# How big is Halloween in your neighborhood? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 20, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216 "2015-10-20T05:12:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2015, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/41 "2015-10-22T19:04:04Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Please tell me “come dressed as your fave Bible character!” was poetic license on your part, and the local churches don’t actually do _that_. > > But it would be fund to dress a kid up as Salome with John’s head on a platter, or the prostitute of Jericho who let Joshua in. > > (What do churches have against black magic and Satanism anyway?) Yeah, there are only about a dozen females, so that’s tough on the girls. And there aren’t biblical descriptions of most of the characters. How do you even dress up as “Noah”? Carry around a toy boat? Isaac? I dunno, tie yourself up? ---
**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 22, 2015, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/42 "2015-10-22T21:50:22Z")
We just moved to a neighborhood with a lot of kids, so we are very excited. Apparently they get hundreds of kids. Should be fun! I’m pretty sure all of the houses on our street have some kind of decoration. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/43 "2015-10-23T00:16:53Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Please tell me “come dressed as your fave Bible character!” was poetic license on your part, and the local churches don’t actually do _that_. > > But it would be fund to dress a kid up as Salome with John’s head on a platter, or the prostitute of Jericho who let Joshua in. > > (What do churches have against black magic and Satanism anyway?) Bible Belt ex-pat here. They do, and no one ever does anything that much fun. As a teenager, I offered to go to my younger brother’s church school “Fall Fair” dressed in the Bible character theme. I wanted to be Mary Magdalene before she met Jesus, “The Whore of Babylon”, or [Jael](https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Jael), but my mother nixed the ideas. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Yeah, there are only about a dozen females, so that’s tough on the girls. And there aren’t biblical descriptions of most of the characters. How do you even dress up as “Noah”? Carry around a toy boat? Isaac? I dunno, tie yourself up? Jacob and Esau would be great for a couple of twin brothers. They could essentially beat the hell out of each other and say they were in character. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/44 "2015-10-23T00:27:39Z")
In the neighborhood I’ve lived in for about a year, they have trick or treating the weekend before Halloween. I think the idea is to provide the Halloween experience for the kids within the neighborhood but avoiding the hordes of kids that are brought here on regular TorT night. “Regular” Halloween T&T night was dead, nobody had lights on, no knocks at the door. When I was a kid I lived here, people would bring carloads of kids here from all over the place. Candy is too expensive these days! I got caught unaware last year, had to tell the little tykes I didn’t have any treats because I was unaware H’ween got moved up a week. I didn’t get any “tricks” because the average age was about 4. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/45 "2015-10-23T00:54:22Z")
I live in a 200-unit condo complex and we get almost zero. It was not like that when I was a kid. Back then, my brothers and I would each take a pillow case and go to about 250 of the 500 houses in our neighborhood. We’d leave at dark and be out for almost 3 hours. We never X-rayed our candy - that was just unheard of. ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/46 "2015-10-23T13:45:06Z")
The decorating contest at my office is getting mental. Management has been ribbing each other about how \*\*\*their \*\*\*team is going to kick butt, so now there’s rivalry there. But it’s cool because we’re getting a nice infusion of cash from our bosses. :D:) ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/47 "2015-10-23T14:32:12Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > We always have a bowl of candy ready, but the last few years we’ve only gotten 5 or 10 kids. Here in the Bible Belt, churches have labored to co-opt Halloween in favor of their own “Fall Festivals” (“Come dressed as your fave Bible character!”) I live in the Bible belt and have maybe seen one time the “dress as a bible character” thing and even then it was just a contest and not a requirement so I wouldn’t say its a stereotype. Now we do push not doing any ghouls so very few devils, vampires, or Jason Vorhees. Star Wars and movie characters are popular as well as super heroes or historical figures like pirates. Also the funny things like a giant candy bar. A popular thing is for churches to have a tailgate event where people decorate their vehicles up and kids trick or treat those and do fun activities with them like maybe bring in a boat and let kids “fish” for candy. We did a Nerf gun shooting range for ours one year. Another couple had a VW 60’s van and dressed up as hippies. ---
**Author:** ![Doyle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doyle/32/439_2.png) [@Doyle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doyle)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/48 "2015-10-23T14:48:45Z")
1. Yes 2. 400-500 I live in a neighborhood where people (kids) come to go trick-or-treating. 3. Halloween is big in New Orleans 4. Several ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/49 "2015-10-23T15:50:06Z")
Not many trick-or-treaters but the neighborhood is seriously into lawn decorations for every holiday including Halloween. Seriously: there will be inflated turkeys and pilgrims on lawns when the spiders and witches and bats come down. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/50 "2015-10-23T16:47:31Z")
1. Do you participate? Yep 1. If so, how many kids do you get? About 500 every year 1. Is it big in your neighborhood? Very big. About 1/3rd of the houses seriously decorated. On the night itself pretty much every cul de sac (and we’re a neighborhood of culs de sac) has a fire pit set up with adults sitting around sharing beverages and handing out candy to the kids that come by. 1. Does anyone do a home “haunted house” or other big Halloween setup in your neighborhood? A few do haunted houses in their garage. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/51 "2015-10-23T17:51:52Z")
Wow, 500 pieces of candy to hand out! There must be a line to each house for that many kids. ---
**Author:** ![LegendHasit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/legendhasit/32/8246_2.png) [@LegendHasit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LegendHasit)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/52 "2015-10-23T22:26:26Z")
1. No 2. Yes 3. The across the street neighbor / car enthusiast / mechanic guy has been setting up a “car wreck” scene on his corner lot for the past few years. Complete with a real banged-up car and fake, damaged-up wounded passengers gaping out the broken windows. ---
**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:** [October 24, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/53 "2015-10-24T02:56:02Z")
Oops, forgot question 4. We had a deal at church for a few years. But that’s not really in my neighborhood. I always pictured haunted houses as being huge, and no one around her has a big house. The church used its gymnasium. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2015, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/54 "2015-10-24T03:16:12Z")
We don’t participate. We live in a one-story condo area that has no school age children living in it, but we’re close enough to some single-family homes that we usually get one person who rings the doorbell even though there’s no lights near the door. ---
**Author:** ![Idle\_Thoughts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@Idle\_Thoughts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Idle_Thoughts)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2015, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/55 "2015-10-24T23:31:06Z")
Our neighborhood is always very busy at Halloween. We get 100-150 kids easily. We live in a fairly big neighborhood and in the middle of it…lots of kids around here. Our next door neighbor actually does the haunted house thing a few years, as does a house a little ways up the street. The last three years, we’ve had at least 200 candy bars in a picnic cooler that was filled to the top (and we always buy and give out full size candy bars. Kids remember our house every year) and at the end of the night, it’s usually close to being empty. ---
**Author:** ![River\_Hippie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/river_hippie/32/26_2.png) [@River\_Hippie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/River_Hippie)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216/56 "2015-10-26T00:32:59Z")
Tonight was the HOA trick or treat night. Couldn’t have asked for a more Halloween-y night. Crystal clear skies, nearly full moon, beautiful fall colors, the smell of burning leaves in the air. Turnout was very low. I bought 30 bucks worth of candy to pass out, still have about half. The trick or treaters helped themselves to about a handful each. I just had a big bowl in the driveway and let them decide what to take. Polite, well mannered little buggers! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-big-is-halloween-in-your-neighborhood/735216.md?page=2)