A crummy bowl, that’s brilliant! GD I know just what to put in it too, last years candy! hard as rocks ‘bit o honeys’, candy canes from 2005, dead licorice. I’m ready for those HS costumeless dopes now!
I ToT’ed past high school, actually. I think I stopped when I was 20(?). I had younger friends still in high school, so that made it slightly more acceptable IMO.
I’d still ToT if I could find some willing companions. It’s not about the candy so much, as others have said I can buy that myself, it’s about dressing up and getting into the Halloween spirit. It’s my favorite holiday.
So now I just go to my sister’s Halloween party and others, if invited. There’s also a costume contest at my local bar I’ll be attending. I really love decorating for Halloween, too. If I had my own house instead of an apartment, I’d be the one that had a haunted house in the garage, or the extremely creepy and realistic decorations for the Halloween party. I help out with the decorating for my sister’s and a friend’s parties, one of which required 2 months, a dozen people, and hundreds of dollars in supplies to pull off. However, we transformed the backyard into a New Orleans cemetary, so it was worth it.
Sorry, long-winded, I just love Halloween.
I stopped around 11 or 12. I found telling scary stories, watching horror movies and pigging out on pizza and popcorn at a good Halloween party much more fun.
As far as who I’ll hand candy out to - so far, we haven’t handed out candy. We used to live in the city where the only kids who were trick-or-treating were the ones who showed up at your place with a pillowcase and little else. Last year, my son was five months old and asleep by 6:30, so we didn’t want people constantly knocking on the door to wake him. While I don’t think we’ll go this year, we’ll probably have some candy on hand anyway.
I do raise my eyebrows at the older kids (meaning 16 and above) who are trick-or-treating. But I get truly annoyed at parents who live in the burbs yet cart their children around from neighborhood to neighborhood to make sure their precious little ones get maximum amounts of candy. It’s one thing if they live in the city and don’t have anyplace safe to trick or treat in, but driving your kid to trick or treat when you have a perfectly good place to go??
Some lady came to our door last year, even though we weren’t handing out candy and had our light off, and mentioned offhand to her son on the way back to their car that this was the last neighborhood they were going to. Her son whined that it sucked that their neighborhood gave out the best candy but they’d wasted all this time going to everyone else’s. I would’ve loved to have boxed the little turd’s ears. (And the mom’s for taking him to an additional three neighborhoods for candy.)
My mom wouldn’t let me TOT after middle school, for fear that I’d look like a candy moocher. But I really missed the fun of walking around at night in costume, but was too young for adult street parties. So eventually I managed to get permission if I didn’t ask for candy. So I spent my high school halloweens going door to door with my friends, singing Christmas carols. Cracked everyone up.
I never made a rule about what age my kids should stop trick or treating, I’m just leaving it up to them. My daughter stopped when she was 14 or 15, but my son has not stopped yet; he’ll be 18 in a couple of weeks. He has always loved Halloween, and I would rather he was out begging for candy than going for beer or bong hits.
If the people that he hits up for candy refuse to give him any based on age, that’s their decision, but I’ll still let him try. As for me, I’ll hand out candy to anyone that makes an attempt to wear a costume.
My problem is that I don’t need my house TP’d or my pumpkin smashed. So although I’ll give out candy long after I approve of the age of the trick or treaters, the idea being trick or treat is extortion - once you get old enough to follow through on the extortion, it isn’t cute any longer - its threatening.
Therefore, older kids get the bad candy and our lights get turned off (and the pumpkins moved inside) early. Although I’m liking the idea of condoms for the kids too old to trick or treat from the “bad treats” thread.
My parents considered dressing up and going t-or-ting “bothering the neighbors” so we weren’t allowed to go. My father also didn’t want kids “bothering” us. So he would nail wood over our doorbell and leave the house pitch black except for one light in their bedroom, which had black curtains.
My brother and I would sit in the dark in out toyroom and listen to scary records.
The alterative was pizza and a movie out.
I didn’t realize for years how very weird my father is!! Poor guy; one year after we were out of the house and the parents had moved to a condo in a family-rich complex, he decided he did want to give out candy, and no kids came by. 
I’m a little irritated by groups driving in from other neighborhoods and by older teenagers without costumes, but in our area they tend to be from poorer neighborhoods that might not have many candy-giving houses. Maybe they don’t get as many opportunities in life to get treats as I did growing up. I’d rather give candy and maybe a bit of joy to them than be a hard-ass about age or costumes.
No one has been rude or nasty. A few tend to be grabby, but that’s easily solved by handing out pieces of candy rather than offering a bowl for selection.
Looking back on my life (I’m 56), I have some regrets about times when I could have been nicer to people. I have no regrets about having been too nice.
This makes me sad. If you and your brother wanna come over I’ll give you lots of candy!
I stopped when I was about 12. My oldest kids (6 and almost 3) get loads of stuff, but I’d be shocked if my teenaged step-daughters were even interested.
My kids go to the good neighborhood, two houses over and across the street. They bag about ten pounds of candy each. After four or five houses, they can barely heft their bags of candy home. We’re only slightly on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.
Awesome. I trick-or-treated all through high school. My senior year, a bunch of friends and I dressed up as Christmas: we had a santa claus, a tree with battery powered lights, a rudolph, and a couple carollers. We knocked on people’s doors and started singing deck the halls. I’ve never gotten so much candy.
Now that I’m a college student and I live in a house with other college students, I feel like it’s my duty to hand out candy, not go get it myself.
As Alice the Goon said, if you want to give out candy, you turn your porch light on. It’s pretty easy to figure out which houses are participating. In addition to the porch light, jack o’lanterns and other decorations are a good sign. If you don’t want to give out candy, leave your porch light off and don’t put up any Halloween decorations.
My attitude is, once you’re in junior high, you’re too old for trick-or-treat. I’ll give you candy anyway if you’re wearing a costume, but you’re still too old.
How, exactly? Not all poor kids “look” poor. Or what if they’re poor and they just don’t give a fuck because they’re angry/bitter about it?
My thoughts exactly. Once you’re out of elementary school it seems a bit old for trick or treating. It’s definitely fun to keep dressing up but going door to door with 5 year olds just doesn’t seem right.
Living in a Brooklyn walkup it’s not like I actually have to deal with this, but count me in the if-you’re-getting-hair-“down-there”-you’re-too-old camp. At around 11 or 12 I opted to stay home and had a much better time dressing up and handing out candy to the pipsqueaks than I would have going out. When people came to the door who were taller than me and unaccompanied by youngsters even then I thought they were pathetic losers.
I am totally fine with older kids and adults getting into the spirit and dressing up when they take out the smaller kids. I love a good costume, but don’t dare hold out your own bag. You get my appreciation, your kids get the treats. If you want candy, go to the goddam store and buy it, you a-hole (and while you’re at it, get off my lawn). It sounds stingy, I suppose, but candy costs money. If I’m giving away candy I’m going to give out the good stuff, and if you look old enough to buy (or steal) it yourself, then no way are you getting mine.
I’m sort of surprised how worked up I’m getting over this. I guess it’s that the only excuse I can imagine for you knocking on my door and interrupting my “me” time is that you are with an adorable costumed moppet that I can coo over for a few seconds. Otherwise, get out my face. 
My son stopped once he got out of Jr. High. I told him he was too old - he was pretty upset with me at first. Then on Halloween morning when he woke up, he found his pumpkin bucket sitting outside his door with two bags of fun size candy in it. He said that things like that were why he loved his mommy. (Awwwwwww…) Anyway, every year now I buy him a bag or two of his favorite candy - seems like an acceptable trade off.
Ditto. This halloween it seemed that the kids here were disappointed when they got treats, because that ruled out “tricks”.
“Tricks” went from throwing eggs, throwing rocks through windows, setting trash cans on fire :eek: , to tagging police cars with spray paint. Yeah, with that kind of attitude, you’re too old for Trick-or-Treating, and old enough to wear your ass as a hat.
A friendly tip: Be very, very careful when you deliberately antagonize your neighbours. Some have been on heavy medication for years, and have no sense of humour at all.