Halloween is happening. How N.J. towns are crafting their own celebrations this year. – NJ.com

If any New Jersey town could lay claim to Halloween, it’s Westfield, home of the Addams Family creator Charles Addams.

But with the coronavirus continuing to bring real-life horrors on New Jersey since first haunting the state in March 2020, the idea of a typical in-person celebration this Halloween is still too scary even for a town that prides itself on its mysterious and spooky heritage like Westfield, which canceled its annual Halloween parade for the second straight year in 2021.

Westfield’s was just one of this year’s Halloween parades, trunk-or-treats, and other celebrations called off again this year after grownups weighed the persistence of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths and decided there was a risk of more than just tooth decay. On Tuesday, the state reported another 32 confirmed COVID-19 deaths overnight, with 1,211 new cases, even as the number of New Jerseyans with at least one dose of a vaccine nears 7 million.

The Centers for Disease Control had the pandemic’s terrifying real-life consequences in mind when it issued Halloween guidance earlier this month.

“Everyone, whether you are vaccinated or not, should consider skipping indoor holiday events in favor of outdoor or virtual gatherings,” the CDC states. ”Attending gatherings to celebrate events and holidays increases your risk of getting and spreading COVID-19″

With just that in mind, Westfield is among the New Jersey municipalities, school districts, commercial venues and non-profit groups to come up with or repeat alternative celebrations this All Hallows Eve to minimize the chance of coronavirus or delta variant transmission among trick-or-treaters who, if they’re under 12, still aren’t eligible to be vaccinated.

The town’s non-profit special improvement district, Downtown Westfield, is sponsoring a kind of hybrid celebration, the Wicked Westfield Halloween Costume Contest, which invites residents of all ages to email photos of themselves in their costumes to halloween@westfieldtoday.com through Friday night. The entries will be judged in 10 categories, from scariest to funniest to most creative to best baby or toddler, and the winners will honored during a 1 p.m. pageant on Sunday at 1 p.m. on Quimby Street, which will also be streamed as a Facebook Live event on Downtown Westfield’s page.

“We thought this was a good way of keeping crowds down to a minimum but still give the kids a chance to have some fun with this, show off their costumes, and maybe win something,” said Bob Zuckerman, Downtown Westfield’s executive director. “We wanted to do something for the kids, and we came up with this idea.”

But there will also be traditional Halloween parades, some returning after a 2020 hiatus, after Gov. Phil Murphy lifted the health state of emergency and any numerical limits on attendance at indoor or outdoor events.

Earlier this month, the volunteer firefighters who organize Toms River’s large and long-running parade announced it would return after last year’s cancellation marked only the third scratch in the procession’s 80-plus-year history.

The Toms River Halloween parade regularly draws tens of thousands of spectators. So it was among countless holiday processions and other events canceled under an executive order in place at the time limiting the size of outdoor gatherings to 500 people, among the limits lifted by the governor in June, citing widespread vaccination rates, and declining cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

Even so, many places are holding “safe” gatherings this year to minimize the risk of transmission or any other threat.

In Burlington County, the Lenape Regional High School District will repeat a “Safe Trick or Treat” celebration the district held last year, allowing youngsters to parade around a school athletic field dressed in their costumes and collecting treats as they go, though in an orderly, socially distanced procession.

The event will be held Friday afternoon from 3-5 p.m., at the football stadium at Seneca High School in Tabernacle, where children and their adult guardians will walk along a “trick or treat pathway” around the running track, stopping at tables decorated and hosted by Seneca High clubs. The event doubles as a canned food drive, with trick-or-treaters encouraged to present their donation when they enter.

“We had lots of positive feedback from parents last year,” SHS teacher Jamie Meyers, the event’s co-coordinator, said in an online statement. About the food donation, Meyers added, “We are keeping it outdoors with a little twist this year.”

Camden Public School children can once attend the annual “Safe Halloween” free event sponsored by Black Law Students Association at Rutgers Law – Camden, held outdoors from 4-6 p.m. Friday, on the campus quad off Penn Street.

Zoos often host Halloween events, harkening back to early celebrations of the Celtic New Year on Nov. 1, when real animal heads and furs were the Black Panther and Wonder Woman costumes of their day.

Up in Essex County, Turtleback Zoo in West Orange will host one of the pricier celebrations on Saturday evening, an event dubbed the Step Sisters Pumpkin Party, where for $34.95 each, trick-of-treaters can ride on a panda, tiger or one of 30 other creatures on the zoo’s endangered species carousel. Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

Of course, Halloween isn’t just for kids, and there’s no shortage of adult activities, from staid to wild.

In Cumberland County, the Mauricetown Historical Society in Commercial Township will host its annual Ghost Tour. For $15, history-minded chill-seekers can look out for the ghost of Capt. Caesar Hoskins, whose log cabin dates to the 1690′s and is among more than 100 buildings in the Mauricetown National Historic District overlooking the Maurice River.

For a different kind of night, the roller rink at Branch Brook Park in Newar will be the scene of a “Sexy Scary Skate Halloween Adult Night” on Sunday from 8 to 11 p.m. on It’s $12 with your own skates, $17 if you need a pair. No one under 18 is permitted.

In the northern corner of the state, everybody is invited to the Skylands Stadium Jack-O-Lantern Experience, which began on Oct. 1 and runs through Nov. 7, at the home of the Sussex County Minors minor league baseball team in Augusta. The web page for the event promises a “thrilling fall festival” with over 6,000 jack-o-lanterns, “set ablaze with spectacular visuals,” and “perfect for families, date nights, and lovers of Halloween spirit.”

The web page for the event is silent on COVID-19, with no mention of masking, proof of testing or vaccinations, even among the dozen FAQs posted for the event. The person who answered the phone at the stadium said attendees were free to wear masks if they want.

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com