With Halloween looking a little different this year, trunk or treat may too. But you can still decorate your car!
Time to bust out the costumes, candy, and jack-o-lanterns for a spooky trunk-or-treat event!
If you need ideas for trunk or treat decorations, look below for some design ideas.
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Fun Trunk or Treat Decoration Ideas
Trunk or Treating in Kansas City is a great option when you can’t trick or treat in their neighborhoods or if you have little ones. You can trick or treat many places in a small space—not much walking for them…
But how to decorate your car for trunk or treating? There are so many cute ideas to decorate your vehicle!
One of the easiest ways to get inspiration for your trunk is if your family is dressing up as a group. Here are some of my favorite themed options. You can also find other Halloween resources:
- Family Friendly Halloween Activities
- Kids Eat FREE on Halloween
- Candy Buy Backs
- Pumpkin Patches Near KC
- Fall Drink Ideas (maybe add alcohol…)
- Halloween safety tips for kids
- Halloween events in KC
Trunk or Treat Decorations & Themes
Safari Theme Trunk or Treat
Are the kids going to be animals? Especially for tots, there are usually a ton of adorable elephant and lion costumes around. Parents can dress as animals too, or as explorers.
Bring some houseplants, fake snakes, and a few stuffed animals to decorate your trunk. Bonus points for playing some animal sounds! This safari party kit is perfect to pull it all together. (There are some free apps you can download to play these.)
You could also make a killer playlist with songs that take you to someplace warmer. Think Toto’s ‘Africa’, Glass Animal’s ‘Pools’, and Kool & the Gang’s ‘Jungle Boogie’ to get you started.
Hotel Transylvania Trunk or Treat
I haven’t seen this used yet, so maybe you could be the first! My kids love the Hotel Transylvania films, and this gives a fresh spin to that vampire costume you probably have leftover somewhere.
There are a lot of characters, so it should be fairly easy to flush out who’s going to be whom. This is also easy to decorate. Standard Halloween decorations: bats, spiders, spider webs with a bed in the trunk (a hotel room, get it?)
Be sure to make a sign for your hotel and maybe a no-vacancy one too!
Frozen Theme Trunk or Treat
What child doesn’t love frozen?
Enlist your children to help make paper snowflakes (a fun art project too!) and then hang them throughout your trunk! You can also buy Styrofoam beads to act as snow. You can also challenge your kids to see what ideas they can come up with from the movie. We need some accessories to make it all happen, – this Frozen kit is cute and affordable.
If you really want to bring out the theme, create Olaf out of pillowcases & other pieces you find around the house.
Monsters, Inc. Decor Trunk or Treat
With the original and then the reboot of Monsters Inc., this theme is always super popular!
Lots of little kids still like dressing up like Boo, and Halloween always brings this movie back into circulation. You can add string “doors” together on a rope to make a decoration to go across the back of your car. This one is available online for a great price, and it’s definitely reusable.
This one is over-the-top cool and a little more pricey, but will be the hit of the parking lot!
Bonus points for making this board! (below) Here it was used at a college, but I think it would be cute to have kids pick a door and get candy from inside. If it’s too difficult to pass candy that way, maybe just put in a picture of the wrapper, and they get whatever type of candy they find.
Kansas City Themed Trunk or Treat
KC has another level of love, and I am so happy to be a part of it. I’m sure there will be a few Royals and Chiefs players ofut there. Mahomies will be everywhere! There are a lot of creative ideas to make this work for you, but here are a couple of my favorites.
You could make a small diamond or football field out of paper for kids to run around and put up for favorite banners in the trunk like they did here (ignore the Yankees).
Or pay homage to the city as a whole by dressing up as some of your favorite famous Kansas Citians and making a cardboard skyline. Bonus points for adding twinkly lights.
It’s not always easy to get everyone on the same page for costumes, and so if you have a mixture of characters with you, here are some ideas for a more generic take on trunk or treating.
Spider Attack Trunk or Treat
Spider webs are everywhere this time of year, so pick up a few bags and go wild. You can wrap them around the car or inside the trunk; be as bold as you want to.
Sprinkle plastic spiders through the webbing. This is a cheap and easy option. Bonus points for putting a giant inflatable spider on top of your car.
Black Cat Spooky Fun Trunk or Treat
Black Cat Halloween style is always a hit. This one makes your car look like a giant Halloween kitty. And it gives you a place to hide the treats behind the curtain!
Pirate Booty Trunk or Treat
A treasure chest makes an obvious choice to hold the candy for the kiddos. Nearly everyone has had a pirate-themed party at some point. Here’s a nice chance to reuse those decorations or buy a complete little kit and you are ready to go.
Bonus points for a life-sized skeleton dressed up as a pirate.
Giant Frankenstein Mouth Trunk or Treat
Giant teeth, two eyes, and you’re done! This is a pretty basic and classic option. It’s always a good choice. Plus, it’s CHEAP!
You can also add accessories from the dollar store to enhance anything you’re doing. The more, the better!
Yellow Brick Road Trunk or Treat
This is a classic Kansas reference that is easy to put together. You can do this one as a theme and use characters from the movie or it can stand alone.
You could also have 2 legs coming out of your car with red slippers, to represent Dorthy!
Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins Trunk or Treat
There are a couple of different ways to play this.
I think it would be cute (and easy) to simply transfer the pumpkins and decor from your front porch and set it up here. Add some rocking chairs and make it look like kids are still going up to a porch. Bonus for a light fixture and fake fence.
The other option is to look like a pumpkin patch. Put a green blanket out with some pumpkins. You can add a pumpkin patch sign and maybe even a little Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
No matter how you choose to decorate your trunk or trunk or treating, have fun. You can go as big as you want to.
As long as you don’t forget the candy, the kids will like it. In fact, if you really want to impress, skip the decorations and just get king-sized candy bars. 😉
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