In my last place I bought candy every year and had 5 kids in the 6 years I lived there. I lived in a nice pocket of houses (with one kid in the all of the 20 houses) in a crappy neighborhood. That would have been a gold mine when I was a kid.
Now I live in a crappy neighborhood with a shit ton of kids. I don't want to give out candy.
I love the costumes, especially the teens. The ones the teens do are really creative sometimes. Creative costumes get extra candy! I think Halloween is a great time to meet your neighbors. I'm a bit too introverted to throw a party though. I don't think I could handle that.
I live in a condo now, and I miss having the kids come around.
I'm the opposite. I live in a place where we hardly ever get trick or treaters. I buy king size candy bars and decorate like crazy and get maybe 5-10 kids... Where I used to live we got maybe 200 so we only gave out a single piece of funsize candy.
If you don't want to participate, just don't turn on your light and don't decorate.
I feel obligated to hand out candy if I'm not working, which is just as well because my wife wants to see all the kids and teens in their costumes.
I see nothing wrong with those who feel differently not participating. I went out with my nieces and nephews last year. we just did our own cl de sac and one block of the cross street. If houses didn't have lights on, everyone left them alone.
The only weird thing was a particular family who left all their lights, even floodlights, on, apparently for security purposes, then didn't answer their door. I heard a couple of teens muttering about how if they were going to create any mischief they would make a point to do it at THAT house.
Halloween has always been a big day for me and my family..All ages are welcome, baby through adult.....Costume get treats....and we have been known to offer shots to any adults.......My favorite are the young couples with the sleeping infant in a Pooh costume! We also have doggy treats for pets with costumes.
Sometime my daughter will offer to run the kids around the "sac" while adults hang out for a belly warmer of rum .....
I LOVE Halloween! We live in Florida and the weather on a late October night is fantastic - light wind, mild temperatures, leaves just beginning to turn colors and fall from the trees.
Our neighborhood is swarmed with children on Halloween night. Folks even drop off car loads of kids who don't live here! We have a pizza party every year. Great-granny has to come assist with the festivities (teenagers to monitor, toddlers to costume, home to decorate, someone to answer the door with fangs and a bloody face-and maybe a fake hatchet). I usually end up loading a double stroller with little ones and strike out with a couple of plastic pumpkins. Of course, the babies are too small for candy, and the grade-schoolers walking with the stroller brigade never fail to point out that the the Snickers bars are really NOT for the babies, but for daddy. <snort>
We usually wind up the festivities with a bonfire and marshmellow roast in the backyard. What's not to love?
We're usually not home anyway...it's mostly just an effort to keep our indoor dogs from ripping up the place while we're away for the night.
P.S... FWIW even though we're now agnostic/atheist heathens...Christmas is our absolute favorite time of the year with all of its pagan traditions etc but most of all good ol' Santa Claus!
We sure don't miss God anymore...but we sure as heck miss Santa Claus!!!
I love it. I was a poor kid and still remember how that full Halloween bag made me feel. I spend about a hundred bucks on Halloween candy, filling grab bags to the brim. The kids around here aren't poor, but their eyes still light up at the amount of candy I give out. What can I say? I love being The Nice Lady.
I used to really love Halloween. I would get pumpkins and make Jack O Lanterns, decorate, and buy the best candy I could afford.
But I started to notice a trend. The trick or treaters in my neighborhood tend to be mostly mid-late teens. They don't dress up, and they are rude and complain about the candy I give out, or ask for more.
I finally got fed up with it after a few years. Now we put up the "No Candy" sign every year, turn on music or a loud movie, and have drinks. It is a much more relaxing way to spend the evening. Even if I do get labled as a curmudgeon.
I don't think Halloween is necessarily safe anymore. It's a perfect way to "case a place". We live in a nice neighborhood, but creeps have come to the door in past Halloweens. We don't open our door to strangers anymore. Lots of home invasions happen that way.
No ... I turn off all the lights and watch a movie or read. The rest of the family goes out to other functions if I choose not to attend with them.
By law, sex offenders are supposed to put signs on their doors so that children do not ring the bell. The sign does not have to say they are a sex offender. It just has to say, "Sorry, no candy."
I don't know. I am not a big fan of Halloween because it's all about getting a lot of candy. As a former fatty, I wish we didn't make every holiday about food in the USA. At least you can get a somewhat decent meal on Thanksgiving if you avoid the sweets, but on Halloween it's just straight sugar.
I wish we had something more like "Dia de los Muertos."
I even enjoy giving candy to teenagers, Where I grew up teens didn't trick or treat--they were too wore out from the night before (Devil's Night in Detroit, Moving Night in Baltimore) where they turned over trash cans, egged cars, soaped windows, set fires and drove donuts over lawns & farm fields. Lil scamps.
I even liked decorating the yard, complete with speaking ghosts and dead people (There was a microphone and speaker in each so we could talk back and forth with the kids).
Then way too many teens started showing up. There was an expectation of entitlement rather than cute fun for little kids. The teens were the ones that did damage to the decorations and the house, usually for no reason that I could understand.
Also, people got scared of poison candy, razor blades in candy, etc.. Then I thought how pedophiles sometimes used candy to lure little kids into their cars. I decided I did not want to participate in teaching little kids to take food or candy from strangers.
All in all, just too many things added up to sour me on trick or treat.
My husband and I usually go all out in decorating our house, every year he dresses up and scares kids. Our house is one people make sure to come to. I think we are going to do a black papered spook alley this year :)
I don't mind trick or treaters as long as they're actually wearing a costume, but I take in any decorations relatively early because teens will destroy them as you usually see smashed pumpkins in the street in the morning. Most of the trick or treating ends around 8:30pm at the latest, so that's when the decorations are brought inside. Even then, it's just a couple of jack o lanterns. One is a real pumpkin, and the other is a ceramic one that I've had since I was a child, so it's something that I don't want to find smashed in the street.
We love decorating for Halloween and giving out candy. The problem is, we now live in a neighborhood where all the houses are on 2 acre lots and we have no streetlights really, so we never get trick-or-treaters. I still decorate though because the people across the street from us are hyper-fundamentalist Christians who think we worship the devil because we're Catholic. They are terrified of Halloween so I make sure and put up pumpkins and all kinds of fabulous stuff just to make them wet themselves waiting for the lightning to strike. It's the little things, you know?
They are so tickled that they can dress up and knock on peoples' doors and they actually give them candy?!! They're so cute, and some of the costumes are really inventive.
Besides, it's my 10-yr-old's high holy day. He starts planning in September at the latest. I manage to hold him off until 2 weeks before. I always dress up too as various forms of a paganist witch or celebrant. This is my favorite season.
I grew up in a house where trick or treaters did not come. My first 30 years I probably could count the trick or treaters on one hand. I love it when they come now.