Unless you live under a big, dumb rock, you know that fall is here. With fall, of course, is everyone’s favorite fall holiday (fall-iday?), Halloween. With Halloween, of course, comes the stress of figuring out a costume, decorating, preparing and making plans.

So, let’s try and make that a little easier for you. Last week, we gave you some tips on creating your own costume, but what should you do once that’s done?

Well, you have a couple basic options for your perfect Halloween experience: you could stay in and relax or you could go out and go crazy.

Going Out

If you’re planning on going out for Halloween and you’re not going to Madison, there’s plenty to do in the area to give you the scares and good time you’re looking for.

Pleasant Valley Tree Farm
Elk Mound, WI

If you’re willing and able to make the 10-minute trek out to Elk Mound, you can enjoy the fall harvest festivities at the Pleasant Valley Tree Farm. This includes watching pumpkins being hurled hundreds of feet using the farm’s “Jack-O-Launcher.”

Or if you’d like to try your hand, you can shoot at targets with their new “Crazy Corn Cannon.”

In addition, they host a haunted forest walk or the “Land of No Return Corn Maze.”

If none of this fits your taste, you can always go pumpkin bowling or play other fall games.

Follow it all up with a hayride, an autumn staple that’s sure to be relaxing.

Govin’s Haunted Corn Maze
Menomonie, WI

Govin’s Meat and Berries offers an 8-acre haunted corn maze put on by the Menomonie Theater Guild. From 3:30 to 5 p.m., the maze is “Family Friendly,” 5 to 7 p.m. is for the “Faint of Heart,” and from 7-10 p.m., “All Bets Are Off.”

Find the fear level that best suits you, bring a flashlight and get ready to be scared.

After the maze, there is a bonfire with roasted marshmallows and spooky ghost stories.

Eau Claire haunts

If you don’t want to spend Halloween off in a cornfield to get your Halloween jollies, you could always get a good scare from a visit to a local haunted house like Chippewa Falls’ “Village of Terror” or Eau Claire’s “The Asylum.”

Also, there are plenty of scary movies in theaters right now like Paranormal Activity 2 or Saw 3D. And if The Town is half as scary as those masked nun robbers in its trailer, that could be a viable option. If zombie-Nazi-ski resort horror movies are more your taste, go to the Campus Film Dead Snow.

Staying In

Now, if you just want to stay in and hand out candy, there’s still enough opportunity to have fun apart from dressing up and handing out candy.

You could get together with your friends and rent some scary movies like The Blair Witch Project or The Shining and curl up with a blanket and some Halloween-themed snacks.

But if bad horror movies are more your style, the Syfy channel always plays some pretty awful, campy horror movies all through October. Otherwise, if you have a friend that has Netflix, the Instant Queue has some pretty awful selections, too. For example, the list includes the Thanksgiving horror classic, Thankskilling.

If you aren’t interested in scary movies, it’s fun to bake Halloween things with a bunch of friends like pumpkin pie, black and orange cupcakes, black and orange cookies (really anything sweet, but black and orange) and other tasty morsels. Feel free to wash it down with a Culver’s pumpkin spice shake or a pumpkin cheesecake Concrete Mixer.

Hopefully now you have the tools to make your Halloween scary, relaxing, memorable or whatever you want it to be.

Have a spooktacular (ugh) time!