Halloween may look a little different this year, but you can still have some fun in the office — spook it up with a few festive decorating ideas.
We are all looking for a little safe, light-hearted fun these days. Now that some of us are back at work, we are experiencing many new stressors – new protocols including a new, more distant approach to meetings and collaboration, worry about the kids at school (or not), staying healthy when out and about. The added stress at the office can be difficult to avoid.
But, with Halloween just around the corner, it might be the perfect opportunity to blow off a little anxiety-ridden steam. Lighten up the atmosphere at the office with some fun-loving, festive, and even playful energy. Some Halloween fun can boost the team’s morale and get them more excited to be at work.
Halloween is a wonderful holiday that offers an excuse for colleagues to have a little fun as they engage in meaningful relationship building and team building at work.
Get your team in the spirit! Fun, spooky, and light-hearted decor is a great way to help alleviate some of the stresses at work this season. Halloween decor can be classy and business-appropriate – just enough to bring a more festive, playful, and even a little mischievous ambience to what might be an unusually difficult daily grind.
Whether it’s a small or individual desk you’re decorating or if you are undertaking a full Halloween makeover, here are a few ideas that will provide just enough spooky autumn spirit to help lighten and brighten the office mood.
Start with Pumpkins
Pumpkins offer a multitude of options for whimsical Halloween fun at the office. Pumpkins work even in the most conservative office environments to inspire a vibrant, warm, autumn-themed mood.
Bring in a subtle and chic Halloween feeling with pumpkins carved out to provide a home for a collection of beautiful succulents. They are easy to keep and an excellent and beneficial addition to any office space as they provide a biophilic boost – nature indoors – that everyone needs for a healthy work environment.
Coordinate a pumpkin carving contest with all of the entries on display through the season. Perhaps colleagues carve at home and bring their creations in or, to make the event more fun, not to mention a great team-building or collaboration opportunity, bring in all the supplies and host a carving event at work.
A simple decor option that provides beautiful seasonal impact: incorporate multiples of several pumpkin varieties. Decorate a conference table, the break room, or a collaborative workspace in your office. Again, it’s subtle and elegant Halloween decor that adds the beauty of color, texture, and nature to your work environment.
It’s bound to bring some humor and amusement to the office, and you can all enjoy the results for weeks.
Skeletons and Other Props
There is no shortage of Halloween props on the market. Skeletons and skulls illuminated from the inside with candles, creepy tombstones, oversized hanging spiders and bats, and so much more.
For those office cultures that embrace a more fun-loving experience, feel free to decorate your cubicle, public spaces, and your company kitchen with all manner of amusing and sometimes frightening items.
For the DIYers: make cheesecloth ghosts. You need four layers of cheesecloth approximately seven feet long for each airy spirit. You’ll also need styrofoam ovals or mannequin heads, diluted glue, eye screws, and fishing line. Drape one of the strips of cheesecloth over a styrofoam head, then brush it with a layer of watered-down glue. Repeat four times on each. Glue an eye screw to the head’s top and hang from a ceiling hook or a ceiling tile if you have them, with the fishing line.
Surprisingly realistic, props are great for livening up your office reception area or conference room. For those offices that appreciate an easy-going atmosphere, props serve perfectly to stage a few Halloween practical jokes – without going overboard, of course!
Unusual, Old, and Spooky Character Lighting
To dress up your office or cubicle, hang an antique lamp or lantern – covered in cobwebs, of course! – to bring a whimsical and festive air to your workstation.
Create some spooky sparkle with glass canning jar lights. It’s a fantastic way to up-cycle underutilized canning jars and to create a luminous Halloween atmosphere into the office.
You’ll need strings of tiny LED lights, paint, and felt markers in various colors. Paint the glasses as you like – white with a ghost’s face drawn on; orange jack-o-lanterns, or keep ‘em simple with no paint at all. Once decorated, place a string of lights inside, turn on the lights and close the lid. Add a little extra Halloween pizazz and spread candy floss-like spider webbing around them.
Speaking of Spider Webs
Instantaneously transform from boring workspace to creepy, and fun workstation in minutes with spiders and spiderwebs. There are many spider web options available at any Halloween popup or in your favorite big box store’s seasonal section. But, if you think they might be a little messy – maybe even a little ho-hum – for your office environment, consider a DIY option instead.
All you need is some yarn in the appropriate spider web color – purple, black, or gray – a bit of tape, and a pair of sharp scissors. Create an X with two strands of the same piece of yarn and tape them to the surface or wall. Tape a strand vertically from the floor to the ceiling, intersecting with the middle of the X. Hang and secure several more intersecting strands at different angles until the shape resembles the structure of a spider web. Lastly, create the rings of the web – you don’t have to be overly exact – by taking a long strand of yarn, and tying knots in the strands it intersects as you wrap your way around, create the remaining shape of the web.
Hang spider webs across spans of office dividers or glass, reception windows, or from ceiling to wall. For extra impact, don’t forget to include spiders of all sizes!
There is no shortage of DIY Halloween decorating ideas. Just be sure that your superiors, colleagues, and office culture support your Halloween decorating plans.
It’s so important to find opportunities to enjoy light-hearted fun where we can, even at the office — maybe especially so! And, while this Halloween may look very different in communities across the country, we can still foster a festive spirit whether at home, at school, or work. Any bit of familiarity and fun is a good thing in such extraordinary times.
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