Kids should set their own age. My son lost interest when he was in older elementary/middle school, but now in high school he sort of picked it up again. He’s always been really creative with costumes. One year he wrapped himself head to toe in English Ivy and went as a non-native invasive species. This year he’s making an elaborate medieval plague doctor costume. He probably won’t trick or treat, but go to a party. I like to see anyone up where we live, and there’s something fun about teens dressing up to shake the neighborhood down for sugar. I’ll give anyone candy if they’ve got the guts to walk the hills in our low density neighborhood.
If someone is old enough to buy their own candy, and old enough to be put off by the cheap Halloween candy that I keep around for non-costumed beggars, and old enough to be too cool to get costumed…that person is too old to be Trick or Treating, unless escorting a younger kid. Escorts get the good candy. Someone who has obviously worked on a costume and a persona gets a double handful.
I’d say that when a person is just going out to score some free candy, that person is too old. Halloween trick or treating is basically an exchange…the beggars give the candy givers a little amusement in exchange for the candy.
I’ve seen substantial cleavage in girls as well as kids smoking cigarettes. Fortunately, that is far from the norm.
Awesome! I used to dress up to take my little nieces and nephews around. Lots of people offered me candy, but I didn’t usually take it. One year, I was dressed as a vampire, and every time someone offered me candy, I’d put on my most ridiculous ‘Transylvanian’ accent and say “No, thank you. But vould you happen to have a Bloody Mary?” Got lots of laughs.
I’m sorry. 
My condolences.
Just for the record, my kids have, over the years, asked me what I was going to dress up as. My stock answer for the past ten years has been “A 40-whatever-age-I-was-that-year housewife; I already have the costume!” 
I believe they should stop between Oct 30th and Nov 1st.
This is pretty much my exact rule, except that I’m 5’8", so the boys may get an extra year’s worth of candy from our house…
Eldest son will turn 13 this week, and decided earlier in the year that he was too old to go trick-or-treating. I’m a bit unhappy, because my “baby” is growing up, but happy that he is so alert to social cues (he’s not taller than me yet, but definitely bigger than I am… and if he ever grows into his feet, he’s gonna be a giant.) He isn’t a dumb kid, though: once he figured out that his baby sister was a chick magnet, he volunteered to take the 7-month-old out for treats if I wanted… 
(Hey, free candy plus bonus points from the cute girls in the neighborhood? Eldest might be a total geek, but he ain’t stupid!)
When they scornfully view it as “a children’s thing” (thinking of the Spanish equivalents of “things children do on specific holidays”).
“Taller than me” doesn’t work for half the female population of Northern Spain, since I’m pretty average for a woman; for my current location, it would be for way more than that.
So those of us who are 5’4" and C-cups (B-cups between the ages of 12 and 40sh) can still go get candy? I’ll take the savories!
I’m puzzled by the hostility towards the idea of adults dressing up for fun, showing off their costumes to their neighbours and getting a little treat. Frankly, I wish more adults would do this. There would be more creativity than with children, who largely wear cheap, mass produced, plastic crap themed with the latest commercial childrens opium – Harry Potter, Spongebob Squarepants, etc.
Frankly I’d love to see a D-cupped clown come to my door begging for a treat. Modern life is so drab as it is, why not encourage such minor pleasures?
One of these two would DEFINITELY be getting candy at our house!
Heck, yeah. Why not?
But for some of us with much, much younger siblings, we’re already doing the walk. So I could go buy my own candy, but I’d still be taking the Little Dude around the neighborhood. If I’ve already got the costume (for adult parties and such) and I’m already walking around, I’m grabbing a pillow case and ToTing, dammit! It seems silly to not ask for candy in such a scenario.
So a few years ago, when I was probably 22 or 23, I went as a bandit so I could pull a handkerchief over my beard. I hunched over, made my voice nasally and cracking, and faked being an early pubescent not-that-much-bigger brother.
That was so much more fun than as a kid, because it wasn’t just a costume. I had to stay in character the whole night. I had to do a voice, a walk, and mannerisms of a middle schooler.
I EARNED THAT CANDY!
I’m sorry to hear that, T. Do you by any chance recall what her costume was?
If I step out on my porch in my sexxxy butterfly of death costume and you are old enough to say “Whoa” and eyeball me from head to toe in a nonverbal comment about how sexy my costume is… then you are too old to be trick or treating.
If you can drive yourself… you are too old to be trick or treating.
When your voice drops, you are too old to be trick or treating.
If you have pubic hair… you are too old to be trick or treating.
The solution to being too old to trick or treat, of course, is to volunteer to take someone else’s kid out trick or treating so that they can stay home and pass out candy. I see parents/guardians/babysitters do this all the time: they take the kid out, but they bring their own bag and travel in a pack. When a pack of costumes shoves five or eight loot bags in my face, I drop some candy into each one. Or you can tell me “it’s for the baby at home.” Even though I know you aren’t giving your 3-month-old infant a bag of Sugar Daddies and Dum Dum suckers.
ETA: If you wear a costume, or at least make a half-hearted attempt at a costume, I will reserve the good chocolate for you. Show up in a hoodie and a plastic grocery store bag and you will get a #2 pencil for taking your standardized tests at school. :: halo lights up ::
I said whenever, but I’d probably put it around 20 or so. I mean, after that, you can just buy your own candy,.
But…there is something to be said about more adults taking part in this holiday, too.
BTW. I’m 41.
This thread has made me think. Maybe I’ll conduct an experiment and put on my Wonder Woman costume and go trick or treating by myself just to see how much candy I’ll get.
I got carded for cigarettes yesterday. Surely, I can still pass for “under 18.”
:: devil horns ::
I always have two bowls of candy. The first bowl is the good stuff (e.g. fun size candy bars) for all the costumed little and sometime not so little kids who say trick or treat -and the second bowl is cheap candy from the dollar store for the teenages whose costumes consist of either what they are usually wearing or something like a bandana across their face. If you don’t want to wear a costume don’t come to my place looking for good free candy.
I guess I no longer see Halloween as a holiday primarily for children, so I see no reason to restrict beggar’s night to children either.
If you’re 10 years old or less, yes. 10-12 is a grey area. 14 is officially too damn grown.
I don’t know that my mom had a rule - I think we just decided we were too mature for that childishness. Of course, this was in the 60s, and Halloween still belonged to kids alone - at least in my area.
I said 12 - but like others here, if a kid makes an effort, I’d toss 'em a treat. Except I live in the boonies. When we first moved here, I bought a buttload of candy, and only 20 or so kids showed up. The next year, our dog was here, and I didn’t want to deal with all the barking or trying to keep the cat from escaping, so we left the lights off. That’s been the case for the last 5 years, and it’s the plan for this year.
I voted for 12 but wish I could take it back. I don’t mind giving candy to a 14 or 15 or 20 year old who has come up with an elaborate or clever costume. I do not like when glassy eyed teen without a even a hint of costume or even a clever line devised to justify the non costume shoves a bag in my face and demands candy. Laffy Taffy for you, now get outta the way and let the toddler dressed like a puppy get her Kit Kat!
My own son never really warmed to trick or treating and prefers to be part of the passing out candy team.
Really? If a grown ass man came to your door with a little paper bag asking for candy, but you liked his costume, you wouldn’t be thinking, “Shouldn’t your old ass be at a party with grown ups or something, instead of trick-or-treating?”