Trick or treating in my city is limited to 12 and under, 6 - 8 p.m. A few years older kids roamed the streets after 8 p.m. We shut our lights off promptly at 8 p.m., so didn’t give them any treats. In 2020 we didn’t do trick or treating, and we didn’t last year, either. H was the one who didn’t want to stop – I was more than ready to stop. He was the only one jumping up to open the door those last years, anyway. We have a lot going on right now, and I didn’t buy any candy, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be skipping this year, too.
The kids in our neighborhood have long since grown up, so it’s not as if there are lots of cute young kids we’d want to see dressed up, anyway. I like the idea of the sponsored Halloween parties nowadays, where kids can get dressed up and enjoy games and things. Halloween parades, also.
We did trick-or-treat for more than a decade after our youngest aged out, so we’ve put in our time. It wasn’t and never could have been the way I did it as a kid, when we roamed the streets for hours. A different place and time.
And as far as the candy goes, it’s all half-price the next day and seems to be everywhere.
I have to say, putting an age limit so specific on Halloween makes me really sad! A bash to childhood! (my opinion).
(This not directed at CTTC)
You should only participate in trick or treat if your heart is in it. It should not be a duty. I remember going to the homes where people gave treats out of duty - it was no fun. I try to make each group that comes to the door see that I am enjoying Halloween on my end as much as they are on their end!
I’ll be interested to see what we get this year. As I’ve mentioned before, my neighborhood was/is the place for everyone in the city/county to come. We had over 1000 kids when we first moved here. 20 pounds gone in < 1:30. It started to dwindle some after awhile, and then maybe 5 years ago the City started doing a big bash downtown. We still got tons - many, many hundreds but not quite as overwhelming. Then covid hit and we skipped a year. Last year we started back, but not with as much candy.
This year, there were 3 big public bashes on Saturday, and it’s supped to be rainy today. Plus the City’s one downtown. And another stretch of houses 1-1.5 miles down the street have gone ALL out decorating. It is awesome to see, as those houses used to be vacant/deteriorating. I bought 10 pounds of candy and we will hand it out I’m sure. But we will see what happens.
JMHO - growing up in a small town Halloween was my favorite day next to Christmas. Part of the fun was getting to roam around the neighborhood after dark. The “trunk or treat” activities sound fun for the really little kids, but my friends and I (and later my own kids) would have been furious if we had had “trunk or treat” instead.
I agree! My heart hasn’t been it for a very long time. The best part had long been the candy. Since covid, I haven’t bought half-price candy after the candy holidays (Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween, and Christmas), so I’m glad I’ve broken THAT tradition!
I’m interested to see what happens in our neighborhood this year. Over the past 5-10 years we’ve had a lot of younger families move into the neighborhood. I really don’t know them very much except for the one across the street (very sweet). During the past couple of COVID years the neighborhood collectively decided to put goodie bags at the ends of the driveways (either on a table or on the driveway) to minimize COVID germs for the littles. But before that we were always a ring the doorbell neighborhood.
This year one of the newer neighbor moms that I don’t know has emailed the neighborhood and said we should all keep doing the goodie bags at the ends of the driveways. But nobody responded to her. And then she emailed this morning to say since it might rain we should expect trick or treaters as early as 4:30. Nobody responded to that either.
I don’t think I’m going to do the goodie bags on the driveway because if it does rain they’ll just get wet so they can come down my driveway to my covered porch. Might do goodie bags on the porch if it seems like every one else is but I don’t know. More work.
I don’t know how many kids to expect seems like we have gotten quite a few in recent years.
I will probably put on my spooky skeleton shirt and sequined witch hat.
My kids loved this about Halloween. We always had friends over. When they were little us parents would go with them too but when they got older they would roam the neighborhood by themselves.
I think Halloween was tied with Christmas for their favorite holiday. Weird now that they we are empty nesters. I put up about half the decorations (just the easy ones). Carved pumpkins with my 21 yr old who lives nearby, so that was nice but this is the first year without at least one of them at home.
Trick or treaters had been falling off in my neighborhood for years, and the last couple years I think we had only one or two groups stop by.
I keep buying a few bags of candy in spite of my wife laughing at me. Last year I gave 2 full leftover bags to our 12 year old neighbor’s D who walks our dog. When I offered, she looked like she just found out Santa Claus was real
Halloween can be fun perfect or imperfect. Start telling people exactly what they have to do and how to give it without real good reason (or convenience for someone else) takes away from the (safe) carefree holiday. It might rain here - it might not! But regardless, TONIGHT is Halloween night and if kids go to 1, 10 or 100 doors it will happen.
Yeah, I mean it was fine when we were worried about COVID more, but that’s not a big concern here now. I’m happy to wear a facemask to answer the door or even leave the candy bucket on the porch if they are afraid of me, but doling out candy into individual bags was not my jam and I don’t plan to continue that. Someone else answered for their elderly parents that they would have candy on their porch so I sent a similar email that we would have plenty of candy down at our house. I’ll decide closer to the time if I want to put the candy bucket on the porch or wait for them to ring the doorbell.
We don’t live in a very walkable neighborhood, house far apart and hills. I get full size bars for those that show up, young or old, but tonight I won’t be answering the door after 8pm….World Series!!
H and I have been going to our best friends house for many years on Halloween since they used to get lots of trick or treaters. Last year there were only a few kids that came by, but we are hopeful that we will see more kids this year. We are having an Oktoberfest themed dinner with our friends tonight - pretzels and dip, bratwurst and sauerkraut, potato salad and some good beer!
Not really a Halloween fan per se. It possibly stems from my father’s feelings in that the night before All Saints Day was a big occasion for pogroms in the old world. Although we did go trick-or-treating every year, carrying the covered half-pint milk cartons: “Trick-or-treat for UNICEF.”
Back in Chicagoland, we used to get anywhere from 70-100 kids - our street turned at a park so a lot of kids skipped it in favor of the through streets. Here in San Diego, it been between 5 and about 20 kids.
Husband is going to a party at a friend’s house on a Halloween intensive block. I went the last time and it was interesting. But not up for crowds right now, or having to stand a lot, or eating way too much candy. So I’m staying home with the porch light off.
We have always done hand carved jack-o-lanterns, but didn’t get pumpkins this year. A few from prior years:
To celebrate cat, and son’s favorite video game character; he’d been Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles (last two hand made costumes):
I’ve always been in the Halloween is for kids mindset. I enjoy giving out candy and seeing their costumes and excitement. I include teens in the kid category and living in a college town I do enjoy seeing what the students come up with (yesterday I saw a hot dog riding an electric scooter). I’ve never been a fan of horror or adults dressing up or Halloween as an excuse for bad behavior. Our neighborhood went through some kids, no kids, and now some kids again. I bought too much candy I like (Reeses, Kit Kats) and it’s rainy today so we’ll see how much I end up eating myself, I mean bringing to work tomorrow to try to give to others. I’ll also enjoy my memories of when my 3 boys were younger and they would come home and spread all their candy on the table, group it by type and have an elaborate trading session. That was so much fun to watch.
For those who have leftover candy you don’t know what to do with, if you know a teacher check with them. S is a junior high teacher and uses our leftover candy for rewards/treats/incentives in the coming weeks. In fact, H knows that the day after a holiday like this, he is at Rite Aid or similar first thing in the morning to get candy at 75% off for son to use in his classroom!
This year we have someone who we will be trick-or-treating with us and we were inspired to do themed costumes this year (inspired by our doctor whose big family has done themes for years…Grease, Sound of Music, West Side Story, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers, Karate Kid, Harry Potter, etc). So our whole family (including the dog) will be trick-or-treating with some costume affiliated with Pokemon.
We live in a walkable neighborhood, but one street in particular is really known for trick-or-treating. When we first moved to the neighborhood they even had police there to help with traffic. It got so bad with tons of people coming (driving from other parts of town) that people would block driveways when parking their cars, walk through garden beds, leave trash on the sidewalks/yards, etc. I remember one year I filled a grocery bag filled with trash when doing trick-or-treating of just what I saw (it was the second year…I learned after the first year). Due to the issues, there have been fewer houses each year doing trick-or-treating, and now the crowds have also lessened (and the bad behavior improved). Even during the first year of Covid there were people figuring out how to do trick-or-treating, many with plastic tubing slides or inventive throwing devices for delivering candy. We’ll see what it’s like this year.
The house with the full-size candy bars is definitely a favorite that is remembered, year after year. Even though we only live about half a block from the super popular street, our street gets very few trick-or-treaters. Last year we were begging kids to take more full-sized Starburst with them, as it was the only group that came to the house.
This year I wore a costume to work (there were busloads of elementary kids who came to trick-or-treat) and I will obviously be trick-or-treating tonight, with some pretzel treats on the porch for anyone who comes by while we’re out.
