A Trunk or Treat is a Halloween event that is often church or community sponsored. People gather and park their cars in a large parking lot. They open their trunks or the backs of their vehicles and decorate them. Then they pass out candy from their trunks. The event provides a safe family environment for trick or treaters.
When it comes to decorating your vehicle there are the obvious choices, like decorating for Halloween, using pumpkins, spider webbing, spiders, brooms, bats, cauldrons, scary stuff...
NOTE: Some church sponsored trunk or treats ask that participants not use scary items, like blood, bats, witches, spiders, monsters, or gore. It's a good idea because some of the best fun will be had by preschoolers.
The best way to go is to pick a theme. Think of it like dressing yourself in a costume. Sometimes you pick a theme and throw things together. Some of the trunks that stand out in my mind from last year were:
An SUV which was '70's themed. They threw down some shag, hung a disco ball and parked close to the church so they could run an extension cord to a light ball. The people wore 'fro wigs and tie dye. It was pretty funny. So you could do 50's, 60's or 80's too.
One lady was Mother Goose and had a few little settings around the trunk representing different nursery rhymes.
You can dress as a clown and fill your trunk with balloons.
Another one was a zookeeper who had lots of stuffed animals set about.
One acted like their trunk was the back of a boat. They had fishing poles for hooking the candy. (I actually recommend against activities like this because they hold up the line pretty badly)
Other ideas:
Beach theme. Open up the back of the vehicle, hang some towels and set up a boogie board against the door, set out beach chairs, use an umbrella. There are tons of things you could do with this. I told a friend she should wear her bathing suit over her clothes.
I think the kids would think that's a riot. She doesn't want to, but someone should do it.
NASCAR Theme - Display all your souvenirs
Harvest Theme
Sports Theme (pick a sport) - Team displays are popular
Popular Kid's Themes: Sesame Street, Dora the Explorer, Veggie Tales, Backyardigans (If you have kids and they're into a particular character you can use their stuff. Other kids will love it)
Animal Themes - Stuffed animals count.
Movie Themes (Keep the kids in mind though)
Western Theme
Camping Out theme
Christmas (or other holiday) Theme
Gone Fishing Theme
Pirate Theme
Links with more ideas:
Additional notes: If your church is considering a Trunk or Treat as an outreach program, don't miss the opportunity to let people know what you are doing. The First Church of the Nazarene took the opportunity to distribute brochures on a Christmas outreach project they support Operation Christmas Child. Some pieces of candy were distributed with a message or scripture attached. Still another piece of candy we found in our bag included an invitation to the 4 and 5 year-olds room on Sunday to pick up an additional treat. They treated everyone wonderfully and were very welcoming; it was a great incentive to worship there. Finally, any organization sponsoring a trunk or treat should think about soliciting candy donations prior to the event to supplement the supplies of the "trunkers." The Nazarene church sent around volunteers with wagons full of candy to replenish folks who were running out of candy.
How this web site came about:
On my personal blog I blogged two years ago about attending a Trunk or Treat at a church that my relatives attend. That one post got a remarkable number of hits from Google and other search engines. When I did searches myself I realized that there was nearly nothing out there about trunk or treating, especially with pictures to help people with ideas. So I expanded upon the blog post, added more pictures, and created this page purely for informational purposes.
I do not attend the church where this Trunk of Treat takes place. I do not know the people in the photos. They are anonymous to me. I posted these pictures because I was so impressed with the creativity of the trunks. I took great care to remove license plates numbers and any other personal information.This site is intended purely as a service to those interesting in trunk or treating ideas.
The Harrisonburg church of the Nazarene is not holding a Trunk or Treat this year (2008). I will have no new photos this year. If anyone would like to contribute a picture or pictures from their event I will be glad to post them, provided they are good pictures :)
