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Mischievous twists on your family’s favourite Halloween tricks and treats

When Halloween rolls around, ghosts and goblins roam the streets. With surprise creatures popping out of coffins and silly, spooky pranks around the neighbourhood, it is truly the most mischievous time of year.

Halloween is full of family fun, and this year you can jump-start the celebration well before October 31. Here are some ideas to help your family really get in the spooky, playful spirit.

• Share your best scare: Halloween is all about spooky stories and scary movies. Who hasn’t sat around a campfire or in the basement with a flashlight to share their creepiest tales? This year, invite your family and friends over for some good old-fashioned Halloween storytelling. Think you’ve got the most bone-chilling tale? Take the fun online and use the hashtag #Cheetales to enter the Tiny Tales of Terror Twitter Challenge. Just tweet your spookiest tale in 140 characters or less, for a chance to have your story turned into a short video posted on Chester Cheetah’s Twitter page. See rules for additional details at CheetosHalloween.com.

• Haunt your own house: If there aren’t many haunted houses in your community, why not create your own? Set up a haunted walk through your house or backyard and ask your friends to dress up as the spooky characters that will jump out at visitors. Or find an open event hall that isn’t in use and ask if you can turn the space into a community-run haunted house. Make the space family-friendly by planning fun activities during the day and when the sun sets, bring the more mischievous ghouls out to play.

• Prank playfully: If you’re hosting a Halloween party this year, dial-up the fun by serving guests goblets filled with mysterious red-coloured beverages. Tempt them to try severed-finger cookies.

• Dine on dangerous delights: Keep the Halloween fun going strong with a dinner everyone will be sure to remember. There are many scary — but yummy — dishes you can create. For example, carve faces into bell peppers, remove their tops and insides, and then stuff them with spaghetti noodles and let some hang out as brains. Mix your favourite spaghetti topping inside the pepper and you’ll have a fun meal that’s ready to go. Serve a side dish of peeled grapes or olives as eyeballs and graveyard dirt dessert made of crumbled cookies and chocolate pudding.

Let the Halloween fun begin. For more ideas, follow Chester Cheetah on Twitter at @ChesterCheetah and get the latest on his dangerously cheesy antics this Halloween.