Here’s a list of times for Illinois communities. Now many of those are sane but you have multiple “2-5”, “2-6”, “3:30-6”, etc times in there as well. Park City, IL is 2 until 4! What craziness is that?
It’s not even “Kids can’t go”. Heck, if parents are home until 5 or 5:30, who is going to hand out the candy? What’s the point of knocking on empty houses for two hours?
I don’t see any problem with keeping kids out of the rain when they’re running around in the streets in costumes and painted faces. This isn’t to “protect the precious darlings”. It’s being sensible. It’s just a fun celebration for the kids. It’s not some lesson to teach them how to be tough.
Comparing it to moving Christmas is silly. You aren’t outside on Christmas. However, if your family can’t make it why would it be so ridiculous to celebrate together when they CAN show, instead of telling them to stay home if they can’t make it on the 25th?
As other posters have indicated, at least with the rain, there is a rational basis for the change in this case.
My mother remembers Halloween being moved just because it fell on a Sunday. :eek:
Actually, we do have one of our family parties on the weekend before Christmas. But it was our choice to do so. This is more analogous to having the town say we have to have Christmas on the weekend before, or there won’t be any Christmas.
It’s not going to be fun for my kid - as I said, he doesn’t get to trick or treat this year, along with my cousins’ kids and several of my friends. There is a reason things have dates, and one of them is so people can plan work around their play.
I don’t see any problem with having them running around in the rain, and yes, it’s being sold as for “safety”. Aside from the comments above re: traffic (which is something you need to be hyper vigilant about EVERY year, rain or no), tell me what’s unsafe. And pray tell, why is this more “sensible” - just so parents don’t have to deal with wet clothes? It would seem to me to be more sensible to not start moving major kids’ holidays at the last minute.
I’ll be sure to let my son know that his wanting to trick or treat isn’t “sensible”. :rolleyes:
Thirty years ago, in Warren, Ohio, there was a trick or treat end time of ten pm. I think there was a start time, too, but I don’t remember that. I probably only remember the ten pm so well because one year I went into labor on Halloween at pretty much ten pm.
During trick or treating, the local cops would drive up and down residential streets just watching and being visible, to show that they were looking out for kids and btw really meant ten. There was usually at least some snow on the ground, so ten wasn’t a big imposition.
I don’t see what’s so hard for neighborhoods to do this:
Halloween is already the accepted and scheduled day to do trick or treating.
Kids will show up anywhere from 3pm (unlikely) to 10pm (unlikely), but more likely 6pm to 9pm.
Send one parent out with the kiddos to knock around.
One parent stays at home to hand out candy.
If a few houses aren’t there because they’re scrooges or single parents out with the kiddies with nobody home, big deal.
What’s with all the scheduling? When did it become a mystery as to if Halloween happens on Halloween? When did sitting around at home for a few hours become something people need to plan for?
And like I said, those people are likely sitting there tonight, with the big bowl of candy waiting for tomorrow, and I’d be surprised if anyone was upset that you went trick or treating on the normal accepted day.
Because safety.
I’m actually wondering how you found out about the move. I mean, I leave for work early in the AM so a robocall wouldn’t reach me…
When it was cancelled the last 2 years (because of the aforementioned downed power lines from the storms) it was decided ahead of time and was all over the news. Any last minute news on stuff like this wouldn’t even get to me.
Facebook. The city posted it to their page, then everyone started sharing it. Very effective.
They called it off yesterday evening.
Enterprising kids would see this as an opportunity to get double candy. And nothing is stopping you from taking your kids out tonight. Just play dumb and say you didn’t hear the news.
You can probably find another ToT opportunity for the kids this weekend. According to my Facebook feed, most of the kids I know have already gone trick or treating elsewhere, starting last weekend. Either at the zoo, a local outlet mall, a renovated local downtown area, or neighboring communities that had ToT last weekend.
Check the paper, there’s probably a way for them to get candy on Saturday.
Meh. We’re not interested in a nice, clean, orderly procession of candy collecting. We could have done that anyway - there’s a couple of “trunk or treat” things last weekend and a thing at our high school track yesterday. Those are mainly for little kids and toddlers anyway - my son is 9 years old, and would not enjoy being lumped in with a bunch of little kids.
Don’t you guys remember Halloween? You know, with running through leaves to the next house, having your scarf keep tripping you up, hollering to everyone else about what house had the big candy bars and then collapsing at the end of the night to check out your haul?
That is the vibrant experience I’m talking about. That’s living, you know? And it’s not “sensible” or “community organized” - that’s Halloween!
Oh! Gotcha.
You prompted me to check - turns out my town doesn’t have a Facebook page.
That’s what I think of as Halloween, too. And some years it rained. And some it snowed, and some were just gorgeous. And then years later you talked about, “Remember the Halloween it snowed and we had to wear mittens and winter coats?” It was fun.
Are you in the Indianapolis area by any chance, or are we not the only city moving Trick or Treating? This annoys me too, BTW…I remember going out as a kid in the snow and it wasn’t a big deal. I’m sure it rained a time or two as well.
Northwest Indiana. Did all of Indy decide to move Halloween? Is it supposed to be bad down there?
They keep talking about safety and storms, but multiple weather services say it’s going to be 58 and raining. No hint of storms, and quite warm.
I’m absolutely with the OP here. The best part of trick-or-treating is that everyone is doing it at once. What kid wants to walk around ringing doorbells by himself, whether or not the neighbors have candy for him? Who wants to interrupt a family in the middle of dinner on an evening they’ve been told there won’t be trick-or-treating?
What if it rains tomorrow? Will trick-or-treating be postponed until Saturday? Where does it end?
I grew up near Buffalo, NY, and nothing is more disappointing than your mom covering up your cool costume with a winter coat because it’s 40 degrees and raining on Halloween. But those experiences made the years with fantastic autumn weather feel all the better.
Our town moved Halloween to November 1st or 2nd a couple of years ago because there had been a storm and there was some damage. I took the kids out anyway. We went to houses where I knew the people and knew that they would be happy to see us. A cop saw us and tried to get us to stop. I told him that I knew it had been moved but I didn’t care. He drove away. We tried to recruit other families to go out with us but everyone else was too afraid to get “caught”, as if they thought that we were breaking the law.
Every year someone sends email to a mailing list my wife is on asking what the official trick-or-treating hours are in our town. We don’t have official hours. It’s America. You can actually go door to door asking for candy any time that you want to, even if it’s not October 31. People have gotten so used to following rules set by the government that they now rely on there being rules to tell them how to act. It’s scary.
Sateryn, you keep going on about how they’re keeping you down when really, there is no way for them to keep you down on this.
Go out tonight. Get the candy. There is nothing stopping you. The police can’t stop you. The neighbors can’t stop you. The town can’t stop you. The neighbors already bought all their candy. They already opened their calendar for tonight because they expected to do it tonight, and will be sitting there twiddling their thumbs because the town changed it last second.
What is stopping you?! A few people with their lights out? The possibility that a couple people will say “ooh I thought it was tomorrow?” Just DO it already if you think you’re denying your kid such a super special night. Who gives a flying saucer about some committee somewhere if they can’t enforce anything and you don’t agree?
In Ann Arbor, they establish times for Trick-or-Treating, 5:00 to 8:00 pm. It helps, in guess, to have everyone on the same page. otherwise, there’d probably be holiday creep, with some kids starting earlier, and other kids going later and later. So anyway, they’d be the ones to move it.
If you don’t want to participate tomorrow, keep your porch light off and don’t answer the door.