While jogging around the neighborhood lately, I’ve noticed a fair number of houses all decked out for Tuesday night. There are full-blown graveyards, hands coming up out of lawns, giant spiders, skeletons hanging from trees, and jack-o-lanterns by the score…
Man, I wish I could go out and just wander around on Halloween, just to soak up the vibe. It was my favorite “holiday” when I was a kid.
Alas, now I’m too old to join the fun. But, I think I WILL go out and take pictures of the displays on Sunday afternoon, though.
We go to a neighborhood named Winterhaven. They’re known for their Christmas decorations- they shut down the streets and people walk around every night for the month of December and it’s spectacular. But they also do Halloween, and almost every house participates, some of them becoming quite involved. It’s something that I look forward to every year.
I went a few years ago dressed as BatBoy using a mask cut out from the Weekly World News and glued onto a piece of cardboard with some elastic. I went to people’s houses that I knew, but I had a great candy haul plus some popcorn for my efforts and a few shots of booze. Do it! You won’t regret it!
I have no children young enough to be trolling the neighborhood for candy, but momma bear and I always decorate the place a little bit, just to advertise “Here we are to be taken for all the candy we got!” Isn’t that a part of of trick or treat? If there were no one at home to take care of the decorations and to hand out candy, there would be no trick or treat. I would say we as adults without young children are the next level, we are the ones that make it possible, a heavy burden, one which I take great joy in. No law says you can’t dress up anyway, get yourself a costume, and to heck with the door, meet the little gremlins in the front yard, that way you get to meet thier parents ( who tend to stay on the sidewalk) too! It is good for the whole community when you get to know your neighbors!
We live at the end of a dead-end street. We never get trick-or-treaters. Last year, my husband and I dressed up a bit and walked around the rest of the neighborhood and had great fun seeing all the little princesses and ninjas out with their families. We wound up at our neighborhood pub–very family-friendly place before 9 pm–where there lots of kids were chowing down on candy while Mom or Dad enjoyed a leisurely beer. Good times were had by all.
Yeah, just because you’d feel uncomfortable begging for candy doesn’t mean you can’t be part of the fun.
Years ago my aunt used to host a big haunted-woods type thing on her rural property every year, with the proceeds going to juvenile diabetes reasearch (she’s been diabetic since childhood). She had dozens of people (mostly high school kids) participating in little scenes and tableaux out in the woods – including my mother as a zombie. Mom loved it.
Anyway, after a while the haunted woods thing fizzled out. A few years after that a friend invited Mr. S and me to come and hang out at her place and help hand out candy (we live out in the sticks, so no trick-or-treaters at our house), and we invited my mom to come along. She got out her costume and makeup and had a great time lurching around the front yard and sidewalk, going up to people and grunting, “Got any Skittles??” (her favorite candy). I think she even got some. She was probably about 55 at the time.
(Meanwhile I was in charge of the candy bowl, which was a big black kettle. It was too short notice for a decent costume, so I just dressed all in black, including black gloves (it was cold!!), and draped some black fabric over my head, sheer enough that I could sort of see the kids coming, but opaque enough that they couldn’t see me. I made sure to move very slowly and never said a word. It was just creepy enough that some kids wouldn’t come up to me.)
What would the treats be?
“OK, here’s a mini-bottle of Jack Daniels for you. And here are some packaged Jello-O shots. Freeze them before you eat them. And for you we have some condoms -=- ribbed! And a copy of Playboy.”
Heh. You need to come to Evanston. Every year I trick or treat a beer or two on Judson. Great folks. We’re going back this year even though we moved into Chicago a few months ago.
(Of course, I’m chaperoning cute little monsters, so I have an excuse to be going door to door.)
This year, I get to go, but only because my little guy needs a chaperone! Thankfully, I work at a costume shop, so I won’t have any trouble getting something warm and comfy to wear.
I usually plan to scare the kiddies at my house. But if traffic is slow because the dorks are playing nighttime tennis with the lights on, I’ll take my candy and do reverse trick-or-treating and walk through the neighborhood, scaring kiddies and then giving them candy.
I’ve now got kids who are on the lookout for the guy with the glowing blue face.
My parents wouldn’t let me go trick or treating when I was little because they said there were way too many weirdo’s out there doing stuff to the candy. So, I’m 34 and the first real time I went trick or treating was last year with my then 2 year old daughter. By the way, we’re going tomorrow night!
Last year, my husband and I dressed up a bit and walked around the rest of the neighborhood and had great fun seeing all the little princesses and ninjas out with their families. We wound up at our neighborhood pub–very family-friendly place before 9 pm–where there lots of kids were chowing down on candy while Mom or Dad enjoyed a leisurely beer. Good times were had by all.
