We wrapped up our extensive Halloween coverage this week with a few funny slide shows: creatively creepy Halloween displays around NYC (I really dig those skeletons lounging in lawn chairs), and some hilariously awkward pics of costumes from our '70s childhoods. If you're still trying to figure out what to do on October 31, we also rounded up the top 21 celebrations on Halloween night. And if you've had it with Halloween, don't worry: November kicks off this weekend and we've already got roundups of the best things to do throughout the month in NYC and New Jersey, and there's not an All Hallows' Eve event in sight.

I admit I don't leave NYC much (husband's a homebody, I can't drive and the kid is overscheduled), but after reading about Providence, Rhode Island's awesome WaterFire outdoor art installation, indoor carnival rides at West Nyack's Palisades Center and the audible geological structures in Pennsylvania's Ringing Rocks Park, I clearly need to get out of town more often. And clicking through the pics of Negril, Jamaica's all-inclusive resort Hotel Riu Palace Tropical Bay and the isle's luxury private villa rentals on our Travel site made me flirt with the idea of cashing out my 401K to take one heck of a family vacation.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

Want to hear something scary? For the next two weeks, you're going to hear a lot about Halloween—and I don't mean from us. The kids are talking about it nonstop! My daughter has already changed her costume idea three times. That's her in the pic at New York Comic Con last weekend, doing a dry run dressed up as a Beanie Boo, but who knows what she'll actually be on October 31.

All of our sites, including our brand-new Philly outpost, have jam-packed Halloween Guides, so you can find fearsome family-friendly fun in Westchester, New Jersey, on Long Island and beyond. This week in NYC, we updated a bunch of our popular annual Halloween posts including costume parades for kids and dogs.

Of course right after Halloween, the holiday season kicks off, and that's a time when we here at Mommy Poppins like to find ways to give back to our community. This year, we decided to start a little early by hosting a virtual food drive through Feeding America. Currently, one in five children in the U.S. doesn't get enough to eat on a regular basis, an upsetting statistic, especially when $1 can help feed eight people! Please consider donating to our drive.

Here's what else we covered on the NYC site this week:

While my friends who still find time to read grown-up books argue over the merits of the film version of Gone Girl, I've been worried about a completely different page-to-screen adaptation: Disney's live-action take on Judith Viorst's 1972 kids' classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (PG). I know from experience that sweet and slim picture books often become stale and bloated family movies. Yet my nine-year-old still insists on seeing pretty much every one of them, especially when they're based on a beloved book like Alexander, which she read so many times its spine finally gave out.

But though the title is tailor-made for bad reviews, Alexander is far from terrible, horrible and all those other negative adjectives. The film cleverly expands on the premise and moral of the book—that we all have bad days—by making every member of Alexander's family suffer the same kind of rotten luck and humiliation he usually does. My daughter and I laughed out loud several times during the brisk 80-minute movie, though often at different things. And looking around the New York International Children's Film Festival preview screening we attended, most families seemed to have a similar experience. The kids were particularly enthusiastic about the movie—afterward, a bunch of them shared their hilarious reactions on video.