Same story here. We didn’t get any trick-or-treaters this year or last. In the past five years we’ve gotten maybe two or three total. I guess that’s what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere.
I did get to see a few trick-or-treaters, though, at Wal-Mart. Since so many of the houses around here are isolated, the local stores and the mall usually have some kind of little celebration for the kids. I saw some really cute costumes. Too bad I didn’t have my camera with me.
Probably about 30 or so came to my house last night. That’s about what I expected, though, so the candy worked out just right!
One. Sleeping Beauty. Adorable.
…but just the one.
We usually get around a hundred or so. Requires a good three or four bags.
sigh
[sub]…I guess that means more M&M’s for me…[/sub]
We had 24 which is considerably fewer than we had last year. I hesitated to turn out the lights in case we had some stragglers, but we only had two kids the last hour and half so I turned the light out at 9:00 pm and started watching tv.
None. I figured that might be the case, since I live in an apartment building, but I didn’t see many t-o-t’s on the street when I was walking home from the gym. Sad.
I have already gorged on candy for the last two days, so the whole lot went to the office this morning.
Another zero. Suburban New Jersey, terrorists, amthrax, cool, cloudy, showers, house set back off street.
I usually get a couple, sometimes 10.
This year - noone
might have helped if i had been home all afternoon, but sometimes you just have to go out for a few.
None - and there are kids living on my street. Maybe I have a grumpy lady reputation - or maybe they only go trick or treating to people they know.
It’s a good job, as we’d forgotten to buy sweets.
Chef Jr. spent the afternoon at his grandmother’s house like he does every Wednesday, so we all met over there and trick-or-treated in her neighborhood first. There were clusters of kids and their handlers here and there, but it seemed lighter than usual. We stopped by one of Mama Chef’s neighbor families - a couple with two really cute younger kids - and the mom was home but the dad and kids were out T-or-T-ing. She said we were the first beggars she’d seen that night. Several other people seemed absurdly glad to see Chef Jr. in his vampire costume and said they’d seen almost no one.
By the time we got back to our house we’d missed the prime trick-or-treating time, when the little kids are out - we were starting to get into the Hour of the Thug™, where all the teenagers from the nearby apartments flood the neighborhood with their pillowcases to score some candy. I wouldn’t mind QUITE so much if they would at least make a half-hearted attempt to put on a costume, but they don’t. Unless they’re ALL going as gang-bangers EVERY YEAR.
Chef Jr. and I were walking the neighborhood while Mrs. Chef manned (or perhaps I should say “ladybugged”) the candy station at our house. We saw a group of perhaps a dozen of these thugs and their beeyotches rush a house; when the owner told them he was out of candy, one of them grabbed a decorative jack-o-lantern (one of the permanent plastic kind with the light bulb inside), ripped it from its moorings, and drop-kicked it into the street. Chef Jr. picked it up and we carried it back to the house and did our best to re-attach it while the guy and I commiserated about what a shame it is that older kids like that can ruin the fun. (He did find a piece of candy for Chef Jr.)
Then I had to try to explain to Chef Jr. why the thugs had done what they did. I just feel a dull anger behind my breastbone when I think about it.
We got lots! Maybe 60 or so? I was afraid we’d get hardly any, since no one in the neighborhood knows us, and supposedly people weren’t supposed to send their kids to houses they didn’t know…but that wasn’t the case.
I used my bag of 60 tootsie pops pretty fast, but I was giving them out two at a time…we also gave out little plastic animals and little cheapo puzzles. About 7 PM I had to resort to giving out the peanut butter and molasses flavored candies I’d bought for my mom.
Some kids even came back twice, which I thought was weird since we didn’t give out chocolate. Two kids came to the door with their heads obviously turned down so I wouldn’t see their faces.
A couple times kids came to the door and forgot to ring the bell or knock, once they were already leaving before I got to the door. Funny kids.
But I was just SO HAPPY to see that Halloween as I know it is not dead! Lots of kids out combing the neighborhood. A couple houses on the street got really into it and had haunted houses and music, etc. I guess it pays to live in a suburban neighborhood in a house rather than an apartment. I am PSYCHED! Next year I’m giving out CHOCOLATE!
Mrs. ShibbOleth stayed home to pass out the treats while I took the Olethlings[sup]TM[/sup] on the rounds of the neighborhood. Our neighborhood is fairly small, about 65 houses on one big street with three cul-de-sacs, plus a couple of “extra” houses tucked down long driveways. I had originally hoped that we could finish up in an hour or so and then head over to Uncle Rue’s for weinies. But our neighbors are all very friendly and fussed over the kids. They generally offered to the kiddos to help themselves, which really slowed our progress as the boy is intrigued by these types of decisions, mulling over not just which kind of candy, but which particular instance of that candy will offer the optimum reward.
The night was perfect, about 60 F with a light high cloud cover that made the full moon just a tad more spooky. Not one but two representatives of our local police department made stops on our street to hand out candy bars and glow sticks to the kids to aide in their visibility. The kids out trick or treating were fairly young, I’d guess mostly under 10 years old. Everyone was very friendly. My favorite stop were some neighbors whom I think are Japanese or Korean. It sounded like they were speaking Korean, were a little thrown off that we showed up (in a large group of almost 10 at that point) but did have some candy at the ready. (Later at home I noticed that the candy had Japanese writing on the package.) Another neighor a couple houses down had one of those bowls with a motion detector operated hand which grabbed at the kiddies when they reached for the candy. This captivated the boy for another 10 minutes. And the rabbi up the street was dressed as a hippie, which is appropriate as he is a total trip.
So back home, Mrs. ShibbOleth told me that about 20 kids stopped by. I suspect that this is a low estimate as most of our candy was gone and I bought about 6 bags of the stuff, but she may have just been generous. We arrived back about 7:45, which was unfortunately to late to get over to Rue’s. But the kids declared the evening a big success, and they had a huge haul of candy to prove it.
I dunno how many came by, but we had to turn our porch light off at about 7:30 because the 6 bags of candy I bought were gone. We were rather bummed about that - we had wanted leftovers! But the kids, I suppose, have to come first.
I live in a very suburban neighborhood, so this is no surprise. I think everyone in our neighborhood except us has kids.
None. Zero. Zilch. And the pisser is, I spent over $150 on decorating the entrance with cool stuff, for nothing.
Very few. moi was mucho sad too, 'cause she was in Florida and missed the kiddies last year. Last year we had maybe 60, this year, maybe 15. Very sad, considering we live on the main street of large, quiet town. But there were a lot of trick-or-treaters at the mall parade the night before.
Oh well, more candy for us, I suppose. Fotunately, we have our Dopefest memories to keep us warm. 
I had two trick or treaters, and I almost missed them, I had taken a bath and was in a towel when they came by, I had to quickly throw on some clothes and gave them double treats, if I was smart I would have given them their choice of stuff, there would be less for me to eat…so does anybody want some candy?
Keith
At my house, one, count them ONE kid came by. Didn’t matter, though. More chocolate for me. Besides, I wasn’t even there giving out candy, I left that to my mom. I hit the streets with some friends and reallt cleaned up! Nearly half a pillow case of really decent stuff.
We had about 35-40, maybe a few more, anyway 6 bags of candy worth. Less than last year though. The interesting thing is that I live in an isolated, older neighborhood, with about 30 homes on three cul-de-sacs, and only 4 or 5 families have kids. My 'hood is separated from surrounding neighborhoods by two major streets, one is 6 lanes wide, and all commercial. On the other two sides is a golf course and a canal. On my street there were 4 out of the 8 houses with lights on, showing they were participating. Since most of the surrounding neighborhoods are some distance away, parents drive their kids into our neighborhood. If they didn’t buss them in, we wouldn’t have much fun at all.
2 sets of three kids (one group with an adult with them). Both sets of kids were about 5 years old. I have tons of individually wrapped lollipops left - if there’s no late trick or treaters this weekend (like little kids going round in daylight), everyone at work is getting lollies on Monday…way less than last year, I don’t understand what happened.
Plus a set of three about 3? 4? weeks ago - they must have been about 2 years old, if that. Excuse from the teen with them when I told them it was too early - they’re little. Guess what, they’ll be less little a month later! :rolleyes:
We had 60 trick-or-treaters. We kept track.
I was up at my sister’s house, since she lives in a tract housing complex, and I know there are lots of kids in her neighborhood and practically none in mine. Actually, we seemed to get overlooked by some groups, who just went down one side of the street and not the other. Not enough houses with pumpkins on our side to make it worthwhile, I guess. I remember thinking that as a trick-or-treating kid.
There was a chubby little Hispanic girl who couldn’t have been more than 2 years old, in a fat bumblebee costume, who was the star of the evening. She was flat-out adorable. The younger kids are always the most fun.
We did get some older kids later in the evening, in half-assed-at-best costumes (like some 13 year old girls in their Pop Warner cheerleading uniforms - c’mon, if you wear it all the time, it’s not a costume!), but we didn’t mind, because we knew we were going to have a lot of leftover candy. We did end up with a good amount of leftover candy anyway, despite the older kids, and there were no more knocks at the door after 8:30 p.m. sigh
Even though we had a lot of trick-or-treaters, I was still left with the feeling that this holiday is somehow a lot less fun than it was when I was a kid.
We probably got about 25-30. It was decent weather - got a bit chilly once the sun went down (“official” hours were 5:00 - 7:00) but Mr. Pol & I sat outside & handed out candy.
The costumes were pretty average - however, one boy had a homemade robot costume with a “Put Candy Here” slot. He said “Trick or Treat” and “Thank you very much” in the appropriate robot voice. There was also a very cute (& possibly homemade) Cookie Monster toddler.
The neighbors go ALL out for Halloween - they’re a retired couple with adult kids - TONS of stuff in the yard & with a couple of “tableaus” - their kids & grandkids dress the part – witches, wizards. Last year they the new addition was an electric chair & convict (one son is an electrician, so it has a real knife switch that dims the lights in the yard & flashes a strobe light on the convict)
This year it was a large wooden box with chains around it & stencilled “Beware, Wild Beast!” One of the teenage grandsons was inside in a gorilla costume. Growled a lot & shook the box - occasionally sticking out an arm & swiping at t-o-t’ers who came close. My comment to Mr. Pol – “So much for the semaphore lessons!” (MST3K reference…)