. It's been going for a few
years over Halloween Week on Tom Rocks we spin the
Wicked Wheel of Fortune.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So the daily episode Monday through to Friday, and you
don't know what you're going to be doing. It could
be a cleaning trick, it could be a cleaning trap.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
And there's also a spooky mess Monster as well coming
out for the kiddies. If you don't what a mess
monster is a very small niche section of tom Rocks
that is, that's for the kids, essentially, and I always
think to myself, it's going to be really weird in
about twenty thirty years time.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
There's going to be a very small group of kids.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Maybe they'll be in a restaurant with their friends or something,
sat around a table at a pub and they'll be like,
is it me or does anybody remember that lady on.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
My mum's phone or my dad's phone that you used
to tell us how to clean. That always creeps me
out a little bit.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
But there is a spooky mess monster and the idea
behind that it's ten minute session designed for kids. Cut
me in the age of four and eight, and it's
just a ten minute tidy But heiding can be a
bit boring, and we know this, don't we It's even
more boring for the kids, So we turn it into
a little bit of the game.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We pretend that a mess monster has come in and
made the.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Mess, and throughout the ten minutes we dropped some clues
and they had to try and work out what creature
animal thing has made the mess, so be sure to
look out for those. You can have your own Halloween
spooky fun and do the cleaning at the same time.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's not what we're talking about day. What can we
do to.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Make Halloween this year a little bit special, a little
bit quirky, and a little bit fun. So the first
tip that we had in and I love this idea
because I've never heard of it before. But when you
think about it, it's like genius. Why haven't I thought
about it before?
Speaker 2 (02:15):
And that is.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Instead of carving a pumpkin, oh a watermelon. You see
that there's many positives to this. Firstly, they're green on
the outside and red in the middle, so they are.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Already like spooky colors.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
And also the inside more readily edible to kids, so
you don't have to cook them into a soup. Sometimes
you can obviously carve in a pumpkin, you can cook
the insides and make a soup. You can roast the pumpkin,
or you can roast the seeds as well. It's not
necessarily kid friendly pumpkin soup. Ben wouldn't go anywhere near it,
(02:47):
but he loves watermelon, so you can get your hands
on a nice, big watermelon, carve it, eat the inside.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
So the only thing that I would say is when
I was doing a little bit.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Of research on this, is that you have to be
quite careful with the shape of the watermelon that you're picking.
Pumpkins lend themselves, don't they to like sitting nice and proud,
but like watermelons might be a bit wibbly wobbly, So
make sure you get one that can stand up nice.
If it's a little bit wobbly, then you can just
cut the bottom. That's another top tip as well. You
don't have to cut the top off the pumpkin. You
(03:17):
can cut the bottom off the pumpkin so that it
doesn't need a lid that you take on and off.
You can just chop the bottom so it sits really flat,
And if you want to pop a candle in, you
can just pop it in underneath or like as battery
operated tea light. The one thing that I would say
obviously is anything with a flame, never leave it unattended,
(03:38):
especially with kids. The safer option is to go with
battery operated tea lights if you've already got some in
and then of course you can use them again year
after year. And speaking of reusing year after year. A
really lovely idea also came in was using old clothes, tights,
that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
And making fabric pumpkins out of those.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So you get like old of tights stuff it weird o,
the socks that sort of stuff, sort of make a
round shape and then get some string and tie it
round until you create a pumpkin shape. You can do
all sorts of things. You make it as simple, or
you can go to town. You can stick googly eyes
on it, you can make a spider out of it
if you're just doing a nice round shape with pipe
cleaner legs, and you can bring them out year after year.
(04:21):
And also it's a really sustainable craft activity that you
can do with the kids. Again on the reusable theme.
If you haven't got access to a pumpkin, our pumpkins
this year have been woeful. Last year, a kid you not.
We had this massive fucking it was huge. It took
two people to lift it up. It was like a
prize pumpkin. If we had that village fair, we would
(04:44):
have won the prize. It took two people to lift
it off the ground and then we had to wheel
barrow it.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Up to the front door. It was massive this year.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Cinderella could have made her carriage out a bit venuinely
this year.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Little pathetic things.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
So if you don't have acces to a pumpkin, maybe
you don't really fancy carving a pumpkin.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Maybe they're a bit messy.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Do you have some milk cart plastic milk carts? I
bet you do, right, if you have a plastic milk cart.
And I love this idea. When I saw it, I
was like, oh yes, if you have a plastic milk carton,
wash it out, get some sharpie or a mark pen,
draw on some spooky eyes and a spooky mouth or
maybe a smiley face. And if you have any glowsticks,
(05:25):
I bet you've got glow sticks lying around from kids parties.
We always have glow sticks from kids parties and just
events that people.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Go to and we never use them.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Pop a glow stick into the bottle, different colors, cut
the milk colorful, the better, and you've got a lantern
and you can use these instead of a pumpkin, or
if you're having a party, you can dot them around
your house.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Or you can line your path for trickle treats. Speaking
of trick or treating.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I know not everybody likes going trick or treating, or
maybe you live in an area where it doesn't really happen.
You don't have to go trick or treating to have
good Halloween in fun with the kids. You can always
create a little Halloween treasure hunt in your own home.
You don't have to have weeks is the prize. It
can be something else, something you feel like is more appropriate.
Maybe come up with some quizzes, spooky quizzes, that sort
(06:13):
of thing. Dot all the prizes around the house. I
remember one year, this is absolutely amazing. One of my
friends had a birthday around about Halloween time, right and
we were all about eight years old.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So she had a birthday party and she had a
spooky party.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And I will never forget this for as long as
I live because it was just so much fun and
so simple as well.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
So what they did was they.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Turned all the lights down and they told a ghost story, right,
and it was all we had the talk under our
faces and I think it was the dad that was
narrating it and the mom was supervising because it got
a bit messy.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
So they had a bowl of grapes.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
That they cut in I don't know if they'd just
wet them with water or like vastline on them, but
they were slimy, right.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And then they had a bowl of cold hinds.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Spaghet so the spaghetti that you get out of a
team with the tomato source. And then they had a
bowl of I don't know, there was something else right,
and it's sort of had something. They had all like
four or five kids and the dad's stuff we alays
to have blindfolds on. The dad was like walk into
a spooky house and then he tells his story and
then you put your hands in the grapes and they
were meant to be like eyeballs. Put your hands into
(07:19):
the spaghetti and they were meant to be like brains.
And it was like real tactile fun. And I I'll
never forget it because it was just so effective. So
there's lots of ways that you can create spooky fun
without having to go trick or treating, especially like the
weather's a bit rubbish as well. Don't forget to check
out your local area. There could be a Halloween disco
(07:40):
at the primary school, the local church might be doing something,
So keep a little bit of an eye out. Have
a look on your local Facebook groups. There will be
stuff going on. Just need to try and find out,
do a little bit of investigation and do a little
bit of research and so that you're thinking about budget
and stuff, especially like Christmas isn't long, it's not far,
(08:00):
so you may be trying to save money for Christmas.
Maybe you've got birthdays around about Christmas time, and this
is a really expensive time of year.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Buying a Halloween costume can be expensive.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
And a lovely idea that came in from the Facebook
group was doing a Halloween costume swapshop. This also works
with things like Christmas Jumper Day, also works with things
like Nativity costumes and also any.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Dressing up in general.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
If you've got a class WhatsApp group, maybe get on
there and say, hey, look, I've got an idea. Has
anyone not sorted out their costume yet? Because we've got
a buzz light Year costume that we wore last year,
don't want to wear it again this year. It's in
perfect condition, it was literally worn for two hours. Does
the anyone want to swap it? You can do a swatshop.
It's sustainable and it's just going to make sure that
everything is reused. It's going to stop stuff from going
(08:43):
to landfill. And also, don't forget to check out your
local charity shops. A lot of them will have a
rail on there with Halloween costumes, so only type of
costume really, So go and have a lot, don't have
to spend a fortune.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And then remember back in the day.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Back in the day, I was the one with a
white fitted sheet and go Vin eyes Eyes lot out
and that was all I wore. Just think about it.
You don't have to be scary. They can be silly costumes.
Let the kids raid the fabric box. Maybe you've got
some clothes that have been sitting in a bin bag
waiting to go to the charity shop for months, see
if they can make anything out of them. The whole
(09:17):
idea of this is fun again, doesn't have to be perfect.
It's about making the memories. Just like we spoke about
in the Christmas video a couple of weeks ago, it's
not about the amount of money. It's always about the
amount of time that you spend together as a family
creating those memories, because that is what is going to
stick with your kids when they're older. And that's why
(09:37):
we're doing it. Right, We're not sorting some arbitrary to
do box like Halloween done, bomb finite done, Christmas date done,
because who what's to live like that?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
That's really boring.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So your Halloween, your rules, do whatever it is that
you want to do. Don't forget things like spooky movie nights.
Have a little Halloween party for your kids, so you
don't have to write the whole class, maybe just their
four or five of their really good friend Get a
spooky playlist on Spotify. That's like fids do like the
game that I said earlier on in the episode Kid
(10:08):
Friendly Ghost Story. There's so much that you can do.
I've looked to know your ideas. Pop them in the comments.
If you're watching this on YouTube, or if you're listening
to this on the podcast, pop them into the Facebook group.
And I hope this has given you some inspiration. And
if you're just like, this is just another thing that
I need to do, Germ. It doesn't have to be complicated,
it doesn't have to be expensive. It's the simple things
(10:29):
done well. You don't have to reinvent the wheel here
that mean the most to our kids. Have an absolutely
amazing week. Remember there is more to life than housework.
You can catch me on BBC one on Tuesday Morning
Morning Life, where we're going to be talking about all
things autumnal stings, so you see.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Thanks