# Ever Heard Of "Trunk Or Treat"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 30, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367 "2012-10-30T22:05:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/21 "2012-10-31T17:18:02Z")
The thing that bothers me about it is the idea that groups do this to protect kids from the dangers of Halloween. You know, to prevent them from getting poisoned candy and razor blades in their apples. No child has EVER been poisoned by a stranger on Halloween. > **[Poisoned Halloween Candy](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/halloween-non-poisonings/)** > > Police have never documented actual cases of people randomly distributing poisoned goodies to children on Halloween. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/22 "2012-10-31T17:31:25Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > We don’t have any kids, but we always pass out candy on Halloween. It’s part of living in a neighborhood. But leaving the house and going out in the cold to stand around looking at kids to whom I am not related? The only way I would do that is to give the dogs an outing, and so many parents are freaked out about dogs that they probably would give us the stink eye. CeltDog was the hit of our ToT. He was in his [Toothless](http://images.wikia.com/howtotrainyourdragon/images/4/4a/Toothless_the_Night_Fury.jpg) costume. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/23 "2012-10-31T17:42:32Z")
A local church usually has one. It seems most parents go there in conjunction with the usual trick-or-treating activities (the church is a block away from a residential neighborhood, so it’s easy to hit lots of blocks of houses after), or if their children are toddlers or too young to really appreciate a walk (even with candy). I think it’s a neato idea. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/24 "2012-10-31T17:50:53Z")
I’ve got an even better idea… ‘pump-or-treat’, where everybody can take their kids to a school gym, hook up feeding tubes, and forcibly fill their stomachs with M&Mss. I mean, seriously… the candy is the most unimportant and unhealthy thing about Halloween. Kids can get candy and junk food just about any damn day of the year if they want. Why are people trying to make sure Halloween is the sacred day when kids are given a pound of sugar instead of playing up the other fun & social parts of it? ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/25 "2012-10-31T17:56:57Z")
Tricks would be an issue. If you gave out bad candy, you might find it jammed up your tailpipe. ETA: By which I mean your car’s tailpipe, of course. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/26 "2012-10-31T18:54:43Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > The thing that bothers me about it is the idea that groups do this to protect kids from the dangers of Halloween. You know, to prevent them from getting poisoned candy and razor blades in their apples. Yeah man, groups never do this as a way to keep kids from having to trudge door-to-door, or be out in the dark, or see their non-neighborhood friends’ costumes. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/27 "2012-10-31T19:15:38Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > CeltDog was the hit of our ToT. He was in his [Toothless](http://images.wikia.com/howtotrainyourdragon/images/4/4a/Toothless_the_Night_Fury.jpg) costume. Last year a kid who came to our door to trick-or-treat asked me if he/she/it could have my dog instead of candy. I said NO. Then he asked “Maybe next year?” ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/28 "2012-10-31T20:11:01Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I’ve got an even better idea… ‘pump-or-treat’, where everybody can take their kids to a school gym, hook up feeding tubes, and forcibly fill their stomachs with M&Mss. > > I mean, seriously… the candy is the most unimportant and unhealthy thing about Halloween. Kids can get candy and junk food just about any damn day of the year if they want. Why are people trying to make sure Halloween is the sacred day when kids are given a pound of sugar instead of playing up the other fun & social parts of it? Lemme guess — you’re the type who gives out toothbrushes on Halloween? Yeesh, let the kids have their fucking candy. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/29 "2012-10-31T20:19:59Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > Last year a kid who came to our door to trick-or-treat asked me if he/she/it could have my dog instead of candy. I said NO. Then he asked “Maybe next year?” 😃 Last year I had an adorable little Christmas Tree try to move in with me. It was enthralled with the fire in my huge stone fireplace and with my dogs. (I never did figure out if it was a boy or girl but its lights really did light up and blink!) I’m not a huge fan of kids but I love Halloween and the kids are always so cute and so polite. If they were like that the rest of the year, I’d probably like them more. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/30 "2012-10-31T20:20:25Z")
Count me in the “downfall of America” category. If this is a supplementary celebration, I guess it may be okay, although I would think a more traditional kids party with toilet paper mummies and bobbing for apples would be more fun, less sugar soaked, and provide more of a shared experience. But if this is instead of trick-or-treat, it’s basically the end of everything pure and good. It’s taking down one of the last bastions of public space, where we interact with people of different ages, backgrounds, political views, religions and points of view. Rather than being a shared experience by varied people tied together by geography, it becomes a private experience shared by people tied together by membership in a group, separate from geography. It’s putting us once again into silos, where all we ever see is what we are familiar with, and the only input we get is the input we’ve asked for. And this is bad. It’s bad for neighborhoods, because creating inclusive neighborhoods is the best way to prevent crime, and stratifying them is the best way to encourage crime (why care about a neighborhood that doesn’t seem to care about you?). It’s bad for people, because it hems in our life experience and shortens our horizons. It’s just bad. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/31 "2012-10-31T20:37:08Z")
I think what people are saying, **sven** , is that often when it’s in place of Trick or Treat, it’s done in areas that aren’t ideal for trick or treat, where kids don’t have a neighborhood where you CAN go trick or treating. If you live in a very rural area, or one that’s really super small and there are only a couple of houses. I was lucky that I could go to my cousins’ when I was a kid, as my “neighborhood” wasn’t a good place to trick or treat. (Not everyone lives in a neighborhood) If it’s for “safety reasons”, because people don’t trust others not to give poison candy or whatever then yeah, I agree. But sometimes it’s for practical reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/32 "2012-10-31T20:54:55Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Yeah man, groups never do this as a way to keep kids from having to trudge door-to-door, or be out in the dark, or see their non-neighborhood friends’ costumes. But trudging door to door and being out in the dark is the POINT of Halloween. In other words, it’s a feature, not a bug! ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/33 "2012-10-31T21:10:11Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > The worst part of Trunk or Treat is that the name is just stupid… > > trick or treat is so named because if you don’t give them treats, you’re going to get tricked (vandalized). > > So what does this name mean? The kids are going to trunk you if you don’t give them treats? Or, do you have the option to stuff the kids in your trunk? > > Bad puns are the real travesty here. This is similar to my rant about a church near me, which is attempting to insert God into a Godless, heathen, satanic holiday. They are having a Nice Celebration they are calling \ “Hallow Him.” Now, unless I am mistaken, “hallow” means “holy.” Halloween _literally_ means the eve of a holy day, All Saint’s Day the next day. “Halloween” ALREADY references a holy thing, a holy day devoted to the veneration of saints. It doesn’t NEED a new holy thing stamped on it! Grr. Anyway, I think it’s basically a trunk or treat type deal, run by Baptists. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/34 "2012-11-04T13:09:29Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Count me in the “downfall of America” category. > > If this is a supplementary celebration, I guess it may be okay, although I would think a more traditional kids party with toilet paper mummies and bobbing for apples would be more fun, less sugar soaked, and provide more of a shared experience. > > But if this is instead of trick-or-treat, it’s basically the end of everything pure and good. It’s taking down one of the last bastions of public space, where we interact with people of different ages, backgrounds, political views, religions and points of view. Rather than being a shared experience by varied people tied together by geography, it becomes a private experience shared by people tied together by membership in a group, separate from geography. It’s putting us once again into silos, where all we ever see is what we are familiar with, and the only input we get is the input we’ve asked for. > > And this is bad. It’s bad for neighborhoods, because creating inclusive neighborhoods is the best way to prevent crime, and stratifying them is the best way to encourage crime (why care about a neighborhood that doesn’t seem to care about you?). It’s bad for people, because it hems in our life experience and shortens our horizons. It’s just bad. How in the world do you think that going to other people houses for candy exposes them to anything? The interaction is that I go to the house, ring the doorbell, and say trick or treat. They say something nice about my costume while giving me candy. I leave, they close the door. I did Halloween in several ways as a kid, and trick-or-treating is by far the least fun. Sure, in Hollywood you see these kids with bags and bags of candy who go to like 100s of houses. In real life, you travel up and down a few streets and barely get a few handfuls of candy. It gets dark way too fast to go very far. Trunk or treat is a lot more fun, and really is a lot more active. It’s not just places giving out candy. It’s also games and contests and sometimes even a show or two. I almost would call it a Halloween carnival. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/35 "2012-11-04T15:11:51Z")
A trunk or treat makes for a very handy annual community child exchange, for there is a lot of selection. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/36 "2012-11-04T18:44:18Z")
I enjoyed the one we went to last year. There was free food and activities other than the trunk or treat. I even won some cupcakes in a cake walk. We didn’t go this year but I wish we could have. Trick-or-treating is okay I guess, but I have to drive a ways to get to a neighborhood I feel safe in. Mine is definitely NOT. My brother’s is good, but so dark out in the country with fewer homes. It’s sad that you have to consider how dangerous it would be for your child to walk around in the neighborhood after dark, but it’s reality. ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/37 "2012-11-04T19:14:12Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > How in the world do you think that going to other people houses for candy exposes them to anything? The interaction is that I go to the house, ring the doorbell, and say trick or treat. They say something nice about my costume while giving me candy. I leave, they close the door. > > I did Halloween in several ways as a kid, and trick-or-treating is by far the least fun. Sure, in Hollywood you see these kids with bags and bags of candy who go to like 100s of houses. In real life, you travel up and down a few streets and barely get a few handfuls of candy. It gets dark way too fast to go very far. > > Trunk or treat is a lot more fun, and really is a lot more active. It’s not just places giving out candy. It’s also games and contests and sometimes even a show or two. I almost would call it a Halloween carnival. It’s interesting to see this point of view. I’m uphill-in-the-snow-both-ways-old, and ranged far and wide in my Long Island town on Halloween night. My parents probably were not careful enough about me. I roamed well after dark, that Halloween magic (not to mention the candy) had me venturing all over town, and nothing untoward ever happened. I _loved_ the trek, the treats, as well as the brief interaction. > [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > I enjoyed the one we went to last year. There was free food and activities other than the trunk or treat. I even won some cupcakes in a cake walk. We didn’t go this year but I wish we could have. Trick-or-treating is okay I guess, but I have to drive a ways to get to a neighborhood I feel safe in. Mine is definitely NOT. My brother’s is good, but so dark out in the country with fewer homes. It’s sad that you have to consider how dangerous it would be for your child to walk around in the neighborhood after dark, but it’s reality. Yes, people drove _to_ our Denver neighborhood as well as the north Florida neighborhood I now live in, and we welcomed them with plenty of candy. I guess everyone does what they have to do given their circumstances. Trunk or treat has become very popular here. I think it’s fine for the very little ones but kind of sad for bigger kids to never experience the original trick or treat. We had literally _one_ group of teenage trick-or-treaters this year, and they were collecting for Unicef. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/38 "2012-11-05T15:54:34Z")
My childhood experience is also vastly different from **BigT** ’s. Our goal was to hit every residential street in town, literally. It was a small town, yes, but a lot of ground to cover when you’re 11. If you hustled you could make it, coming home to dump your bag least once. This would have been mid-1970s, yes I’m nearly 50, but I’ve never been anywhere near Hollywood and being out after dark roaming all over creation was half the point. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/39 "2012-11-05T16:52:17Z")
I don’t know where you guys are getting onlya couple handfuls of candy. Celtling was pretty tired this year, and only did the main drag of the neighborhood plus our cul-de-sac. She had to dump her little plastic pumkin into my emergency back-up tote bag three times!\* \*All those of you pumping up ahead of steam - she’s only five, and not going out alone. Deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/40 "2012-11-05T17:22:39Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I don’t know where you guys are getting onlya couple handfuls of candy. Same here. We got a metric assload of candy when I was a kid in the 80s trick-or-treating, and we covered an area of a quarter mile by a quarter mile. Now, in my Chicago neighborhood, that’s around 200 houses. It seems to me that today, though, there are a lot fewer houses offering candy on Halloween. It could be the rose-tinted glasses of memory, but I swear it felt like of those 200 houses, 100 of them had candy. This Halloween, I looked on my block, and I’d be surprised if more than 20% of the block (of about 40 houses) were handing out candy. When I got out on my stoop with a bag of candy, kids would literally come running from across the street or six houses down to get it. (Oh, detail I missed: I moved back to the same neighborhood I grew up in, and bought my parents’ house.) We wouldn’t do this as kids, because there were plenty of houses in between to hit, and we’d get around to that house. Also, the amount of kids trick-or-treating seems a lot lower. It was better this year than the last few, but two or three years ago, I had maybe 5 visitors. A typical Halloween for me growing up was at least 50 separarte parties. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367.md?page=3)