So say you. All I know is, the wee ones don’t come to my door on Hallowe’en night because a) our community doesn’t do door-to-door and b) I live in a security building anyway. They do come into my store, so that’s my chance to ooh over the costumes, hand out the candy, and generally join in the spirit.
Why are so many people in this thread acting as if costumes, and observation of Hallowe’en in general, are going by the board? They’re not. Just the focus is changing. Can’t anyone handle change?
I’m a Halloweenie Meanie because I just can’t stand little kids. Don’t wanna talk to them, and certainly don’t wanna have to hand out candy and say how cool their costume is. So I either go out our hide in a dark apartment on Halloween.
Well poop on all of you meanies! I’m passing out candy, decorating my friend’s house, playing spooky music and wearing a costume. I love little kids in their cute littel costumes, especially the little princess or ballarine who ruins the whole thing by wearing a huge sweater, or the little boy dressed as a monster who cries because he’s scared to walk up the porch because of the spooky music.
Oh, okay, I finally got this (slaps forehead)–very clever! (My feeble defense is that I live a long way from England, and we’re really self-absorbed here, and I didn’t get much sleep last night and and and.)
I think we are. I don’t want to see house-to-house gone. I’m just saying that I can accept its being phased out. Society. Changes. I’m sorry I missed out on the days of teenagers hanging around soda fountains, but there was nothing I could do about that either.
Two years ago, A. and I were so excited about halloween. We carved pumpkins and bought a bunch of candy because our neighborhood has tons of kids, so we thought “yay! trick or treaters!”. Exactly two children came all night. I was so disappointed.
So, now, we don’t buy any candy, but we still carve pumpkins, cause that’s really fun for us.
Heh. I like to trot out that one-liner about old Guido. This year’s the quadricentennial, too.
There’s always a fine line with timing, for guying and for Christmas carol-singing. (No “fine line” with ToTing though; it’s Oct 31st or nothing.) I believe I’d give to kids with guys round about now, although Halloween sorta closes the window a little as you figure the little runts ought to get that over with first. The odd Halloween party isn’t that out of order - we had at least one back when I was a Cub Scout - but the tramping around begging for sweets is a new-ish import, maybe within the last couple of decades.
And as to the fireworks, it is indeed a pity. Time was the local Scouts could build a bonfire, there’d be a few fireworks let off, you could take some along to donate; I don’t know they can do it now. My village had a bonfire within the last couple of years - nothing this year. But the neighbouring village has a fire station and there’s a bonfire party there. I guess insurance isn’t too expensive when your nearest fireman is twenty yards away.
As I say though, it’s not all bad. When I was a nipper we used to have our own bonfire in the back garden and a small box of things that fizzed, made coloured flames, or let off funny-smelling smoke, along with tiny rockets that sometimes took off and Catherine wheels that seldom spun. It’s how things ought to be.
Chez Mal though, we have mostly saved it for New Year’s Eve, and last year we saw in 2005 with a rather tasty 125-shot battery that could probably have shot down low-flying aircraft. This year we’re aiming for something a little less restrained.
Some communities in the US insist that it should be on the closest Saturday, to avoid classrooms full of kids jacked up on sugar. No, this does not avoid confusion.
featherlou --sorry. It’s a charting abbreviation that I use too much, I suppose.
Noc=night.
Here are a few more, FYI (and I’m bored).
prn=as needed.
QD=every day (there is fiendish plot about from Joint Commission to abolish most of the abbrev. that health care personnel use. This is one they want gone. Interestingly enough, they also want MSO4 gone. That is the shorthand for morphine sulfate–a wonderful drug that I cannot recommend highly enough. They say it is confused with MgSO4–magnesium sulfate, another med entirely. The two don’t even have the same dosing, effect, frequency or even administration route, but these, alas, have also been abolished).
Oh, dear. OT!
Mal --I like the idea of the personal fireworks. So does my neighbor (unfortunately)–he sets off whatever, whenever. Bottle rockets are shot off on any given day (midnoc in February, for example). He was in Vietnam. I figure that explains alot. The bangs DO get old, after 15 years of random barrages…
Got Halloween candy, costumes almost done–let’s roll!
I live in a very rural area…so not expecting any trick or treaters. Thankfully, the small rural town I live outside of has a “Halloween Festival” every year, in which the close off a block downtown, around the City Hall, and all the local businesses and organizations set up games and contests for the kids. When we first moved here, that bothered me a little, but my little boy loved it so much, that I actually think I prefer it. He still gets a sackload of candy, he doesn’t have to trudge tiredly and whiningly through a neighborhood that I don’t know, and he has way more fun playing the games to earn his candy than simply ringing a doorbell.
I dont’ think there’s anything wrong with going to other neighborhoods, or even to malls. Like I said-some kids live in areas where door to door trick or treating isn’t feasible.
Nobody can find my house. The houses are all weirdly situated and the small roads are confusing. I don’t have enough candy for ahem myself, anyways. I live very close to the area’s biggest public high school, so a lot of teenagers also live here. Last year, some teens my age rang the bell and said, “Trick or treat!” in complete costumes and all. :dubious: I hope to avoid that this year and not answer the door at all.
My husband made an unsupervised trip to Wallyworld. :smack: “But honey, we just moved here! There are a lot of kids in this neighborhood! We want to make a good impression, right?”
We will need a couple hundred of the little beggars, or he’ll be eating leftover Twix for the next year.
Yeah, we always make sure we buy candy that WE like (even though we go out, there are always a few early birds that knock before we make a clean getaway.)
Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do, but I didn’t have a vote in the purchase. I’m not sure if he was using his “male logic” or his “engineer logic” – or none at all – when he decided that buying Twix was GOOD because neither of us like them.
Is giving the early birds (probably the littler kids) 2 or 3 or 4 pieces each a good idea, or will it just incite the later, older kids when we run out (if I’m lucky) early?
