M&Ms and Crunch bars were most popular this year. Followed by Milky Way & Snickers. Fewer kids wanted the Butterfingers and Baby Ruths.
My child received a foil package of liquid butter to pour over popcorn. Did not receive the popcorn to go with it.
My son did all right tonight. I have to give him TONS of credit for saying “thank you” when people piled peanut candy bars into his pouch (he as a kangaroo). He’s allergic to peanuts. Some houses didn’t even have a non-peanut option.
When we got home, half of his stash went into the “can’t eat” pile. Tomorrow I’m going to the grocery store to get some peanut-free candy so he can trade his out.
I love peanut butter, so I made out okay. 
We went to Boo at the Zoo on Friday and it sucked. There were TEN Trick or Treat stations and you had to wait in line for like 10 minutes for a little candy. We got a bite sized Lara Bar, a lolipop (I wanted to puncht that sponsor in the face), some gum, two Z Bars, one bag of M&Ms, and a bag of M&M cookies. TOTAL BUST. There was a table with full sized Hershey Bars but the line was ridiculous. So on that night, full sized anything was extremely overrated. But your house? Wow, he would’ve loved you so much! A full sized NO PEANUT bar!
OK, that’s weird.
My kid received a full-size package of LifeSavers. That one kind of surprised me. No chocolate bars bigger than Fun Size, and quite a few of the “too small to bother with” variety.
A lot of my neighbors are cheapskates, apparently. Lots of Tootsie Rolls, individually wrapped Starbursts, dum-dum lollipops and other items that denote cheapness.
At my house, we had Peppermint Patties, Almond Joy and Payday in fun size, plus Reese’s Pieces packets and peanut butter cups. Each kid got a handful (3-4 items). When it was time to go trick-or-treating with our kids, we put the bowl on the porch, with a sign that said “Take One” fully expecting that it would be empty (and possibly the bowl stolen) when we returned.
However! It may restore your faith in humanity to know, that people apparently were able to control themselves! Now, it must be pointed out that the kids apparently were happy to dig through the bowl to select their favorites, and several varieties had been completely weeded from the bowl. But it was still about half full! Someone had even added a tiny “Thank you!” note to the “Take One!” sign.
So this little kid in a Green Lantern costume complete with a battery powered glowing “lantern” on his shirt stops by with his sister about 7pm. His pillow case was almost empty, and when he was choosing a nice little fist full of candy from my bowl, he showed off what was in his bag. Inside I spied a few full size Butterfingers poking out of the little pile of ittty-bitty candies. Man, I actually thought about offering to trade him for a Butterfinger. Those things are awesome. All I had was the Bag’O Candy from Costco.
At least it was the one with the micro sized Snickers, Milky Way, and Three Musketeer bars, not those crappy cheap ones no kid likes. Feeling cheap after seeing the big ass Butterfingers, I tell him to grab another fistful of candy. He does, tells me happy halloween, and continues down my neighborhood. An hour later, The Green Lantern reappears at my door with his sister. This time around, his pillow case was stuffed to the top with loot. That bag had to weigh ten pounds. It was comical to see this little kid with a huge bag of candy grabbing fistfuls of even more to fit in there.
I wonder if that kid always made sure the Butterfingers were at the top of the bag, plainly visible. Playing to my sense of guilt or something.
Even though I twice let this kid dig deep into my candy bowl, I got one-upped by an anonymous someone giving away full size Butterfingers. This cannot stand. Next year will be legendary. I’ve got plans.
I always liked giving away full sized chunky bars. I actually prefer hershey’s flavor profile for milk chocolate to nestle’s flavor profile, and I am not overfond of peanuts but something about the flavor profile of the chocolate, raisins and peanuts just hit it right. I also think the smaller proportion of raisin and peanut to the chocolate was good. Some composite candy bars are mostly filler and not as much chocolate.
Maybe I should try making hershey based chunky bars sometime. mrAru has a couple pot lucks a year around the holidays. Or maybe we will make white and milk chocolate peppermint bark again, that always goes over well. Which reminds me I need to get a new christmas tree candy mold, somehow mine got crushed over the summer =(
Back in the olden days, not only did my mom give out suckers (the cheap ones, too) but when we got home, she’d take all the bubblegum out of our bags and give that way. To be fair to Mom, tho, with 5 kids and being a stay-at-home-mom, and as many kids lived in our area, there’s no way she could have afforded the good stuff to give out. Plus with 5 kids to take to the dentist, there was no way she’d tolerate bubblegum…
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I went to the Zoo Sunday morning having no idea anything was going on until I was stuck in traffic. I’d have zipped right through the parking area and gone somewhere else except that they had just opened up the reserved area next to the entrance and waved me right in. Yeah, the lines were something else!
But I enjoyed the hell out of it. What seemed like a million cute kids in cute costumes running rampant was a lot more fun to watch than I would have thought. 'Course, cutting through the candy lines (there were a lot more than ten stations on Sunday–including one from King Soopers giving out loaves of bread!–there’s a Halloween treat for you) to get to animal exhibits got me some glares. “Look, folks, I don’t have a kid with me; I’m not cutting in line, I’m cutting through the line. Give me a break.”
Still, it was fun, as it turned out.
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Mmmmmmm, Chunky. Those are my all-time favorite candy bars. They’re hard to find, but they’re still around. Have you had Cadbury Fruit & Nut? That’s the Hershey’s version.
There were rumors of someone in our neighborhood giving out movie-size boxes of candy. We didn’t run across that house, but we did find the house with the Jello shots for the adults.
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My child received a foil package of liquid butter to pour over popcorn. Did not receive the popcorn to go with it.
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Sorry about that. We ran out of candy at 7:30 and started to raid the pantry in desperation. Someone else must have gotten the popcorn.
Seriously though, that is weird, but we did run out of candy (5 jumbo-sized sacks-o-sugar) at 7:30, at which time, we speedily turned off the lights, retrieved the tombstone, closed the curtains and hid in the back of the house.
I really think our neighborhood has been put on the Map of Generous Homes as I swear there are not this many kids that actually live here. Every so often, a minivan or SUV would stop at the corner and a horde of kids would pile out and target the first house they saw. What’s up with that? When I was a kid, T-or-T was limited to your block and maybe one block over. There was no ferrying children around in vehicles. :rolleyes:
I almost got full size candy bars, but this is the first year I’ve given out candy at this house (I’d have been alone the previous years and we’re a bit too ghetto adjacent for me to feel comfortable about it) and I didn’t know how many kids we’d get. We exactly ran out of the three bags of fun size assortments I got. Perhaps next year I’ll get both - full size for the good kids and fun size for the greedy little bastards.
I’m the cheapskate who gives out crappy candy. I did have enough though to give out handfuls. Our trick or treat time was 5 to 7, and I don’t get home from work until about 5:45. The neighbor informed me that there were huge groups of kids that came before I got home, so I missed most of them.
I do get irritated with some trick-or-treaters. There were two moms pushing babies in strollers, they had to be less than a year old. The moms came up to the porch holding out their bags for candy. Do they seriously expect me to believe that the candy is for the babies? Also the older teenagers that come through with no costumes, just grocery bags for the loot. I would like to tell them to get off my lawn, but then they would probably come back later with eggs for me.
I don’t use the word “hero” too often, but you are the greatest hero in American history.
I was inspired by this thread last year. This year, I gave out full sized Snickers. My apartment is in the hood, and most of the kids go out to the more affluent neighborhoods to trick or treat. That means, only a few die hard hood dwellers came to my door. Guess what they got?..TWO full sized Snickers! Boy, I wish I could bottle the grins on those faces. Even the big kids and accompanying grown ups were thrilled.
ETA: My daughter’s bike got stolen last night, by the way. Someone cut the chain. I should have known to bring it in on Halloween. Anyhow, it gets stolen every summer, so making it to November is pretty good.
A friend of mine put out candy in a bowl on the front steps hoping for the honor system, even though her 15 year old son warned her it would be dumped in the first trick-or-treater’s bag. She was getting ready to go pick him up from a friend’s house when she noticed the bowl was empty so she refilled it. She went back in and soon heard giggling and, indeed, when she checked all the candy was gone – along with the bowl!
Since she was headed out anyway she decided to drive in the direction the last group of kids were headed, and sure enough she saw a teenaged girl walking up to a neighbor’s house proferring a large stainless steel bowl instead of a bag. She waited at the end of the driveway until the girl came back down, rolled down her window and sweetly said, “Could I please have my bowl back?” Apparently the teen was mortified and meekly handed the bowl back in the car window. Kids these days!
Noodles, your story reminded me - I didn’t bring our big stainless steel candy bowl in last night. I just went out on the porch and there it was, still half-full of candy! We ended up with most of our candy left over. It was cold and pouring rain here last night, so only the die-hards went out.
We had a smaller-than-expected turnout this year (I suspect it’s because it was a Monday night), so we had leftovers. But we have done the “turn off the lights and hide in the back room” bit before.
It amuses me to no end that fully grown, mature adults can be made to cower in fear of Princesses and Power Rangers 
My ToT was really nice. It rained around 5 PM but was actually sunny at 6 when it started.
All of the kids that came by were cute and it really warmed my heart to see “kids” I used to ToT with in this neighborhood now bringing THEIR kids around. I love my neighborhood!
Everyone said “thank you” but not all of them said “Trick or treat!” but I think that was my fault. I was standing at the door when they got there so there was no reason to summons me with their call.
I usually let kids take 3 pieces of fun-size BUT last year we had so few kids that this year I didn’t have enough candy for the amount of kids who ended up coming. Well I had enough but not for 3 pieces each.
I felt bad because several toddlers took handfuls after I said “just one” and their moms had them put the extras back. Apparently the neighbor was letting kids take handfuls (she obviously had enough) and the little kids thought that was the protocol.
I gotta remember to be like the OP next year and marvel them with my full-sized bars! Bravo, OP!
Maleination, you’re awesome!
I did a Trunk-or-Treat this year. Treated around 200 kids with fun sized Snickers, Milky Way and 3 Musketeers, Halloween themed pencils and erasers, small rubber balls and stickers. It was fun! The little guys were generally well mannered and cute as buttons.