Pictured Above: From left to right, Charlie Clark, 6, dressed as a skeleton. His younger brother, Blake, 4, dressed as Marshall from Paw Patrol while his older brother, Dexter, 8, dressed as Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. The boys’ cousin, Amaree Clark, dressed as Alice from Alice in Wonderland.
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
By Sophie Ojdanic
In a year plagued by a pandemic, children only had one thing on their minds this Halloween: Reese’s.
Blake, Charlie and Dexter Clark sought the sweet treats on Halloween night, trekking from their home on 38th Avenue N in St. Petersburg to Harris Park.
“I got lots of candy,” Dexter Clark said. “We ran a lot and we played a lot. I had a lot of fun.”
Though the kids seemed satisfied with their haul, their parents noticed a difference.
“I (can) honestly say we didn’t get as much candy,” Jacob Clark, 24, said.
Clark and his fiancé, The Crow’s Nest’s News Editor Catherine Hicks, recently attained legal guardianship of their nephews: Blake, 4, Charlie, 6, and Dexter, 8.
“This is our second year, and I thought we got more last year,” Clark said. “Although, we had more people with us this year, which slowed us down.”
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
In lieu of a more active Halloween night, one neighbor of the Clarks’ set up tables outside their home with sack races and pumpkin decorating.
“The kids loved their candy, but I think they enjoyed the face painting and pumpkin painting at the neighbors house a little more,” Clark said.
The kids labeled it as their favorite house.
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a holiday advisory on Oct. 19. It urged those celebrating holidays to consider community COVID-19 levels, gathering location and duration and the number of people attending the gathering.
The CDC also listed Halloween activities that were considered low risk, moderate risk and high risk. Indoor parties and door-to-door trick-or-treating were considered high risk, while decorating living spaces or having virtual costume contests were considered low risk.
Clark said his family was not especially concerned with the pandemic.
“We don’t have any high risk family members, so we felt like it (was) more important to keep a sense of normality for the kids,” Clark said. “My fiancé sprayed their candy wrappers with Lysol before they were allowed to eat it, and most people were giving their candy away in a socially-distanced way.”
Courtesy of Aleicha Pratt
To get into the Halloween spirit, USF St. Petersburg students Aleicha Pratt and Lillie Carter visited Crislip Café in St. Petersburg.
“(Crislip Cade) was Halloween themed and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so it was fitting,” Pratt, a junior biology major, said.
Pratt said she spent her Halloween night inside, watching her favorite horror movies, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Grave Encounters.
She wasn’t the only one; USF St. Petersburg sophomore Peyton Lebron planned to watch movies with friends to celebrate Halloween safely.
“I originally planned to watch some scary movies on my projector with some friends while we ate snacks in our costumes,” Lebron said.
But then he was struck with a familiar dilemma – he and his friends couldn’t agree on a movie.
“We just decided to go to Applebee’s and get some food while playing ‘Among Us’ in our costumes,” Lebron said.
Lebron dressed as Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy for his costume, even entering a costume contest put together by the university’s Harborside Activities Board.
Courtesy of Peyton Lebron
“I heard about the contest through some friends and thought it would be fun,” Lebron said. “I didn’t really have another reason to get dressed up so it was fun to have the opportunity to.
“Plus the possibility of winning a prize for dressing up as one of your favorite characters is a bonus.”
Lebron said he and his roommate went out the night before Halloween to get a feel of how downtown St. Petersburg would be.
“While we were out, even though it seemed a lot less crowded than usual in town, there were some spots that were absolutely packed with people really close together,” Lebron said. “And to make things worse, barely any of them were wearing masks. My immediate thought was that I could only imagine how much worse (it would) be on Halloween night.
“Sure enough, I saw on all my social media, videos and pictures of people going out without masks in high density areas.”
That didn’t bring down the night, though.
“While I’m definitely bummed at how this Halloween went – since I could barely go out and do anything – I did enjoy the time I had with the people I was with.”
