How did Hallowe'en in the time of Covid go for you?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, how did other Dopers handle Hallowe’en?

The Cub was content to have me go out and buy his favourite treats and watch the Mandalorians, Season 2, Episode 1, on tv.

Originally we weren’t going to do any candy distributing, but at 2 pm Mrs Piper said, “Heck, we’ve got to do something! It’s Hallowe’en!”

So I went out to Shoppers Drugs and bought three bags of candy: DubbleBubble, a bag of Tootsie rolls, and a mixed bag of miscellaneous Hallowe’en candy.

Got home and Mrs Piper said, “is that the best you were able to do? No chocolate bars?”

I explained that shopping for Hallowe’en candy at 3 pm on October 31 is a bit tricky, and she accepted that point.

But, she’d been thinking how to do it. She got a lot of little baggies, put on a pair of latex gloves, and used kitchen tongs to handle all the candy, filling the baggies. Probably about 50 baggies.

She put them on the steps of our front porch, spread out. I set out the blow-up illuminated silver winged dragon on the front lawn (wings actually flap), and plugged in a plastic stack of illuminated pumpkins at the side of the steps.

Then Mrs P produced a roll of toilet paper and we used that to tie across the top of the porch steps, to discourage people from ringing the doorbell.

Turned on the outside lights, turned off the inside lights, and just let little trick-or-treaters come and pick up their bags of candy.

We only had one determined person who actually rang the doorbell; we just ignored it.

When we ran out of candy, I unplugged the dragon and the pumpkin stack, turned off the outside lights, and done! Safe distribution of Hallowe’en candy in covid-time.

2

We went to a family Halloween party with 3 other families who have kids in the same classes as our daughters. Everyone wore masks including the kids (except when eating candy) and they ran around screaming and playing for 3 hours. I doubt any of them noticed they missed out on trick or treating.

3

No one this year. But that’s pretty typical. We’re in a condo development with no native children to my knowledge, though you really can only tell it’s condos by how there’s two driveways into every building and how all the buildings look exactly the same. Every once in a while we get some people walking over from the single family development just down the street. Not most years though.

4

I hadn’t planned on doing anything, and I knew I’d be out Saturday afternoon, and possibly into the evening, so I had nothing. As it was, I got back home about 6:30 PM, and didn’t turn on the front porch light. I don’t know if anybody came before then, but certainly, nobody came after.

5

We normally get a lot of kids and there’s a lot of noise, as excited kids run up the sidewalks.

This year, very quiet outside.

6

We were 30 miles from home for most of it. We drove home via Ashton Heights where there were plenty of trick-or-treaters but we didn’t see any otherwise. The young couple who have the ground-level condo in our building weren’t even out on their patio.

7

One thing that did make me smile when I was out, was being passed by three motorcyclists on very loud bikes–think Harleys. Each one was in costume: a bear, a tiger, and another animal of some kind. Their costumes had hoods that could accommodate their helmets.

They pulled up next to me at a red light. Vroom, vroom, vroom. I looked, and laughed, and gave them the thumbs-up, which I got in return. Loud, but fun.

8

Surely a lion!

“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
Lions and tigers and bears!”

9

We dressed up Spice Kit as an adorable skeleton and took him into the backyard for some family photos. We got about ten good shots, including some of the two of us which I feel really good about. It’s the first time I have a photo with my son that I like. It’s the most effort I’ve put into Halloween in years and it was so much fun.

10

My block had a permit to close down the street for a couple hours this afternoon for a socially-distanced, masked costume street party for the kids - there are a lot of kids on the block, and the weather was beautiful. After that, kids came around trick-or-treating. A lot of neighbors had outdoor candy stands by the sidewalk. I took most of the books out of my Little Free Library and filled it with candy, and put up a picture of a trick-or-treat pumpkin candy bucket. I have a cat skeleton on a leash tied to the Little Free Library post, as that’s usually where my real cat hangs out in the daytime waiting for passersby to pet her. Hopefully there won’t be any candy left in the morning. With as many homeless people there are around here, I’m hoping they’ll raid what’s left overnight.

11

I devised a cardboard chute out of some long thin boxes we had at work. Even with the slope, it was 9’ from me to the business end. Wrapped it in fake spiderwebs and other decorations and kept an eye out the window for people coming up. The kids got a kick out of putting their baskets under the receiving end or catching the candy that I slid down the chute. Had maybe 30 kids total, mostly in groups of five to eight. Most were masked, some weren’t. Some parents commented positively on my chute, no one complained about it or gave me static about my distancing measures.

I realized last year that a 30pc box of full sized candy bars from Costco was the same price as a 90pc bag of “fun sized” bars and, since I usually gave away 3pcs of the small stuff, it was a wash. But the kids get excited about a single big candy bar, plus the extra weight helped it slide down the chute so everyone got the big stuff.

12

I’ll say ‘Good’. Because I didn’t waste time and energy decorating, buying and carving pumpkins and candy for kids that never show up. I been watching football and drinking beer all night. No kids, as usual.

13

Pretty good. Almost 8pm here, and we’re home watching Saturday Night Live, which shows at 7:30pm. We never have trick-or-treaters in our condo. But Waikiki has always been a jumping place for Halloween. Not this year probably, as the police are supposed to be out in force here tonight, cracking down on shenanigans.

14

I visited my cousin’s family in a large single-family residential district. They said this was one of the best Halloweens they’ve ever seen. The kids’ buckets were at record-breaking fullness by the end of the walkabout (we saw other families from a distance, masked). One theory is that instead of heading for other neighborhoods known for their generous treats, everyone stayed local. Or it may just be that the time and effort saved by being able to just put a bucket of candy outside the door led to higher participation. Not sure.

15

A bit of history, if I may.

Our neighborhood has always been the “affluent” enclave amidst a group of much less pricy housing. As such, the parents from the surrounding neighborhoods traditionally dropped off their kids at our entrance, knowing it was safer and better patrolled on Halloween, and they could run free with some safety assured.

When we moved here in the early 90s, Halloween night would see at least 75 and sometimes more groups of trick-or-treaters, with the streets almost full of them. And in the spirit of things, we gave out the seriously good candy. Full sized snickers and 3-musketeers bars, Hershey’s etc. The kids loaded up and everyone had a blast.

But it’s been declining every year.

Last night mizPullin insisted on decorating and putting out a bucket-o-goodies on the porch. It was all still there when we shut off the lights and brought it back inside before bed. The cameras recorded only one group of 3 trick or treaters, and they were high school age. To their credit, they all restrained themeselves and left most for the next arrivals. The bucket seemed full when I retrieved it.

16

We never get more than 15, usually fewer. Last night, all houses on the street were dark. I think there were some distanced community events.

17

One local street had over half the houses with decorations in front. Most had big bowls full of treats with instructions “Take Only One” (one added “Or Else!”). But there was lots of long-distance verbal interactions between porch and street, and many photos.

18

Normally my neighborhood is very busy on Halloween. This year, with Halloween on a Saturday and the weather pretty nice, it should have been a blowout. Instead, the door of my undecorated house was knocked on once, and I didn’t answer. There were maybe 15 total kids that I saw dressed up and door knocking. I didn’t even buy any candy this year.

19

I invited two couples to my parents’ house in the suburbs an hour from the city where we live. My mom loves entertaining; we’ve done a few socially distanced backyard picnics with a couple other people and she was thrilled when I proposed this idea. They have a huge driveway, and we were able to set up four tables more than 10 feet apart, with a bucket of treats at the end of the driveway for any trick or treaters that might come by. Normally they get between 30 and 70; we weren’t sure if we’d get any this time, but they prepped 40 little goodie bags just in case. They put out decorations including a cauldron, and I brought 30 lbs of dry ice pellets (the smallest quantity I could buy) to put in the cauldron and our drinks. I also created 3 cocktails and placed 3 12-oz bottles of them on each table. I made a sparkly black raspberry-lime cocktail and named it Thriller, a green kiwi-pineapple rum infusion named Bitches Brew, and a gin, Chartreuse, and maraschino butterfly pea tea that was bright blue until you added a squeeze of lemon, then turned purple, called Superstition. We had a good number of trick-or-treaters including some very cute kids, and a great time all around.

20

We had probably about a third of what we normally get. We usually get pretty good crowds on Halloween. There have been years where we had more than 500 pieces of candy and still ran out around 7:30. Yesterday I went to the store and bought three 100-piece bags of assorted Hershey’s candy. I sat out in the driveway handing out candy (as a lot of folks on our street do) until around 8pm, then came back inside. I counted what was left, and we still had about 175 pieces.