The Halloween report

[MillCreek]

As of 19:04 hours, not a single knock on the door.  The last family with young(ish) children moved out of our development earlier this year.  Out here in the unlighted rural area, it doesn't look as if we are going to get anyone.  Back when we lived in town in the affluent suburb, we would routinely get close to 200 in a typical year and sometimes much more if the weather was good.  I was smart this year and bought candy that the wife will not eat.

[HankB]

Suburb just west of Austin, TX. Second year in a row, ZERO trick or treaters. Never had many - only for a couple of years did the numbers break into double digits - but trick or treating seems to have gone out of fashion. (Wouldn't know it by the amount of candy sold at local groceries.)

[French G.]

I didn't get any, but this is the first year I have been here, or turned on the lights. I live in town I guess, all seventy of us, I just think kids don't go to houses they don't know anymore. Very geared towards organized community events, trunk or treat, etc.

[Perd Hapley]

It was unusually cold here - mid-30s or less. A lot of people were expecting snow. I heard some people are going to T or T tomorrow night. Nobody knocked on our door tonight. We usually get at least a few.

We watched Dracula, from 1931. Good movie. Killer score.

[AZRedhawk44]

I did full size candy bars for the kids, and cans of beer (Lagunitas and Dale's Pale Ale) for the adults.

Ran out of full-sizers.  Had 36, all gone.

Passed out about a dozen beers.

Was well received.

[zxcvbob]

The weather turned suddenly and unexpectedly nice this afternoon, so I thought we'd get a bunch of 'em.  I stopped by Costco on the way home and bought a 5 lb bag of candy cuz we just had a little bit at home.   We had two trick-or-treaters.  The half dozen or so fun-sized bags of M&M's we had already would have been plenty.  It has turned cold now, but it wasn't all *that* cold between 18:00 and 20:00 (prime TT time), and no wind.

I don't like Halloween anyway, but now I have 5 lbs of candy I don't need.    At least it's not chocolate, so I can pace myself eating it.  And it was cheaper than the 2 lb bags of better candy at Aldi.  I usually get a big bag of Starlight mints (kids actually like those) from Sam's Club, but didn't think I had time to go to Sam's this evening.

[230RN]

Never get any.  Been here (Senior Citizen Building) > 20 years.  It's down a long dark driveway.  Got some the first two years after I moved in.  Third year nobody, and I had to eat a bunch of (yucchhh) candy.  Nowadays I kill the porch light by unscrewing bulb, probably a Fire Dept violation. I keep a couple of rolls of quarters around just in case, no candy.

Kinda miss seeing the costumes, but not much.

Giving the adults beer?  No wonder you got all those "hits."

Terry

[dogmush]

The Air Force detachment here showed up in the secure building yesterday about 1600 dressed in costumes and trick or treating among the offices.  Not even kidding.

When they got to my section they had some Jelly Belly's, a couple bags of cookies that came in care packages last month, some assorted K-kups, two can's of dip, and about a 6 pack of assorted Monster drinks.  We dug up two bags of microwave popcorn for them.

Discussion for the rest of the day was on whether it was genius or sad.  They had good costumes though, they had spent quite a bit of time on them.


Related:  We had a 5k Halloween run here last night. One of the Military Working Dog handler's costumes consited of a sign taped to his back that said "ISIS Leader".  He ran with his dog, so for 5k we had a MWD chasing the "ISIS Leader" 

[Fly320s]

We had 50+.  Probably closer to 100, but I was walking with my kids, not handing out salty treats.  Yes, we give out salty treats, instead of candy.  Chips, pretzels, cheese-its, etc.  We are the only house that does it and the kids seem to like it.  We ran out in about 1 hour.

[K Frame]

I don't do ToT... it was never really a big thing in my family. I grew up in an end of town where there weren't a lot of kids, most of the neighbors were in their 70s and 80s.

Seren and I sat on the couch and watched her favorite movie... Cujo...

[Jamisjockey]

I live in a terrible neighborhood for ToT.  Semi rural, you're hiking if you want to hit a lot of homes.  On top of that, no sidewalks and no street lights.  You want dead kids?  ToT in my area after dark.
My neighbor brought his kids through the culdesac, though.  I had to think fast because we had no candy lol
They got fruit punch Hydrate sticks.

[Ben]

I'm way too far out in the boonies for ToT. Maybe in the 50's-60's, but not nowadays. Too bad - it would be a cool ToT adventure since they have to wander down my road, across a bridge, and past a lot of places that are well suited to Halloween scare tactics. 

It's kinda sad that in many, if not most places in the US, kids can't enjoy the same ToT fun that I had when I was a kid.

[MechAg94]

I don't do ToT... it was never really a big thing in my family. I grew up in an end of town where there weren't a lot of kids, most of the neighbors were in their 70s and 80s.

Seren and I sat on the couch and watched her favorite movie... Cujo...

We lived in Houston when I was real little and did Halloween a couple years.  Once we moved out to family land near a small town, Halloween was mostly going to the Catholic Church Halloween Carnival.  Mostly, the little kids do dress up and the parents drive them around to visit a few friends/relatives houses and go to some event in town. 

[MechAg94]

I live in a neighborhood now, but few people do decorations these days and maybe half the house turn out the lights.  I had some candy and just sat out in front of my garage.  I didn't want to answer the door all evening. 

There was mostly just a trickle of kids, but it lasted over an hour.  I was giving out candy by the handful so I could get rid of it all.  Once I ran out, I called it a night though I didn't visit with the neighbor. 


Lots of good costumes.  Some required quite a bit of work.  One girl was in some sort of undead princess/witch dress that looked partially hand made with her face and hair made up that way.  I was impressed.  Another kid had a suit on with a toy Assault Rifle (He was John Wick).  The best group was a family of four.  All had those fat suits on with colored LED lights added all over.  In the dark they looked like a group of aliens from Men in Black.  I was laughing with one kid who had a big T-rex costume on, but he could barely walk in it. 

[makattak]

We had 0 children come to our house last night.


Of course, it was also on and off thunderstorm and high winds much of the night.


Halloween has been postponed to either tonight or tomorrow night in most neighborhoods. (When it will be cold, but not wet.)

[charby]

About 50 kids, not bad for a neighborhood where the medium age is 65. I had full sized candy bars for the kids I know, hodge podge of other candies for the other kids. I had airplane bottles of various schnapps for the adults, which was well received.

[Jocassee]

Had a handful come through our neighborhood, but we spent most of the evening at my Mom and Dads. They live in one of those neighborhoods where parents bus their kids in to redistribute the sugary wealth. LOL.

[Declaration Day]

I got 16 kids last night which is 16 more than the zero I was expecting, due to rain and high winds.

I remember when I was a kid, Halloween was a HUGE deal.  We didn't carry those basketball-sized plastic pumpkin buckets; we each had a pillow case.  We'd fill it up, stop at home to dump it off, and go back out to refill it again.  We didn't stop until all the porch lights in the neighborhood were off, which could be as late as 10:30.

When I owned my second house in a small city called Redford, we did Halloween properly.  All of us adults dressed up, and decked out our front porches in as many lights and decorations as we could.  My neighbor made a huge vat of homemade chili.  No fewer than three houses on my street made a haunted garage / backyard for all the kids to enjoy.  Spooky music was in the air, coming from every direction.  We easily got 250-300 kids.  I had candy for the kids, treats for dogs, and a cooler full of beer for the adults.  You see, Redford is adjacent to Detroit, and the parents in Detroit wanted to take their kids out in a safer neighborhood, so they came to ours.

Where I live now, we have no sidewalks or street lights.  The houses are far apart (compared to Redford) and the driveways are too long.  My first year here, we got 7 kids.  I was so bummed that I didn't bother for the next few years.  I started again because despite the low turnout,I have always really loved Halloween.  I don't decorate to the extent I used to, but if I even get one kid, it's worth it to me.  My positive childhood memories are quite limited, but Halloween was always among them.

[Angel Eyes]

We had 0 children come to our house last night.

Did your decorations scare them away?

[BobR]

We had 3 large bags of candy with intentions to give it away to ToTers but because my wife had to be at the hospital at 0500 for a procedure today we decided to.not do anything. We gave the candy to the neighbors so they could give it away. The streets were pretty full up until 2000. (8p) and then tapered off. Historically we do about 200 little candy snatchers every Night of the Devil.

Bob

[AJ Dual]

About 200 kids.  3-4 neighbors have lights, and dragged metal fire pits out to the font of their house. I would have too, but didn't have any wood to burn. I'll remedy that next year.

Weather was good, about 50 degrees.  My two younger twin daughters went trick or treating. One of the older twins dressed up as this plague doctor thing with a beaked mask and passed out candy. Creepy enough to scare the little kids.

One of the younger daughters stitched together two black "Zentai" body suits, and stuffed the extra appendages so she had two heads, four legs, and four arms etc.  The other asked my help gutting an "old" early 2000's vintage 27" tube TV. Removing everything so it was just the outer case, gluing fabric where the screen was, and she then walked around with the TV over her body with her head arms and shoulder poking out through a slit in the fabri. She wore a ratty black wig like she was the girl from "The Ring" coming out of a TV.

[TechMan]

Somewhere between 20-30 kids.  It was down in the 30s, but with gusting winds up to 40MPH.  Just not a fun time.  We had the "fun" size candy, but I was giving out 4 to each ToTer since it was so nasty.

[cordex]

Any vandalism?

When I was a kid that was always something we dealt with (usually cars or house egged) but I haven't seen as much of that recently.

[fifth_column]

We never get more than a handful.  This year the festivities were essentially canceled due to snow and cold.  Which makes for a nice peaceful evening . . . .

[RoadKingLarry]

We took the grand daughters to our little towns "trunk or treat" event. They close off mainstreet and people hand out candy from the back of their cars or trucks. FFA had a trailer full of small animals to look at, VFD and Po-Po at either end of the 2 block mainstreet. Kids seemed to enjoy it and they made a decent hall.

My review:
It was cold and there were people and loud children.
0 stars, would not recommend.