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Do you participate?
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If so, how many kids do you get?
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Is it big in your neighborhood?
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Does anyone do a home “haunted house” or other big Halloween setup in your neighborhood?
- No.
- Even when I did offer candy, maybe two or three kids showed up. Considering I’m a single guy in an apartment that’s not shocking.
- No. Way too few people with kids in my neighborhood.
- Only if you count putting up a ghost and some cobwebs “big”.
We’ve gotten candy before, but no one came. I guess it’s conceivable that the new kids across the street may come by, but I get the feeling their parents will take them somewhere else for Halloween.
I know that, when I was a kid, we never trick-or-treated around here. There just aren’t that many houses and a fairly long walk between streets.
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No. I don’t even know what day Beggars Night is this year. I’d guess the 29th since I think the current kick is to have it on a Thursday.
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Not on my street, but farther back in the subdivision I usually see quite a few kids.
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No.
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No. I dress my daughter up and take her to local community parties, but no door-to-door guising, and I don’t offer out sweets at my door.
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None even try.
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Nope.
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Nope.
We live on the end of a street so we rarely get many. Now up the street, they get alot.
When the kids were little I’d take them around and their were gobs of kids. Frankly I didnt know our neighborhood had so many kids! In maybe 10 houses or less they would have a sackload of candy. (and remember, the house gets 10%)
There is one house that really does up the Halloween decorations and they set up the garage as a haunted house plus some neighbors have some sort of animated skeleton or ghoul that pops up and scares the kids.
We buy a box or two of candy bars or chips and send our daughter (10yo) out and about in the neighbourhood. I always make sure I save the chocolate bars that I like to give out last. That way I can have any leftovers and don’t have to raid my daughter’s haul (as much).
We usually get between 50-60 kids over the course of 3 hours or so.
No big haunted houses or anything in our neighbourhood but there are 3 or 4 houses that have a few big decorations in the yard.
Non-existent.
Commercial interests are really trying to push Hallowe’en in Australia and some people claim to like it but the decorations/lollies available in the shops are all very tacky looking and I don’t think it’s really taking off.
- Yes
- 3 or less
- No
- A few decorations on the lawn, that’s it.
- Yes, I carve a pumpkin and buy some candy.
- It varies, perhaps 5-15
- Yes. We are on top of a hill, and don’t get as many kids as our neighbors. But I need to be very careful driving home from work that day.
- No haunted houses in my neighborhood, but several neighbors have large and/or showy decorations. A handful of giant spiders have taken up residence along my commute, along with a lot of webbing, some other inflated creatures, some orange “christmas-tree lights”, and a few tombstones, skeletons, etc.
Halloween is a fairly big deal here (North Texas) out in the suburbs. We have lots of young families with lots of kids, and the weather is usually still very nice in late October to boot.
Leaving the porch lights “on” during the trick-or-treat hours (from sunset til 9:00 or so) is the indicator that you’ve got candy to give out, and I’d say that about 1/3 of the houses in the area turn on their lights. I’d say we probably get 20 doorbell rings per year and maybe around 50 kids total. But houses on the major thoroughfare a few streets down probably get 5x that many, the streets actually get crowded for a little while with people milling around.
I’ve never actually seen anyone do a proper “haunted house” with a walk-through, in this neighborhood at least, which I think is what OP is asking about. Although one time when I was a little kid (~1980s) one of the neighbors that had a lot of teenagers did something that would probably qualify - they’d lead a short tour from the front door to the side garden door (maybe 20 feet through their house) complete with scary noises and a couple of horror scenes to admire.
The farthest I’ve seen anyone go in this neighborhood was a pretty elaborate setup in the front yard with loud music and a movie projector showing “Thriller” on the side of the house, lots of inflatables and a cauldron spewing smoke bubbles.
It’s become somewhat trendy the last few years for houses to offer a “grownup treat” (i.e. a shot glass with an alcoholic pumpkin or candy-corn flavored shot) to the parents alongside the candy for the kids. Wouldn’t say it was very widespread, but I see it occasionally, and I don’t remember anything like that from when I was a kid, so I think it’s a recent development.
It’s huge in our neighborhood.
Maybe because a lot of parents are college profs or entrepeneurs, we’ll get thirty or more elaborately-hand-made costumes (from Elphabahs to Ewoks to Elsas, and a Tom Baker Doctor Who, or two).
Kids’ll be carrying pillowcases three-quarters-full of sweet loot.
And some houses will basically have a haunted front porch where the kids, to get their treats, have to walk past the half-dissected corpse (that suddenly opens one eye and laughs just like Mr. Jablonski from up the block…).
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Yes, we participate. I have a 4 year old and a 1.5 year old- how could I NOT participate?
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At the festival? Probably 75-100. Other trick-or-treaters- probably another 20 or so apartment kids, and another 15-20 obnoxious apartment teenagers who basically wander around trying to mooch candy even though they don’t even have costumes.
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Yes. Very big.
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The neighborhood association usually walls off a cul-de-sac and sets up all sorts of things- a bounce house, a bunch of silly little bean-bag/ring-toss type games, a face-painting booth, a food table with hot dogs, chips and drinks, and last year, a balloon artist. Entrance fee is a package of hot dogs and buns and a bag of candy per child. I don’t know exactly how they regulate entrance- I think it’s more one of those “if you hear about it, you’re invited” kind of things.
I kind of struggle with it; since our neighborhood is flanked on two sides by mostly black, low-income apartments, the majority of children (and obnoxious teenagers) from there come and wander our neighborhood for hours- from about 6 to after 9- I actually chewed some teenagers out for ringing my doorbell at 9:30 one year, when my porch lights were off. And I got attitude back for it, which really pissed me off- who the f**k talks back and threatens when they’re getting their ass chewed for ringing someone’s doorbell at 9:30 pm with the lights off, not wearing costumes and begging for candy?
I have a feeling that the neighborhood carnival is a response to that- the neighborhood people mostly just turn the lights off and go to the carnival. On one hand, there’s nothing inherently racist about having a neighborhood Halloween carnival, but on the other hand, I have a feeling that was the genesis of the idea of having the carnival- people didn’t want their kids wandering the neighborhood when there were also a bunch of low-income black people wandering around too. Ultimately though, it means that there are a lot of kids wandering our neighborhood without nearly so many people giving out candy as there otherwise would be.
And I feel for the apartment kids- their apartments clearly suck, or else they’d go trick-or-treating there, but at the same time, I don’t really feel an obligation to provide hot dogs, buns and candy for my children’s and neighbors’ Halloween carnival, AND to go home and provide more candy and time for kids who don’t even live in my neighborhood.
I usually split the difference by having the lights on from about 5:30 to about 7, and give out candy to the little kids who come by, wherever they’re from, and then when we go to the carnival, the lights go off (we’re not even there), and they don’t come back on, since it’s like 8:45 by that point.
We moved last December, and most people in this neighborhood are older, so I’m not sure what it will be like. In my old neighborhood, though, I had candy, and a pumpkin, and some lights, but I didn’t go all-out like my neighbors with music, smoke machines, and inflatables.
I probably had 100 or so kids depending on the weather. Minivans would pull up and it would be like a clown car. The doors would open and kids would stream out.
In my neighbourhood probably 3/4 houses participate (lights on means candy!); there are quite a few small kids.
Most people have at least a pumpkin or jack o’ lantern, many have decorations as well. My husband sets up his projector and we play a movie onto a sheet set up in the car door of the garage (it was Monsters Inc. the first year, and there has been a lot of Harry Potter. Also the Munsters tv episodes, but that didn’t go over nearly as well…). It’s hilarious to watch people actually turn around and look back into the street to see where the movie is coming from.
There is also a residence for an international high school not far from us, so we get lots of international kids who have never seen Hallowe’en before. I have no problem giving the bigger kids candy if they’ve clearly made some kind of effort. We’re also not far from a twin pad arena, so we get quite a few “hockey player” costumes if there is a game or tournament that night.
There are probably 100 trick or treaters over a few hours. It used to be way more than that but a lot of parents are opting for something else these days.
Not very big, as most of the stores on our main street and in the mall offer stuff.
I do not participate. Children going door to door begging for sugar violates a bunch of my personal beliefs, including the mass corruption of the pagan holiday of Samhain.
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No.
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Never got one. I wouldn’t know what to do if I got one.
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It is big in any store selling party supplies. It is also big in some PTAs, with some teachers being in favor of having one Halloween-themed day of some kind and parents generally being against.
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Nope.
Parent of a 9-year-old and an 11-year-old so heck yeah, we participate.
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About 50?
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Getting bigger, when we first started taking the kids trick-or-treating the neighborhood was very quiet but in recent years a lot more families have moved in. The hot place to go trick-or-treating is two neighborhoods over from us. There, people get hundreds of trick-or-treaters.
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There are a few houses with good setups outside. There is a house that always has a panther and a cheetah cut from plywood and hand-painted. Each is about 3’ high by 6’ long and very impressive. One year someone put two 8’ tall hand-made grim reapers on their front lawn. They were cool.
When I first moved here I was thinking I would be getting a lot of kids so I went so and brought a lot of candy. My daughter went out with some friends .
I stayed home and not one kid came to my condo ! The next day my daughter found out at school kids were not allowed to come here. I was like WTF! So I had my daughter bring all the candy to school . Halloween it nothing like when I was kid , we went out when it got dark out. Now the towns or cities set the hours and if Halloween fall on a Friday it’s moved to Thursday.
Huge. We live next door to a house that goes all out, has a ‘haunted house’ (they hang sheets up in their 9-month screened porch so it’s like a scary ‘house’), and gets in those tiny hyper-local papers from time to time for their decorations. People drive to our neighborhood to trick-or-treat here.
So
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Yes.
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I don’t count - 9 or ten bags’ worth of candy.
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Yes.
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Yes, as above.