I’m not giving out candy this year. Our lights will be off and we won’t be decorating the yard or answering the door. We’ve been trying to watch what we eat, and the last thing we need in this house is candy. Plus the dog goes crazy every time someone comes to the door. I just don’t want to deal with it.
Last year, I had a few decorations and a big bowl of candy. We had maybe 2 dozen kids show up. A couple of them were driven in golf carts. Somehow, that seems like cheating. Maybe I’m turning into an old grouch.
Surely, I’m not the only one - Halloweenie Meanies, stand and be counted!
Frankly, I can understand your feelings perfectly. I wish I could get away with it, but our friends still have kids young enough to trick or treat, so we’ll be handing candy.
I did not, however, decorate. So I guess that makes me a Half-Halloween-Meanie.
Year before last, we had 250 trick or treaters before we ran out of candy by 7 pm – in a town with a total population of about 300! I said never again.
We’ve moved to a different town, but I’m standing by my resolution again this year.
Unfortunately, I live in an apartment complex that has lights outside of each apartment that automatically turn on at dusk, so I can’t turn it off. On the plus side, apartment complexes are pretty convenient for not getting many trick or treaters.
Last year at this time I was renting a house, and despite having the outside light turned off, and all the lights in the house off, I still got a couple of knocks. Some teenage girls saw me through the window in the door at one point and started cussing at me to give them candy. I gave them a bird and a smile instead.
I love this time of year, and I love Halloween, but I hate trick or treaters.
Last year was my first Halloween in my new house. I got plenty of trick-or-treaters, but at least 80 percent of them didn’t even make an attempt at a costume. This year, the light stays out and I’ll probably find somewhere out and about to spend the evening.
I’m posting in an effort to get you guys to change your minds. C’mon, don’t you have happy memories of your “trick or treat” days??? How did you feel as a little kid at the door of the “meanie” in your past? think back! Remember???
You can stick to your diet with candy in the house, just as you would when grocery shopping, or in a restaurant. You have self control! Take any leftovers to work.
Only half a meanie here. (Does that make me a weanie?) We always had tons of decorations in the past when our kids were younger. None this year. I did, however, buy candy as our neighborhood is the one that the kids get trucked into for the “good stuff.” That said, the light will be off by seven as that’s usually when the little kids IN COSTUME are done. The older kids don’t seem to make any effort so EFF them. (Hope my house doesn’t get egged) :eek:
Never the less, you should be prepared. Get those Charlie Brown rocks and six year old cans of skunked beer rounded up. You know, for the persistant ones.
I stopped giving candy long ago. It was when the kids started showing up and were old enough to have peach fuzz and didn’t bother to even dress up. It was when the mothers started bussing the kids in from other neighborhoods in large vehicles. Yep, I am a halloween grinch. I now go to a bar on trick-or-treat night.
Growing up we went ONLY to the neighborhood houses and we only went as far as we could walk ourselves.
I’m bummed out that kids don’t trick or treat through our neighborhood. They have a party at the community center instead.
But I’m planning to be a Halloweenie meanie by boycotting Halloween parties. I have two invitations, both for “themed” parties. It’s been the week from hell, and I have no energy for shopping for costumes, much less going out into public and attempting to behave in a festive manner. :mad:
Yeah - same with us. If we couldn’t walk there and get home by curfew, we were out of luck. I guess that’s why the golf carts and the trucks full of kids rub me the wrong way. Plus with Halloween being a work night and me having to get up at 4:45, I’m definitely not interested in sitting up and dispensing candy.
Living near a boundry in cities can be bad too. Some years you had to contend with people showing up on three different nights. The different neighborhoods picking different days to allow Trick or Treating.
I’m not doing candy this year, but mostly out of principle. None of the little rascals knows why they’re begging for candy, they just are. For me that’s as sacreligious as a Christian thinking Christmas is all about a fat guy and reindeer, and that Easter is about rabbits & eggs.
Back to basics, folks. It’s the night to celebrate those who died during the course of the year, to rekindle the flames of the home hearth, to gather and reaffirm unity & fellowship & community. In short, to eschew evil and in all of its manifestations.
Some kids live in neighborhoods where there’s no place to go trick or treating. When I was little, we lived in an apartment that was part of an old estate, and there weren’t that many places within walking distance to justify trick or treating, and the ones that were were too far apart-a small child would be too tired after maybe six or seven houses.
So my parents took me to my cousin’s, who lived in a huge plan. And not only was this a much bigger place to go trick or treating, I got to go with my cousins and had a great time. What’s wrong with that?
But I’m with those on the teenagers who don’t dress up. Dammit, at least put some goofy make up on. Make an effort, goddammit.
Why do you tell your children “Don’t take candy from strangers” and then let them go out and take candy from strangers? And when hospitals are offering to x-ray the collected candy. . . why are we doing this? I did not let my kids trick-or-treat. I had a candy hunt for them in the house. I made up 20 or so riddles for places in the house and back yard where I hid candy. We turned all the lights off in the house and they had to use flashlights or glow sticks. I handed them the first clue and they had to figure it out and go there to get some of the candy and the next clue.
Nothing. I guess. But no offense, yours seems like a special case and I’m not convinced that there are *that *many people living in an old estate. Certainly not such that we should get as *many *cars coming into our neighbor as we do, with children I don’t know and have never seen before.
I don’t know if I qualify - I love Halloween, I love your idea about back to basics, Inigo, I like decorating the house and carving a pumpkin, we’re dressing up and going to a Halloween party on Saturday that I’ve made a casket for (for the “dirt” pudding), but we make a point of going out for dinner and a movie on Halloween night instead of handing out candy to trick-or-treaters (especially the un-costumed teenyagers).
