It depends, but we usually do. Sometimes our town has trick-or-treat night somewhat randomly, so we prepared starting yesterday. However, we’re going to have to do the “bowl on the porch” thing if it’s Saturday, because we won’t be home. I do hope kids show up when we’re home, though. It gives me an excuse to dress up the dogs.
I haven’t heard of it being prohibited in this building, but I don’t think it is done. I don’t even think many children live here.
And I won’t be home, anyway.
This year is the second Halloween in this house, and we were too busy last year to be getting up and down all night. I will be handing out treat bags. The bags will include one Halloween pencil, one self inking Halloween stamp, one cheap toy, and some candy. I got a big bag of pinata filling, which includes the cheap toys (like squirt guns and hopping frogs) and some cheap candy. I also have a backup bag of candy, in case we get more than 36 kids. I bought 36 bags, and filled them with the toys and pencils and candy.
Generally, I do try to give out toys as well as candies. One year I bought a lot of those cheap little shaped erasers, which apparently a lot of the kids loved.
Oh, and I only give out a couple of pieces of the very cheapest candy to the kids who should be in high school, unless they are escorting younger kids. They get some candy because I feel sort of blackmailed by them. I’d rather not have to clean off TP or eggs from my house and trees and cars.
Forgotten option–“no, why bother?” I’ve been home for a few Halloweens and never have seen a trick or treater. Then again, since I’m a single guy living in a studio apartment in an area with few families that’s a given. I do buy a couple of candy bars just in case.
Wait…so you’re going around “collecting” but aren’t going to hand anything out? Why not hand out candy after you escort your child or leave a bowl out with a sign to take one? I always did the latter and was impressed that there was candy left in the bowl each and every year.
As long as the older kids made an attempt at a costume, I love seeing them just as much.
We live in one of “those” neighborhoods too, not a suburb but one of the handful of walkable neighborhoods in the county. It was fun the first few years, but it’s really just turning into a drag. We buy for, at bare minimum, 300 kids and we always run out of candy before official ToT hours (5-8) are over. Most folks in the neighborhood run out, so anybody coming after, say, 7 is going to find slim pickings. Nobody wants to be the kid or the parent in that situation, so everybody tries to pack in as early as possible. We normally get 200 kids in the first hour or so. You wind up shoveling candy so fast you don’t even get to look at the costumes, much less actually talk to the kids.
Well, you do get to talk to the ones who argue with you about how much candy they should get. Some of them are quite rude about it.
Our condo complex doesn’t allow trick or treaters.
No. Our house is in the middle of no where. The few kids that are aware of our house are afraid of our dogs (a fear that we do nothing to correct). Plus we go out and party ourselves.
I don’t hand out candy because I like seeing the costumes. I don’t like kids, generally. I hand out candy because I went ToTing, and enjoyed it, and because I took my daughter ToTing. So I smile at the little kids, and comment favorably on their costumes, and I’m nice to them, because this is part of our society. If I had my druthers, I’d rather play video games all night, or watch a movie. But I do feel obligated, by my own sense of fairness, to try to pay back the enjoyment I got, and later that my daughter got.
And I don’t think that I’ve actually seen an older kid in costume, unless s/he was an escort for younger kids. The older kids that go ToTing by themselves usually don’t bother to do anything other than dress up in their grungiest clothes and grab the biggest pillowcase they can find. For them, it’s all about getting a big haul.
This is Not Done in our area. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the other families when you are out getting yours and not contributing. Obviously YMMV.
I spent a few Hallowe’ens as a teenager handing out candy at the houses of kids I babysat so their parents could accompany them.
Absolutely! My boyfriend and I both love halloween. Not for the kids (well, for me at least) but for the costumes and the candy and the season. We don’t have many kids in our neighborhood but it’s a safe place with not much traffic and most of our neighbors are fairly well off (we totally don’t fit in here) so a huge amount of families from the not as safe areas of town bring their kids here by the carload. They start out at the trunk-r-treat thing that the town does and then they come up here.
Last year was our first year here and I think we easily had over 100 kids during the designated 2 hours and nearly all the costumes were awesome.
Good for you. There is no way in hell I am hiring a babysitter for something this trivial, so I guess in my neighborhood it Certainly Well Is Done.
Yes, even though we get very few kids; I don’t want to be caught short. I take the leftovers to the office.
I always buy candy I hate (of the raisin, caramel and gummy families) so I won’t be tempted to eat any myself. Then my damn landlord buys all my favorites and leaves them in a bowl in the entryway . . .
You might be doing it, but what about other folks? When our daughter was young enough, I’d be traipsing around the neighborhood with her, while my husband stayed home to hand out the treats. And I saw plenty of places that had a bucket of candy and a sign saying “Please take one”.
I do think that if you’re gonna take your own kids around, you should provide stuff for other kids who come around to your place. You don’t have to hire someone, you can put out a bucket or ask someone to hand stuff out without paying him/her. Or go to a trunkortreat gathering, where you provide treats for others. But you shouldn’t expect for the transaction to be all one way in your favor. Fair is fair.
You might be doing it, but what about other folks? When our daughter was young enough, I’d be traipsing around the neighborhood with her, while my husband stayed home to hand out the treats. And I saw plenty of places that had a bucket of candy and a sign saying “Please take one”.
I do think that if you’re gonna take your own kids around, you should provide stuff for other kids who come around to your place. You don’t have to hire someone, you can put out a bucket or ask someone to hand stuff out without paying him/her. Or go to a trunkortreat gathering, where you provide treats for others. But you shouldn’t expect for the transaction to be all one way in your favor. Fair is fair.
I anticipate years, nay, decades, of giving out candy after my own kids are grown. I think the neighborhood kids will survive without one additional kit-kat bar for the few short years when my kids are young enough to need me to go out with them.
This is an excellent idea that I will certainly adopt after this year. I tend to take the leftovers to work where there are plenty of people who are young enough to not have to weigh the consequences of every mini Snickers, but adding an extra step to ensure that I don’t find myself sitting in a pile of chocolate wrappers at midnight on Halloween would help a lot.
Next year it’s all Nerds, Sweet Tarts, and Milky Ways!
Ain’t that the truth…
We mostly tend to live in areas with large yards, long driveways, and no sidewalks. In one of those neighborhoods, the association held a carnival at the community center. Residents were asked to contribute candy that was used as prizes for the various games. Kids showed up in costume, and I think there were also hayrides - it’s been a long time…
One year when we lived there, we took our daughter to a friend’s neighborhood where the houses were more densely packed. My husband stayed at the friend’s house giving out candy while we walked our girls around for a couple of hours. I’m pretty sure my daughter is a mutant, tho. She never really cared about the candy. Inevitably, around Easter, I’d find most of her Halloween haul all stuck together in a sack in the pantry. Weird kid…
Where we live now, the lots are 3-4 acres, and many houses aren’t even visible from the street. I don’t think there are that many kids living here because I hardly ever see any. I do recall the one year we did give out candy, one kid showed up being driven in his dad’s golf cart. And it’s not like he was a wee little lad - he was easily middle-school age. That just seemed wrong to me.