Nightmare Before Christmas Halloween Trunk-or-Treat

I can’t believe Hal­loween is a mere TWO days away!!! We just returned from a trip to Dis­ney­land to par­take in all the Hal­loween fun they offer at the park, which includ­ed the per­fect pho­to shoot set­ting for my daugh­ter’s cos­tume this year! And as soon as we got back, it was hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion time at my daugh­ter’s school, includ­ing our sec­ond annu­al trunk-or-treat festivities.

First of all, I am beyond hap­py that Hal­loween is on a Fri­day this year. It just makes it so much eas­i­er on the kids when they can enjoy the evening trick-or-treat­ing and not have to wor­ry about get­ting up ear­ly for school the fol­low­ing day. But in addi­tion to that, our state of Neva­da cel­e­brates its admit­tance into the union with a statewide hol­i­day every year and this year it falls on Hal­loween! No school on Hal­loween AND it’s a Fri­day? What could be bet­ter?! That being said, it meant that we had less time to plan and prep for the trunk-or-treat event. Last year was our first time dec­o­rat­ing our trunk and we went with the icon­ic It’s the Great Pump­kin, Char­lie Brown theme. This year, my daugh­ter, Anabelle and I decid­ed to go with a more mod­ern clas­sic {as con­tra­dic­to­ry as that sounds!} with Tim Bur­ton’s The Night­mare Before Christ­mas!

I made these fon­dant top­pers inspired by the ani­mat­ed film approx­i­mate­ly three years ago and have always want­ed to re-vis­it this theme in some man­ner, so this was the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty! For those of you unfa­mil­iar with the movie’s premise, the main char­ac­ter, Jack Skelling­ton, is the king of Hal­loween Town, but upon dis­cov­er­ing the notion of Christ­mas, decides he wants to take over for San­ta Claus {or Sandy Claws}. So mix­ing both Hal­loween and Christ­mas themed decor based on the dynam­ic images from the film was our objective.

When one is a pro­cras­ti­na­tor and per­pet­u­al­ly behind on the many projects one has on his/her plate, it often means the prod­uct he/she had her eye on is sold out when final­ly pre­pared to make the pur­chase! Lol! Such was the case when I was in search of a white foam pump­kin. So, I did the next best thing and pur­chased an orange foam pump­kin from Joann Fab­ric & Craft Stores and spray paint­ed it white. Then I paint­ed Jack Skelling­ton’s facial fea­tures on, cut and paint­ed ele­ments of his col­lar on black craft paper and fin­ished him off with a San­ta hat. Being late on the Hal­loween pur­chas­es also means hav­ing your pick at Christ­mas items! Glass half full… 😉

The rest of the dec­o­ra­tions were direct­ly cor­re­lat­ed to the sto­ry’s ele­ments and char­ac­ters. The wrapped gifts includ­ed tags I print­ed out and per­son­al­ized from DIY Night­mare Before Christ­mas Hal­loween Props. I embell­ished potion bot­tles with labels offered by Altered Arti­facts, then fur­ther accen­tu­at­ed the pre­sen­ta­tion with an adorable cook­ie jar resem­bling witch­craft books and mea­sur­ing cups in the form of a poi­son bot­tle from Cost Plus World Mar­ket! I also cre­at­ed Zero’s {the ghost dog} house out of a foam tomb­stone and a hand-drawn ban­ner on a Christ­mas gar­land. All the decor was placed over a beau­ti­ful black tulle table­cloth from the Can­dy Crush Shop that I used at my book launch par­ty and the Day of the Dead par­ty a few weeks back!

We were super hap­py with how it all turned out and I’m hap­py to report it was a big suc­cess! I was so inspired, I’m going to save all these dec­o­ra­tions for a future dessert table!

Do you par­tic­i­pate in trunk-or-treat events? If so, what themes have you done?!

Merci Beaucoup!

This page may con­tain affil­i­ate links. For more infor­ma­tion, please read my Terms & Dis­clo­sure policy.