Find Halloween parties, workshops, shows, and trick-or-treating for kids and families in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island.
Nassau County
Outdoor Haunts
Oct. 5-28: The Rise of the Jack O' Lanterns is a new Halloween destination at Old Westbury Gardens featuring more than 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins in fantastic formations. Walk the illuminated trail through the garden grounds as the spooky mansion looms in the background.
Oct. 19-20, 26-27: Wooded paths are transformed with eerie lighting, special effects, and characters along the way in a Spooky Fest at the Center for Science Teaching and Learning in Rockville Centre.
Halloween in the Kitchen
Oct. 21: Kids and their adult chaperones will be spellbound during the second annual Harry Potter Halloween Workshops with LilChefs.com. They’ll whip up mystical concoctions such as crunchy cockroaches, wizard wands, chocolate-covered frogs, acid pops, and cauldron cupcakes. The fun never ends as they compete for prizes in various categories.
Oct. 26: Kids will enjoy a Spookie Cookie Baking workshop at Hicksville’s Celebrations in the Kitchen where they’ll decorate bats, ghosts, witches, and more.
Oct. 26-29: What’s Cooking?’s Halloween Spooktacular serves up a menu that includes large haunted chocolate houses, “mummy” dogs with homemade French fries, Halloween sugar cookies, “ghostly” pumpkin pudding and “slime” juice. Chomp on ghoulish cookies and desserts, and create a craft to take home.
Party Time
Oct. 20-12: Kids can enter a haunted house, create arts and crafts, and go trick-or-treating at the Macabre Faire Halloween Extravaganza in Rockville Centre. Not recommended for children who are afraid of costumed monster characters.
Oct. 27: Children can come in costume to the Long Island Children's Museum's Ghostly Gala to decorate goody bags, trick-or-treat in the galleries, and get their faces painted. In the theater, members of the Organization of Bat Conservation will introduce guests to live bats from around the world.
Oct. 31: At The Cupcake Corner's Halloween Costume Party, guests decorate pumpkins and snuggle up with some homemade hot cocoa while not-so-scary witches and ghosts read Halloween stories. Join in the contests where everyone wins a prize.
Not for the Faint-Hearted
Through Oct. 28: More than just a haunted house, Bayville Scream Park boasts five haunted venues. Yikes!
Suffolk County
Halloween at the Museum
Oct. 27: Ghosts and goblins are invited to the Cold Spring Harbor Fish Hatchery and Aquarium when it turns into a Haunted Hatchery where you’ll experience flashlight sightings of “spooky” black catfish. Kids in costume receive a special treat.
Oct. 27-28: The Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum can be a very spooky place, especially when it’s a Haunted Museum filled with roving ghosts, wandering pirates, and wailing widows. Kids (ages 6 and older) can touch what’s icky and sticky and possibly bump into a roach.
Oct. 28: Come in costume for trick-or-treating, pumpkin painting, storytelling, and crafts at the Long Island Museum’s Halloween Family Fun Day. Sol y Sombra will perform. FREE!
Oct. 31: Come in costume to Trick-or-Treat at the Heckscher Museum and receive a special treat. FREE for kids in costume and their families.
Party Time
Oct. 27: Stop by the Divalicious Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Darlings & Divas in Amityville for pizza, ice cream sundaes, ghoulish manicures, spooky tattoos, games, and a costume contest.
Costume Dramas
Oct. 6: The headless horseman rides again and the audience is invited to participate in this staged production of Washington Irving’s The Ghost of Sleepy Hollow. at Vanderbilt Mansion Carriage House in Centerport.
Oct. 26-28: Children take on the rolls of monsters, mummies, vampires and goblins among other scary characters in the Stages musical production Frankenstein Follies at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor.
Weekends: Halloween at the Addams’s House is a musical for the whole family playing at BayWay Arts Center in East Islip.
Weekends: In Annabelle Broom, The Unhappy Witch, playing at CM Performing Arts Center in Oakdale, Annabelle does not conform to the rules of the sisterhood of witches.
More Fun
Get Halloween recipes, costume ideas, and enter to win tons of great giveaways at nymetroparents.com/halloween!
For more Halloween events, check out our full, searchable calendar!
