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2nd Trimester
JerkStore213
member
If You Have Kids: Trick or Treat?
JerkStore213
member
I figured this would be a good place to ask, since a lot of you already have children. WTF is the deal with Halloween now? Do kids trick or treat anymore, or has our paranoid society ruined that too? I NEVER see kids out ToTing anymore, and it bothers me. It's something I'm super excited for when my child is old enough. I saw someone say they went ToTing already, but Halloween is not til Sunday! What's up with that?
If I have to be the only person in town walking door to door with my kids on the REAL Halloween one day, then so be it.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: If You Have Kids: Trick or Treat?
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Patiently waiting for little brother!
Tonight is trick or treating here since Halloween falls on a Sunday and the kids have to go to school on Monday. I like it this way the kids aren't out past their bedtimes AND they completely shut down traffic from 6-8 coming into our housing area.
I love taking DD out. She has a blast and LOVES dressing up. Hell DH is going as a Halo Reach guy, DD is going to be Ariel and I'm going as "barefoot and pregnant"/ Maxine from the comic strips. LOL
We'll probably carve a pumpkin on Halloween just for the fun of it.
We had ours last night. I'm in rural Ohio and it is still very popular here. I went through three bags of candy at my door last night.
In my area they always hold T-or-Ting on the Thursday before Halloween. Fridays are for football games and the weekends are too inconvenient. I also think that a lot of people (myself included) wouldn't participate on a Sunday.
We also have set hours for it (6-8 pm) so it doesn't go on all day long.
What? On a Thursday, days before Halloween? WTH? Why so early?
My DS is going to be Buzz too! He's so excited! I grew up in the Midwest, and yes things are always "traditional" there! We have trick or treaters here too, and will be going on Sunday.
So, for most of you there are no set hours for it? People are ringing your doorbell all day long?
That sounds so annoying. I am so glad we have set hours!
It depends on the neighborhood and the weather here now I think... it's not uncommon for it to snow and be miserable to the point of not wanting to walk around for very long at all and we've had blizzards before on Halloween so obviously not a popular activity when that happens. In the last 7-8 years there have been a couple years where friends or parents of friends of mine have handed out candy only to get maybe 5-10 visitors at all.. makes me sad!
A lot of shopping malls in my city will do something Halloween-ish, like the stores will hand out candy or they'll have crafts and things at stations throughout the mall, but last year really sucked too because rather than any of the stores having candy, they just gave you candy at the stations! There were only FIVE OF THEM... so every kid got 5 pieces of candy. That blows honestly. It's my task today to find out what's going on for Halloween activities that I can take my son to.
We're also going to try trick or treating as well, hopefully in one of the neighborhoods close to ours (not the one we actually live in) because it's more suburb-ish than our neighborhood. I think we'll have better luck sticking closer to the elementary school and community centre in that neighborhood, plus there are a lot of townhouse/condo complexes so the doors are super close together. I always say to my friends that I had a baby young so that I didn't have to miss out on many years of trick or treating >P
Avery - March 16, 2011
Things to avoid during pregnancy: Eye contact with cats. Cats will suck the burgeoning life right out of you, using their infamous feline mind-powers. Avert your eyes, and move along.
FACT: 1 in 10 people are said to be a carrier of Listeria. Therefore you should avoid all shopping malls, grocery stores and busy street corners for the duration of your pregnancy. Or microwave anyone you contact until steaming, just to be safe.
We don't have set hours in my city for trick or treating but it's generally from about 5 or 6 to around 9 for the later kids. If you don't want to hand out candy or have your doorbell rang then turn off your lights. It's pretty common etiquette around here that if the house isn't lit up (the outside light isn't on) then you aren't welcome so don't bother. Kids don't like to waste the energy going up to a door if no one is going to answer it anyway or if they're just going to get yelled at, and I was always taught it's not safe to enter onto a dark property anyway.
I live in an apartment building so I couldn't hand out candy even if I wanted to
No one would come.
Avery - March 16, 2011
Things to avoid during pregnancy: Eye contact with cats. Cats will suck the burgeoning life right out of you, using their infamous feline mind-powers. Avert your eyes, and move along.
FACT: 1 in 10 people are said to be a carrier of Listeria. Therefore you should avoid all shopping malls, grocery stores and busy street corners for the duration of your pregnancy. Or microwave anyone you contact until steaming, just to be safe.
Must be because ours is on a Thursday that it only lasts between 6-8. Actually, it usually ends up being more like 6:30-8 because a lot of parents have a hard time getting hoem from work, getting dinner on the table, and getting their kids dressed/out the door by 6:00.
Our town does it, but we don't get a lot of Trick or Treaters. I think mall Trick or Treating or other similar events have become quite popular.
My town is kind of weird because they set the time and date for Trick or Treating and its usually on a weekend no matter when Halloween falls.
I think it sometimes depends on the city and subdivision. In my city, there are a lot of churches that have their own halloween celebration that is tough to compete with. I mean how can we compete with games, candy, pony rides, petting zoo, hay rides, huge bonfire, prizes ( like TVs), cake, cupcakes, bounce house, rock climbing walls etc ?
Also my grandparents live in a huge subdivision, but it is established and is mostly filled with retirees or families that have grown children. They haven't gotten trick or treaters in years. If there are a few young families there, they just take their kids somewhere else.
I have no idea. We put out a bowl of candy every year and turn our light on between the typical hours of 5:30 and 8 but we have had one trick or treater every other year and that was my cousins kid who usually load up with candy. LOL
Then again we live on a road with five houses, woods in front and back of us in the country....so not exactly ToT friendly. There is a neighborhood about 1/4 mile away though. The people love walking their dogs down our road to crap in our yard and pushing their baby strollers so their kids can see our horses but are too good to bring them ToT. Screw 'em.
Ours was last night, too. Our area is football crazy and our county always does Trick or Treat on weeknights. So we don't do trick or treat on Friday if Halloween falls on that day. And the next county over is doing it early on Sunday because the Steeler game is Sunday night.
Halloween is big here; were in North Alabama. Our city has "asked" that people t-or-t on Sunday; not my choice I would have rather done it on Saturday. I think we were asked to t-or-t on Sunday because Auburn Univ. has a game on Saturday at 6PM and now that they are ranked #1 in the nation no one wants to miss the game!! LOL!
We don't have "set hours" but its pretty much over by 8:30-9PM or you can just turn off your porch light.
Several of the area churches host fall festivals or 'trunk or treat" where you go by trunks of cars in the partking lot and get candy! We have the mall thing as well.
My son is old enough this year to t-or-t in our neighborhood so that's what we will be doing.
My church does trunk or treat on the Saturday night but only if Halloween falls on a Sunday, so that they're not seen as observing a pagan holiday or something like that. On years that Halloween isn't on Sunday they'll set up activities in the church on actual Halloween and hand out candy from the classrooms.
Avery - March 16, 2011
Things to avoid during pregnancy: Eye contact with cats. Cats will suck the burgeoning life right out of you, using their infamous feline mind-powers. Avert your eyes, and move along.
FACT: 1 in 10 people are said to be a carrier of Listeria. Therefore you should avoid all shopping malls, grocery stores and busy street corners for the duration of your pregnancy. Or microwave anyone you contact until steaming, just to be safe.
Trick-or-treat is in full force in my area too. We gave out over 400 pieces of candy last night.
In my county, trick-or-treat has been from 6pm-8pm on the Thurday before 10/31 for at least 25 years. The only time trick-or-treat happens on Halloween is if the actual holiday happens to fall on a Thursday. I don't mind it.
My neighborhood has a teen party on Halloween night each year. They wrap it up early if it's a school night. I think it's more of a preventive against smushed pumpkins. Since they started having this party, the pumpkin carnage has gone down. The teen boys don't want to miss the inappropriate costumes that the teen girls wear to the party.
http://pandce.****/index.cgi#general
We probably won't because ToTing in our neighborhood doesn't really happen. I think most kids go to the mall, which sucks. Also, the last think I need is DS thinking we can ring every doorbell on the block. He won't get that it is just one day and I'll spend every morning dragging him off peoples stoops.
I know where I went to college they always did it on a Saturday afternoon. Obviously Halloween night in a college town could be very unsafe for little ones.
In our area, it just depends on the neighborhood. My parents street used to be mobbed when I was growing up. Now my parents are lucky if they get 50 kids. They give out full sized candy bars now trying to build up the word of mouth to get more kids the next year to their street.
We live in the same city, about 5 streets over and our neighborhood is MOBBED. We live right next to the most affluent old street in the city. Gorgeous old Victorian houses that go for $300,000 (I know that's reasonable in some areas! Our house is assessed at $86,000). So, we get the overflow from the rich street. I'm not kidding when I say that people drive from other parts of the city, and from the county to trick or treat in our neighborhood. We got over 300 kids last year. We do keep count because it's ridiculous, lol.
ETA: country changed to county. The candy isn't THAT good, lol.
I was shocked to see people did have set hours, lol. The kids start around 5ish here; it's usually more little ones at that time. They start coming in full force around 6:30-7 and we still get kids around 9. Those are always the older kids with no costume, so I don't feel as bad if I run out of candy.
It's huge where I live, but it will be on Saturday. The city sets the day and the times (5-8) and it usually is on the correct date unless it's a Sunday.
We live in the neighborhood that everyone brings their kids to so we get mobbed. We hand out mini bags of microwave popcorn every year and the kids expect it. This year we also have some candy and silly bands. I think I've purchased 240 bags of popcorn, 300 silly bands and I'm not sure how much candy. We will run out before it officially ends and have to turn the light off.
We aready went ToT once but it was at a campground. Every year we take our kids to a campground in Santa Claus, IN for a Halloweekend and they get to ToT from campsite to campsite.
In my old neighborhood it was pretty big. We would even get carloads of people from other areas (they would park at the school around the corner and walk the neighborhood). Now that we have moved I am not sure what to expect, but we live in town and I imagine we will get quite a few kiddos for TorT.
Our county also has set times for TorT. Each town will set the time, but generally it is from 5-7 or 6-8. This year all but one town in the county is doing it on Saturday. I was surprised as they normally try to avoid Fri or Sat because of the adult parties and drinking.
Yeah I'm from Minnesota and I haven't heard of any real decline in trick or treating. We've passed out candy the last couple years and plan on doing it again tonight and there has been a pretty steady rush.