Halloween Cometh!
So where do you stand?
Do you hand out the goodies?
or turn out the lights and hide in the can?
(inquiring minds want to know …)
We’re abandoning the kids tonight and going to an adult halloween party for the first time since we had kids.
Since I bought a costume (monk) I’ll wear it while they trick-or-treat on Halloween.
I was thinking of carrying a wooden board and smacking myself on the head with it Monty Python style as I walk. “Ahweee-Ummm (smack)” step step “Aweee-Ummm (smack)”
A former coworker of mine did that in our company costume contest two years ago. There was an audible CRACK when he hit himself with the board. I’m surprised he didn’t end up with a fractured skull. 
I have two big bags of chocolate ready for the trick or treaters. I don’t know how many kids will be coming around, though. In the aftermath of Wilma there’s been a lot of confusion as to whether the county should have trick-or-treating tomorrow afternoon, Monday afternoon, or not at all (nighttime really isn’t an option this year because of all the debris lying around).
I’ll probably end up bringing most of the candy to work on Monday. The schools are still closed, so I’m hoping that employees will bring their kids to our costume party.
It’s Halloween time and we’re all in stitches
All the hobgoblins come out of their niches
And three times as fast as a black cat’s nose twitches
Dracula pulls on his vampyre britches
Here comes a coven of pointy-hat witches
In anticipation of chocolate riches.
The thirty-first day of October is nigh
A boatload of pirates led by Captain Bligh
Comes pillaging sugary plunder - oh my!
There’s no use in hiding from Bligh’s bloodshot eye
Your treats are all forfeit, cake, cookie and pie
Don’t think to escape him - believe me, don’t try.
A gaggle of ghosts, a carload of creeps
Rise up from the darkening Halloween deeps
You’re trapped in your house where nobody sleeps
Trying to ransom your life on the cheap
With dollar store candy but when Wolfman leaps
Those better not be last spring’s marshmallow peeps.
Windows are unsoaped, the front porch unslick
But you dare not decamp for fear of a trick
You’re stuck there, dispensing sweet goo on a stick
And other unspeakable offal to lick
Hoping the little marauders get sick
Or carelessly offer a backside to kick.
A blight on your wallet, a night to aggrieve
A pain in three places, this All-Hallow’s eve
Late as it is, you’re on the qui vive
Though troubled you are, you begin to conceive
A glimmer of light, a hope of reprieve
Ah yes! You still have one trick up your sleeve.
Run up the stairs overlooking your walk
Wait for the next batch of monsters to stalk
Up to your door seeking insulin shock
Ready the bucket of fine powdered chalk
Empty it quick and crow like a cock
As it covers those demons like Orson Welle’s smock.
Hear Frankenstein scream and hear Igor cry
Watch them turn 'round and see how they fly
Back where they came from not saying “goodbye!”
There’s still candy left - you saved your supply
You can eat it yourself unmolested thereby
Toast yourself, Scary - here’s mud in your eye!
This Halloween poem has gone on too long
To put six lines in every stanza is wrong
Thank goodness the poet must now run along
Lest the poem keep going like Chinese Ping-Pong
Refereed by the long-dead Mao Zedong
So Halloween cheer to this whole darn throng!
Looking back at my OP I just realized that I forgot something …
Wife & I have not participated in the “Halloween Thing” for more than 5 or 6 years now … but its not what you may think.
Nearest neighbor is 1/4 mile away. Nearest neighbor with kid of Trick or Treating age is more than 3/4 miles away. Number of children of Trick or Treating age in subdivision: less than 60 (221 occupied homes in the subdivision). Average distance between most homes 1100 feet. If the parents don’t take 'em around in the car to do the Trick or Treat thing, it just don’t happen.
We do keep some candy around “just in case” but we only had two children come 'round last year (our grandchildren) and it really isn’t worth getting too much into the whole affair.
Kinda miss it some years though … 
Nice to hear most you still participate 