Looking down the list of annual holidays, there are few we get more excited about than Halloween. Between the creative costumes, the memorable parties, the abundance of candy, and the all-around fun spooky vibes, it’s a holiday that pretty much has it all.
Plus, this celebration of scares always seems to foster great times with family and friends as various Halloween-themed parties, events, and activities create the perfect opportunity to get together and have fun. From visiting pumpkin patches to haunted houses and, of course, trick-or-treating, there’s a lot going on in the Halloween activity department each year.
As a team of certified Halloween fanatics, we’ve got a lot of activities and events on our list we want to cross off this year. That being said, we thought you might want to know about a few of our top Halloween attractions this year too.
So, work your way down the list of our top five Halloween activities that you definitely don’t want to miss out on below! Happy Halloween!
Go Pumpkin Picking
When it comes to Halloween traditions, almost none are more ubiquitous than the Jack-o’-lantern. It’s hard to walk down a single residential side street in west Toronto during the month of October and not see a vast array of them dot the front porches and doorways of homes in the lead-up to Halloween.
However, in order to have a Jack-o’-lantern, one must first have a pumpkin — and, despite what many might think, pumpkins don’t just magically appear this time of year. Knowing this, the best way to find the perfect specimen for your pumpkin carving party is to go and pick one out yourself!
Seeing as pumpkins grow abundantly across Ontario, finding the perfect one (or many) for you and your family this Halloween shouldn’t be difficult. Whether you’re willing to travel to a surrounding farm to pick one out first-hand or just want to pick one up at a local farmers’ market close to home, there’s always a wide range of beautiful orange pumpkins to choose from.
Some of our favourite pumpkins patches across the Greater Toronto Area include:
- Andrew’s Scenic Acres in Milton
- Hutchinson Farm in Burlington
- Stonehaven Farms in Clarkson
- Downey’s Farm Market in Inglewood
Do you love taking your Halloween home decorations to new spooky heights each year? Then chances are, you also love home design and decor too. Find out which home design influences we’ve got our eyes on this season by reading our related posts below:
- 5 Home Staging Tips To Make Your Listing Look Like A Model Home
- 5 Home Decor Trends To Try Out This Fall
Enter A Pumpkin Parade!
If you’ve spent the time and effort transforming your pumpkin into a beautifully spooky Jack-o’-lantern, you’ll probably want to show off your pumpkin carving talents to as many people as possible.
While your front porch and social media accounts are a great place to do just that, one way you can share your impressive Jack-o’-lantern with even more Halloween enthusiasts is to enter it in a pumpkin parade!
Designed to celebrate their impressive and unique carving skills, Toronto invites the owners of Jack-o’-lanterns across the city to proudly display their pumpkin creations in person at certain public parks.
Starting from November 1, 2021 — the day after Halloween — select park locations will welcome entrants from participating neighbourhoods to publicly showcase their Jack-o’-lanterns in one final Halloween hurrah.
Originally, this fun tradition was exclusive to Roncesvalles’ very own Sorauren Park, with the first pumpkin parade starting in 2004. Today, the pumpkin parade tradition has spread to many more parks and neighbourhoods across the city, including West Queen West and Scarborough Bluffs.
If you want to partake in this year’s parade, just keep in mind you’ll need to complete a One-Time Booking request with Toronto’s Parks & Recreation Facilities here.
For so many reasons, Roncesvalles is among the most welcoming, community-centric neighbourhoods anywhere in Toronto. To learn more about why we love living, working, and playing here, click on our Roncesvalles-specific guides and pages below.
- Roncesvalles Neighbourhood Guide
- Roncesvalles Homes: What You Can Expect
- 5 Kid-Friendly Ways to Spend a Day in Roncesvalles
Legends Of Horror At Casa Loma
From October 1 through to Halloween night on October 31, the landmark Toronto mansion of Casa Loma welcomes the city’s bravest Halloween enthusiasts to experience Legends of Horror, an immersive haunted house experience that always promises to shock and scare.
Following a two-kilometre trail mazing through the mansion’s lower gardens, underground tunnels, and deep, dark rooms, the self-guided Legends of Horror tour at Casa Loma allows guests to stroll through this interactive experience at their own pace — and their own caution!
This seriously spooky Halloween tradition at Casa Loma is genuinely one of the city’s best haunted house tours and always seems to attract a large eager audience of guests that enjoy a festive scare year after year.
With live actors, terrifying mannequins, automated decorations, and alarming light and sound effects all set up to scare guests, the Legends of Horror events are absolutely the scariest way to explore the storied grounds of Toronto’s iconic Casa Loma.
To find out more about how to book your tickets, visit the Legends of Horror website here.
As a team of experienced Realtors®, we know house hunting can be just as scary as haunted houses. That’s why we urge our buying clients to use a checklist to monitor their progress along the way. Get our advice on Creating A House Hunting Checklist: A How-To Guide here.
Halloween Haunt At Canada’s Wonderland
On any normal day at Canada’s Wonderland, guests can expect to find a plethora of thrilling and heart-pounding experiences. However, on select nights from September 24 through until October 31, Canada’s biggest theme park turns things up a notch with Halloween Haunt.
Yet another alarmingly interactive Halloween scare experience, Halloween Haunt is Canada’s Wonderland’s answer to the traditional haunted house, except here, the entire theme park becomes haunted.
Next to no space is safe at Canada’s Wonderland in the lead-up to Halloween as their paths and walkways become populated with hundreds of street performers acting as monsters and ghouls set out to scare the theme park’s guests. Complemented with designated scare zones, live music, nighttime rides, and live shows, this is a truly comprehensive place to come and get scared while celebrating Halloween.
For more information on how to register for admission, visit the Halloween Haunt tickets page here.
Does your current neighbourhood fall short in the Halloween festivities department? No worry, we’ve compiled a list of the Best Neighbourhoods In Toronto For Young Families here so you can find a more community-driven area for you and your fun family to live in.
Go Trick-Or-Treating In Your Neighbourhood
Yes — trick-or-treating is back! This year (unlike last) the Province of Ontario has permitted door-to-door trick-or-treating for children across the city — so long as it’s done with a few precautions, however.
Last year, Ontario health officials released a statement urging families to avoid trick-or-treating in certain COVID-19 hot spots (which included essentially all of Toronto and the GTA) in order to reduce the spread of the virus.
This year, however, as the risk of contracting COVID-19 is considerably lower, the Province of Ontario has changed their stance and are allowing trick-or-treaters to once again take part in this age-old Halloween tradition.
By the advice of Dr. Kieran Moore, the Chief Medical Officer of Health of Ontario, trick-or-treaters will be once again allowed to go hunting for candy door-to-door in their neighbourhoods so long as they follow a few guides. Firstly, children must wear a face mask — not a costume mask — while trick-or-treating, while also taking care not to crowd doorsteps or shout too loudly.
While somewhat inconvenient, these guidelines don’t seem overly prohibitive to us, and we’re looking forward to getting back out there and partaking in some sorely missed trick-or-treating traditions this October 31.
If you’re as obsessed about homes as we are, you’ll use trick-or-treating on Halloween night as the perfect opportunity to do some undercover architecture admiring too. Find out which styles of houses you’re most likely to come across by reading our post on Toronto Architecture: 4 Types Of Houses You’ll Find Here.
