# 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:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [November 6, 2012, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/41 "2012-11-06T08:15:33Z")
Yeah, we used to use pillow cases, and we often brought back up bags. I had a plastic pumpkin one year, but it filled up really quick. (I had a bag for back up) Plus this one guy at the end of my aunt’s street would do up his garage like a dungeon, and everything. It was so freaking cool. ---
**Author:** ![Feyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/fbc32d/32.png) [@Feyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Feyrat)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/42 "2012-11-06T08:56:13Z")
The Christians in my area tend to use it as a way to re-direct the holiday away from it’s pagan roots and make it more churchy. Also avoiding the STRANGER DANGER of going door to door. Me, I’d never take my kid to one. Door to door is the whole dang 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 6, 2012, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/43 "2012-11-06T12:07:42Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > 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. This is true. No one in my neighborhood growing up would have dared to not give out candy. . . we took the “or” part of that pretty seriously. But it’s also true that there was a strict rule: one piece of candy per child. Nowadays each house that does give candy encourages her to take three or four. Nice story: One elderly gentleman cut down all his mums on Sunday so the storm wouldn’t wreck them. He made bouquets and handed them out to all the Moms who came around with their kids. Awwwwwww! ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/44 "2012-11-06T18:27:46Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > It’s usually done in areas where they don’t have ideal neighborhoods for trick or treating. (Which was the case when I was a kid). Fortunately I used to go with my cousins. > > I don’t see why that’s such a big deal – it seems like a good idea, in fact. While this may be true, it’s been my experience that trunk or treating was an answer to a problem that has never really proven to exist. Namely the Safety of the candy you get from trick or treating. Which has by-and-large been proven to be mostly media hype that won’t quit. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/45 "2012-11-06T19:25:41Z")
> [@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. That’s a ridiculously pretentious statement. Our trunk or treat is sponsored by the town and open to everyone. It was in the local newspaper and no one was turned away. Most trick or treating is also done in people’s neighborhoods. Do you really think my nine year old has some sort of civil discourse with the guy handing her a lollipop? :dubious: My kids went to trunk or treat this year because Sandy was heading our way and we were afraid Halloween would be cancelled. My youngest girl won for third best _boy’s_ costume so we even got something to tease her about for years. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/46 "2012-11-06T20:51:38Z")
Well, you know, **Lavender** , the only people who would participate in such a “trunk or treat” are obviously WASPy soccer moms and helicopter parents who would never even think of letting their precious snowflake out in an “urban” area where they might get infected by the poor or the black. :rolleyes: In any case, **sven** ’s statement is nowhere near true for my neighborhood - we’re very demographically mixed and like I said, participants usually hit it in combination with hitting a bunch of the houses in the residential neighborhood. If anything, it’s uber-American - another way to get more candy and maximize effort output! I totally took my nieces a couple of years ago (again, in combination with the traditional trick or treating) and they loved it. ---
**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 9, 2012, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/47 "2012-11-09T10:01:44Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > While this may be true, it’s been my experience that trunk or treating was an answer to a problem that has never really proven to exist. Namely the Safety of the candy you get from trick or treating. Which has by-and-large been proven to be mostly media hype that won’t quit. Huh. I never remember that being nearly as big a deal as the safety issue of kids being out after dark, especially with all the cars out. Parents were already requiring there to be an adult with their kid, just in case. Some parents even would drive around, watching their kid from a distance. No one wanted to be that parent, the one whose kid got hit on Halloween (something that happened at least a couple years.) The other issue that was played up was the pagan roots of the holiday. A lot of trunk-or-treats were church sponsored and didn’t allow “demonic” costumes, and didn’t play up the scary part of the holiday at all. Personally, while the prohibition on ghosts and witches bugged me, I didn’t mind the lack of the macabre or trying to scare people. I’ve never been a haunted house or scary movie fan, and I only like the silly macabre. ---
**Author:** ![lost4life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c4cdca/32.png) [@lost4life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lost4life)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367/48 "2012-11-09T13:55:26Z")
The schools around us held them, mostly as a school event and not to replace actual trick or treating. It gave parents of very small kids a nice option, and also provided some fun for the ones in rural areas. The people handing out the candy had the best costumes and really got in the “spirit” (some even had fog machines and such). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ever-heard-of-trunk-or-treat/639367.md?page=2)