12 Summerween Ideas for Teams to Celebrate Halloween in July

Why wait until October for spooky fun? Halloween in July, often called Summerween, brings together everything people love about Halloween, from costumes and creepy decorations to festive treats and playful games, with a sunny summer twist. More workplaces are embracing this Halloween-inspired trend as a fun way to break up the mid-year routine, boost morale, and turn ordinary summer socials into memorable team celebrations. Whether you’re planning an office party, virtual event, or hybrid gathering, Summerween offers the perfect mix of spooky and silly.

In this guide, we’ll share 12 of the best Summerween ideas for teams, including games, creative activities, food experiences, and themed celebrations to help coworkers connect and enjoy a ghoulishly good time together.

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What is  Summerween?

Summerween is a fictional holiday inspired by the animated TV show Gravity Falls, where the characters love Halloween so much that they celebrate it twice a year. This playful celebration combines the spookiness of Halloween with tropical summer fun, perfect to bring some holiday cheer in the middle of the year. People typically throw costume parties, put out spooky decor with a tropical twist, and enjoy festive treats to celebrate the holiday (just like Halloween!). 

Why Celebrate Summerween at Work?

Summerween is a Halloween in July celebration inspired by the animated TV show Gravity Falls. What began as a fictional holiday has grown into a real-world trend, with people embracing the spooky spirit of Halloween during the summer months.

Summerween pairs classic Halloween traditions from costumes, pumpkins, spooky decorations, games, and festive treats with sunny, tropical elements like beach parties, pool floats, tiki décor, and colorful summer drinks. At work, it gives teams a fun excuse to take a break, enjoy a mid-year themed celebration, and upgrade regular summer socials with offbeat yet fun activities like murder mystery parties, tropical Santas, Jack O’ Melon carvings, haunted tiki bars, and more. 

12 Best Summerween Ideas for the Workplace

Dive into this list of 12 fun Summerween ideas, including games, activities, culinary, and creative events for teams to enjoy an eerie time together. These ideas work well for remote, hybrid, and in-person teams. 

Summerween Games and Activities for Work

Explore engaging Summerween party games and activities that bring teams together through friendly competition, themed challenges, and plenty of ghostly fun. 

1. Ghoulish Scavenger Hunt

A Summerween-themed scavenger hunt is sure to impress your team as they race to track down creepy-cool items together. Teams follow a series of clues to find Halloween-themed decor, costumes, treats, accessories, and more within a limited time. To dial up the fun, you can tweak the clues with trivia questions or eerie riddles to trick everyone during the game. 

Here’s a ready-to-play scavenger hunt list for your team: 

Bonus Read: Check out these 13 Halloween scavenger hunt ideas to draw inspiration for your Summerween treasure hunt. 

2. Guess the Summerween Picture

An eerie-themed picture reveal game is perfect to find out if your team can spot some ghoulish images hidden in plain sight. Teams are shown various Summerween-inspired pictures, disguised by filters like cropped movie stills, zoomed-in treats, and blurred decorations. They need to carefully examine each image and identify it before anyone else to score points. 

Check out these sample image category ideas to get started:

• Blurred Movie Stills: The beach scene from The Goonies, the Sanderson sisters flying from Hocus Pocus, or Wednesday Addams’s dorm room.
• Cropped Treats: Candy corn, a mummy hot dog, or a pumpkin-shaped cookie.
• Zoomed in Decorations: A pumpkin beach ball, ghost garland, or Jack O’ Melon. 
• Pixelated Accessories: Witch hat, bat-shaped sunglasses, or pumpkin-themed flip-flop.

3. Spooky Costume Party

A themed costume party is a fun way to bring your team together for a Summerween celebration. Instead of traditional Halloween costumes, you can follow a ‘summer meets spooky’ theme to create fusion outfits that blend the best of both worlds. Add fun elements like DIY mocktail stations (send kits to remote employees), costume parades, trivia games, and a best-dressed contest to elevate the vibe of the event. Also, set up a physical (or digital) photo booth with themed props for everyone to take pictures during the event. 

Here are a few Summerween costume ideas for your party: 

• Surfing witch with a tropical dress, a surfboard, flip-flops, and sunglasses.
• Beach ghost with a floral shirt, flip-flops, sunglasses, and a sun hat.
• Skeleton bodyguard with a skeleton-printed bodysuit, red shorts, and a rescue vest. 
• Tropical vampire with a dark floral button-down shirt, shorts, a long cape, and fake fangs. 
• Ghost cruise captain with a white uniform and ghost-inspired makeup. 

4. Pumpkin Patch Murder Mystery

If you’re looking for thrilling Summerween ideas, Murder! At The Pumpkin Patch is a fun way to turn your team into detectives for an hour. The Harvest Hollow’s Annual Fall Festival is canceled due to the death of a harsh festival critic. You and your team need to join the Skellington Police Force to interrogate live suspects like the baker, mayor, bar owner, and crime writer to identify the culprit. 

A few months ago, we played this hosted game and had an amazing time questioning the suspects. Each team had a different theory, and the story became more intriguing with each new clue. Finally, one teammate spotted a loophole in a suspect’s story and cleverly unveiled the culprit. The live actors, unexpected twists, and collaborative sleuthing work kept each one of us hooked from start to finish. 

Summerween Food and Drink Social

Check out these food and drink ideas for Summerween team parties to enjoy Halloween-inspired culinary experiences together. 

5. Spooky Mocktail Lab

A spooky mocktail-making session is a fun addition to your team’s Summerween ideas for mixing Halloween-in-July-inspired beverages with coworkers. Teams use fresh seasonal fruits, flavored syrups, edible glitters, and themed toppings to create their drinks. To dial up the fun, run a mocktail-making competition, have everyone vote for the best entries, and award themed prizes, trophies, or gift cards to the best ones. 

Check out these delicious mocktail ideas: 

• Black lemonade (lime juice, food-grade activated charcoal, water, simple syrup, ice)
• Blood orange spritzer (blood orange juice, sparkling water, lime juice, orange slices, ice)
• Glow-in-the-dark mocktail (tonic water, lime juice, simple syrup, club soda, ice)
• Witch’s Brew punch (green apple juice, lemon-lime soda, kiwi syrup, lime juice, ice)
• Ghostly coconut cooler (coconut water, coconut cream, pineapple juice, lime juice, ice)

Here’s a tip: If you’re hosting this event in-person, set up multiple drink stations around the workplace. For remote and hybrid teams, send mocktail kits with pre-batched supplies to make participation easy. 

6. Summerween Happy Hour

For teams that want to enjoy a Summerween sundowner, a Halloween-inspired happy hour with themed-cocktails is the perfect way to celebrate with your team. You can spruce up a designated space with decorations like Jack O’Melons and tropical decor, or use a themed virtual background to set the event’s backdrop. Serve refreshing cocktails with a Halloween-in-July twist, like Blood Orange Spritzers or Vampire Mai Tais for teams to enjoy while connecting with coworkers. 

To keep it lighthearted, add fun elements like trivia games, bingo, cocktail-garnishing contests, and best-costume awards to keep everyone entertained throughout. Teams can also enjoy a hands-on, hosted mixology session to learn how to create drinks from scratch and find new favorites along the way. 

Here’s a tip: Offer zero-proof cocktail alternatives to team members who do not drink alcohol, so everyone can enjoy the experience together. 

7. S’mores Social

S’mores social combines everything people love about summer campfires with a ghostly Halloween-in-July vibe. Set up a DIY s’mores station with marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars, caramel sauce, and assorted toppings so team members can customize their treats. 

Once the treats are ready, gather around a real or artificial campfire to share ghost stories or personal experiences, adding a touch of mystery to the event. To recreate the camping vibe, play ambient sounds like crackling fires, crickets, and owl calls, or eerie background music for an immersive experience. 

Try this: If you have a remote or hybrid team, join a hosted Virtual S’mores Snickerdoodle Cookies Making to enjoy the experience together. 

8. Trick or Treat Cookie Decorating

Summerween cookie decorating becomes even more fun when you add a trick-or-treat element to the activity. Before the event, have team members choose from a pile of trick-or-treat cards or let them spin a digital wheel if you’re hosting online. The cards may contain bonuses or silly decorating challenges to make the activity more unpredictable. Your goal is to decorate plain cookies with Summerween-inspired designs like beach ghosts or skeleton surfers while completing your bonus task. 

For treat cards, you can add these tasks: 

• Add candy eyes to your design.
• Get a free design hint from the host.
• Swap your task with a coworker.

For trick cards, you can add these tasks:

• Decorate using only two colors.
• Include a ghost somewhere in your design.
• Add beach elements to your cookies. 

Pro tip: Look for hosted cookie-decorating events with customization options so you can run the event without worrying about planning and execution. 

Creative Summerween Ideas

Creative Summerween ideas are perfect for teams to create crafts or decorations, or paint something together. It’s a low-key, engaging way to celebrate the holiday with your remote, hybrid, and in-person teams. 

9. Jack O’ Fruit Carving

Pumpkin carving is a Halloween classic, but pumpkins aren’t typically in season during summer. So why not swap them for fresh seasonal fruits and host a Jack O’ Fruit carving session for a summery twist on the beloved tradition? Team members carve watermelons, pineapples, cantaloupes, or squash to create spooky faces together. Participants can also use props and decorations like sunglasses, flower leis, beach hats, glow sticks, and fairy lights to make their carvings stand out. 

To add personality to your creations, dress them up as beach ghosts, haunted tiki masks, vampire pineapples, or tropical witches. You can display the finished pieces in a common area or create a digital gallery for everyone to check out and appreciate each other’s designs. 

Try this: If you’re not looking for a self-hosted event, join a guided fruit carving class with kits to learn how to carve fruits from an expert. 

10. Ghostly Desk Makeovers

Not all Summerween ideas have to be elaborate to be fun, and desk makeovers are one such simple activity for teams. Challenge your team to transform their desks, cubicles, or home workspaces into Halloween in July displays. Encourage everyone to get creative and bring out summer-inspired decor with eerie twists to decorate their spaces (because who wouldn’t like a ghost in sunglasses at their desk?). You can also run a live poll where everyone votes for their favorite decorations and awards fun titles for scariest setups, funniest props, or best Summerween theme. 

Here are a few ideas to get started: 

• Create a mini beach-party scene with toy ghosts. 
• Turn your desk into a haunted tiki bar with skeleton bartenders. 
• Set up a ‘Ghosts on Vacation’ display with albums, postcards, and suitcases. 
• Build a campsite using an artificial campfire surrounded by toy ghosts.
• Assemble a beachside witch’s hut with pumpkins, skeleton garlands, and sand. 

11. Glow In The Dark Paint Party

If your team loves creativity, then a glow-in-the-dark paint party is a great idea for your Summerween. Teams use UV-reactive paints to create Halloween in July-inspired artworks that come alive under blacklight. Everyone can paint fun, offbeat scenes like ghosts in grocery stores, or a haunted pool party. 

You can also go digital and use AI tools like NightCafe Blacklight Glow Art Generator to type custom prompts and generate luminous artworks. For a more laid-back, social vibe, have everyone bring beverages like neon fruit punch, classic lemonade, or Halloween-inspired cocktails for a paint-and-sip-style experience. 

Pro tip: Provide team members with curated kits so they don’t have to source the materials in advance. 

12. Ghost in a Jar Diorama 

Upcycle your old mason jars into Pinterest-worthy decorations by creating a ghost-in-a-jar diorama with your team. Using simple, easy-to-find supplies like cotton, cheesecloth, Mod Podge, and decorative materials, teams create one or multiple mini ghosts to put inside the jar. 

They can even place decorative elements inside the jar, like sand and faux seashells (to mimic a beach) or tiny tombstones and skeleton charms, before suspending the ghost with a clear thread. The finished creation can double as festive desk decor, a dinner table centerpiece, or a gift for loved ones. 

Bonus Read: Need more ideas? Check out these 13 best Halloween team building activities for inspiration. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is Summerween, and why are teams following the Halloween in July trend? 

Summerween is a Halloween-inspired celebration that originated from a fictional holiday shown in the animated TV show Gravity Falls. Also called Halloween in July, the holiday combines classic traditions like costumes, themed treats, games, and decorations with a summery twist. Many teams are embracing the trend because it offers a fun way to celebrate something mid-year rather than hosting regular summer socials. 

How to celebrate Summerween with remote teams? 

To celebrate Summerween with your remote team, select a video conferencing platform like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Create a list of fun Summerween party ideas and assign a host to lead the session. Send out meeting invites with all the necessary details so everyone can join the event. Alternatively, opt for a hosted event to skip the hassles of planning and executing a themed event. 

What are some Summerween pool party ideas?

Pool float decorating contest, Jack O’ Melon carving, and costume contests are some good pool party ideas for Summerween. 

What are some good Summerween snack ideas?

Some popular snacks for Summerween include mummy hot dogs, Halloween-themed charcuterie boards, and mini ghost fruit skewers.

What are some of the best Summerween dinner ideas​? 

Monster burgers, pumpkin-shaped pizzas, and tacos with googly eyes are some good dinner ideas for Summerween. 

What are some delicious Summerween dessert ideas?

Monster ice-cream sundaes, coffin-shaped ice-cream sandwiches, and gummy-worm bowls are good ideas for Summerween desserts. Some Summerween cake ideas include ghost cake pops, pumpkin-shaped cupcakes, and ghost-themed cheesecakes. 

What are some trending Summerween nail ideas?

You can paint your nails with pastel ghosts, neon pumpkins, skeleton art, or black-and-orange French tips for Summerween.