We bought a bunch of candy and put a few decorations outside our door. But we didn’t get a single trick-or-treater! Very annoying.
I htink it’s because we are towards the back of a townhouse complex, and the complex as a whole doesn’t look too inviting, from a kid’s point of view, from the street. I saw kids trick-or-treating on the street, but none came into our complex, as far as I could see.
We had fewer than usual this year, but I think it’s being on a Sunday night hurt (this is the Bible Belt, a lot of churches had their own events). But it’s always fun, and our kids had a blast.
Still alive and well here in Toronto, thankfully … we handed out all our candy, and a wonderful time was had by our son, and us.
Oddly, it affirms many of mine: neighbours taking the time to do interesting decorations, a neighbourhood safe enough for kids to wander about in after dark, kids having fun with costumes, and treats for everyone - all done by people themselves on a totally voluntary basis. I’m proud to say that only the occasional house on our street was all dark.
Last year we had two kids come to the door. This year we only bought enough for ten or fifteen visitors and my wife had to run to the market to restock. Must have been 50 that came by, and we had to turn away the last ten. Part of it may be that our neighborhood was rated #2 in the city this year for “best 'hoods to trick or treat”. Also, we actually put up decorations this year.
What I was impressed by was the politeness of the kids we turned away. The response was typically along the lines of “Oh, that’s okay, thanks anyway and Happy Hallowe’en!” :eek:
I had bite sized candy bars and lollipops for the kids and updates on the World Series score and inning for all the dads.
I moved in to my current place a couple of years ago. I was working last Halloween. So I had no idea what to expect for this Halloween. I bought a bunch of candy but as it turned out no kids stopped. I don’t know if it was just my house or if it’s a sign of a general trend in the area. I did see that several local malls had trick-or-treating over the weekend.
Anyone want to stop by my place for a free bag of candy?
This year we had about 80 kids come to our door, but that is down significantly from last year in which we had 120. I attribute the slow down to the fact that last year Halloween was on a Saturday, and this year it was on a school night.
But my kids had a blast! They said that since there weren’t so many trick-or-treaters, many people were handing out handfuls of candy instead of just one or two.
3 Halloween mini-rants:
Don’t hand out those mini-packs of Kleenex on Halloween. That’s just lame. If you don’t want to do candy, then hand out quarters or pencils… not Kleenex.
When someone turns off the porch light and extinguished the candles in the pumpkins, that means they are closed for the night. We had a dad and some really little kids come by late, well after my kids had come back, taken off their costumes, gotten ready for bed, and were asleep. Then this dude was just pounding on the door and woke them all. “We’re CLOSED”
This one guy told the kids they had to take a political flier if they wanted to have a piece of candy. “Vote yes on proposition 302!” Dude that’s totally inappropriate and the kids you are handing them to CAN’T VOTE!
Here in the UK it’s been steadily growing in popularity in the last few years. It did happen when I was growing up, but not nearly as much as it does now.
Some areas still have the same issues of gangs of oiks knocking on doors and causing trouble, but on our street there’s a lovely atmosphere… mostly 2-10 y/olds with parents, all dressed in costumes, and all very polite and grateful for their treats.
There’s an unwritten but very effective agreement that only houses with lit pumpkins and/or decorations are knocked up (not sure if that’s the same in the USA).
The popularity of Harry Potter, plus relentless marketing, has made halloween a much bigger holiday that it ever used to be, but that’s also because Guy Fawkes night parties are less popular now that fewer people want bonfires in their back gardens etc.
Halloween is my favorite, too. It’s the one holiday I can think of that doesn’t have any particular religious connotations, at least not anymore (unless you’re overthinking it, which too many people do), where you can have a party, gorge on candy and don’t have to gift any gifts other than Hershey’s minis. Plus, when you take the kids out trick-or-treating, you get to take a nice, long walk to enjoy the chaos and walk off all the chocolate you just ate - until you get home and raid your kids’ stash.
Our neighborhood was pretty busy last night, too, which made me very happy.
What does go against my principles are the carloads of children being driven house to house. I really just don’t get that. There were a few parents doing this last night. The kids who were walking (or rather, running like sugar-powered dervishes) got to each house much faster and seemed to be having more fun.
Oh boy, if I ever came across any of those three situations, I’d be pissed. :eek:
Here, it is well understood: no lights on = treats over. I never saw anyone giving out kleenex or political tracts.
My rant is that some were simply too old to be trick-or-treating. One kid came by, already had facial hair. Dude, if you are old enough to grow a scruff-beard, you are too old to trick-or-treat!
He had a cool costume on though, and my son - who is in awe of older boys, and was handing out the candy - seriously over-rewarded him. :smack:
We had lots of little kids (well like 10 out of the 15 that showed up) and I sat and watched out my window as parents walked their kids UP every driveway then back DOWN. Clearly trying to teach their kids that you shouldn’t trample across people’s lawns - it was like 45 degrees out, I thought these parents were quite stoic! And/or wanted their kids to be as tired as possible when they got home 
I did tell everyone that they could cut across my lawn when they left, it was fine by me.
One of my friends from high school lives down the street and she made a point of coming down to my house - but they came on their (well-lit) bikes. I thought that was a clever idea. Her son was feeling sick and done for the night, but he was happy that he got 4 pieces of candy for his troubles.
I was surprised how many trick or treaters we had this year. For many years there were scarcely any. And they were the most pleasant, well-mannered children I’ve seen for quite a while. Don’t think we had a single one who didn’t thank us.
Original costumes? Not so much effort.
After a while we went out and banged on a few neighbor’s doors just to see their decorations and get a treat. We brought along some bars I’d made. (Gee, you can’t just go begging without a costume on.)
Batchelor son came up for dinner and I gave him some food to take home. I offered him a ride back to his house and he said he’d rather walk because the neighborhood was full of fun.
It’s a good sight to see families out and around the neighborhood laughing and getting to know each other.
Beggars’ Night here was Friday 10/29 (the city puts is on Friday whenever feasible) and I was surprised at the good numbers of kids. We had 50+ snack bags of Frito-Lay chips on hand and gave out probably 35 of same. Also scraped up some canned goods for a trio of college kids who came by for a volunteer pantry.
This is a quiet neighborhood where the kids are most all under ten, the prime demographic for trick-or-treating these days. All came between local sunset at 6 and 7:30; then we turned the lights out and had dinner.
It comes and goes. It wasn’t the spectator sport this year that it has been, but it wasn’t dead. I do hope it persists for the rest of my life–I love treating the little munchkins!
It’s not happening where I live. It’s thick in the ritzy neighborhoods. Parents must think ritzy means generous, which it doesn’t. Just stay away from the elderly clusters or you’ll get the stuff nobody likes.
Wow… this actually makes me feel sad for the OP. I can’t imagine someone being upset by a holiday that is all about making kids happy. I was really disappointed this year because my kids all decided they were too old to go out. My daughter studied for a final and my sons passed out the candy. I knew that these kids on the streets needed supervision though, so I joined several of the neighborhood dads pulling the wagon with the cooler and helped pass out adult beverages to the other parents supervising their kids.
It’s all about being a good parent you know.
Got maybe 30 
Substantially less than in years past. I think it was the cold, really, because most of the kids were middle schoolers who were old enough to go out on their own.
Kids went through the chips first (chips, twizzlers, or chocolate were their choices) then the twizzlers. I guess they like variety!
There was a gaggle of tween girls, all in various iCarly/Vampire/Harry Potter gear. They swamped me for candy, and picked out their own. One shyer girl in the back was dressed (fittingly) as a nerd, murmured “ah, I’m always last”. I said “Well I think costume is the best!”, and she perked right up.
I didn’t want to embarrass her and tell her that in high school she’s going to be beautiful and she won’t have to worry about surrounding herself with girls anymore 
People in ritzy neighborhoods would probably be more generous if they didn’t get every kid in 3 counties. There’s a limit to how much people are willing to spend on Halloween candy, no matter how much money they’ve got.
Our neighborhood isn’t particularly ritzy, but it’s perceived as one and is one of the few walkable neighborhoods in the county. In previous years, we got 300-400 kids, but this year they finished replacing our one-lane bridge in so traffic picked up even further. We laid in 1000 bits of assorted candy, giving it out 2 pieces per kid, and were cleaned out within an hour and a half. And when you have that kind of traffic, it’s not only expensive, but it sucks the fun out of handing out candy. You don’t get to talk to the parents or kids, or admire the costumes, you just shovel out candy as fast as you can go in hopes the kids won’t get impatient and shove each other around too badly.
Parents who drive their kids to “nicer” neighborhoods are trashy. Some parents with toddlers and younger are just doing a candy shovel for themselves. It’s pretty pathetic.
That’s interesting - my experience is the opposite. When I was a kid, everyone went trick-or-treating. but most of my daughter’s friends never have. We had one trick-or-treater come to our door this year - the first ever.