>Halloween 2007: The Epilogue
>I guess more people read my blog than I thought, because fear of the moldy Pop Rocks appeared to keep hundreds, nay, thousands of kids out of our neighborhood altogether. And so, anticlimactically, I was not able to use my crusty candy. Guess I’ll have to save it for next year.
I totally should have used it on the first girl who showed up at my door, though. Dressed as a fairy princess, she looked to be about ten. I knew there was trouble when I opened the door and her eyes focused greedily on the basket of candy I held clutched to my chest. She said nothing, but jabbed her hand into my basket.
Oh hell no.
First of all, I wasn’t holding the basket out, in a ‘take what you want’ way. I was holding it in an ‘I’ll give out the candy myself’ way. You know exactly what I mean, right? So by putting her filthy, grubby paw into my basket, she was totally invading my personal candy-giving space.
“Hold on a minute there, toots,” I said. She drew back, surprised. I put on my best fang-baring smile. “Shouldn’t you say something first?” She paused.
“Uh. Thank you?” she said sulkily.
“How about ‘Trick or treat?'” I hissed brightly.
“Trick or treat,” she muttered.
“Now, I think my daughter would like to give you some candy,” I said. Punky stood beside me, waiting with a lollipop she had selected from the basket when she saw the little hooligan coming to the door. Carefully, Punky put the measly sucker in her basket. Ordinarily, I would’ve given the kid another handful, but when she looked at me expectantly, I merely smiled bigger and said, “Bye now.” She turned on her heel and flounced down our stairs.
“Look, Mom,” she said loudly to the woman waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. “I got one lollipop!”
“You’re lucky you got that much,” I said through gritted teeth, slamming the door. Now I know at least one of my readers has informed me that it’s just candy, and that I should give heaping helpings of it to everyone, regardless of their attitude, but I couldn’t disagree more. The way I see it, I’m teaching these little ruffians life lessons. You get what you give. Give me manners? Get two Limited Edition Caramel Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a spider ring, and a handful of Jolly Ranchers. Give me attitude? Get a leftover Dum Dum from the bank.
Hubs returned home from taking my younger stepdaughter to a friend’s house and we left with Punky so that she could collect some candy for me to eat later. Buoyed by the thousands of preview Halloween DVDs we’ve been receiving in the mail to review, she was beside herself with excitement, singing Halloween songs and bursting out with things like, “Oh! This is going to be so much fun!” and “Oh! Happy Halloween!” and “Oh! I am so ess-I-ted!”Within no time, she was a trick or treating pro, pushing her way through the big kids milling around front doors to thrust out her bag and say, “Trick or treat,” very solemnly, and “Thank you,” when she received her candy.
We took Punky to two different neighborhoods with flat roads and homes that were close together, neighborhoods we had visited the year before and witnessed utter pandemonium, with children running everywhere, parked cars lining both sides of the road, and parents on golf carts and ATVs, ferrying their kids from house to house. This year, though, the streets were nearly empty. Here and there, small groups of children filed down the sidewalk, but it was nothing compared to last year. Like the honeybees, kazillions of the usual trick or treating crowd had mysteriously disappeared from our Halloween hive and I have no idea where they went.
After an hour or so, we returned home and prepared to hand out more candy. Two more (very polite) girls came to the door together and were showered with chocolate. And…. that was it. In years past, I’ve bought five or six bags of candy and run out within an hour and a half, but this year? We had three trick or treaters. What the heck? Did the kids abandon my part of town (normally a trick or treating mecca that draws trick or treaters from miles around) for a more upscale area about ten minutes away? Or were there simply fewer trick or treaters this year? What was your experience? Because frankly, I’m a little worried. If the trick or treaters continue to disappear, people will buy less candy, and I will have fewer Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat bars to filch from my girls’ Halloween bags. And that would not be good.
Finally, here are a few pictures of the evening:
In this picture, Bruiser thinks he sees Martina at the front door.
And look! I carved my first pumpkin! Believe it or not, those cheapo pumpkin carving kits from the grocery really work! This only took me about 15 minutes. Doesn’t look like much by day, but check it out at night…
Spooooooooooky!
>You totally rocked the pumpkin carving. Can’t say for sure how many trick or treaters we had as both hubby and I took our twins trick or treating so there was no one home to give out candy. BUT we did leave the porch light on and a big bowl of candy on the porch while we were out. We came back to about 2 hershey bars…so I’d say there was a fair amout…that or the damn trick or treating teenagers took several handfuls.
>Boy child informed me that the mega churches in our town had lured away all our trick or treaters with promises of candy without walking. Bah! I think we only had four rings at the doorbell. As to little miss grubby paws, Well Done! She should know better at her age.
>I work at the local pharmacy part time and we had hundreds of trick-or-treaters. Most had crappy costumes, though. Like their parents couldn’t be bothered to do more than buy a cheap wig, slap on some cakey makeup and call it good. It was disappointing. I, too, wouldn’t hand out candy to anyone who didn’t say the “magic words.” Your pumpkin looked great!
>We had many more than usual this year, with no rude kids or T-shirted teens. We had some teens, but I don’t mind giving treats as long as they make an effort. Good job with rude girl. Some people just don’t get it.
>We also had a lot less trick-or-treaters than we usually do. But I think the reason for us was they blocked off the top of the street with barricades.
>We never get trick-or-treaters because we’re upstairs in a condo complex. Instead, we t-o-t at the mall, which gives out surprisingly crummy candy. If they gave out better candy, I’d shop in their stores a lot more! ;^)
>I totally think we could be bffs. I have been known to send people away empty-handed for invading my personal candy space.Of course, now that we live out in BFE and we have no trick-or-treaters, I get it all to myself anyway. Oh, yea, which is why I don’t buy any.Never mind.
>Shockingly we had DROVES of incredibly polite, happy little kids. I have never heard so many “thank yous” and gleeful,chorusy “trick or treat!”s.It was almost eerie.We ran out of candy and had to turn out the lights!
>We had a ton of trick-or-treaters, BUT NOT ALL OF THEM WERE KIDS! It’s true, we had ADULTS come to our door looking for candy (in costume, of course). That was the first time that’s happened, and wow, was it a head trip. Adults, sheesh, weird.
>We had a mixed bag in Pennsylvania, early on we had a few kiddos. Cute as buttons, and very polite. As the evening wore on the tweens and teens showed up. Had more than one not wearing costumes and I said no costume, no candy. Doesn’t make me the popular guy, but being as large as a third world country helps.Namaste
>After years of only five or six kids a night, we had TONS and the majority of them were middle and high school. They were polite and friendly (plenty of “Trick or Treat”, “thankyou” and even “Happy Halloween”) and I was really happy to see them and to tell them to enjoy their night. It was fun for me to see them enjoying themselves and being silly and in a costume. And not a single person (young or old) made a grab for the bowl, they all waiting for me to put something in their bag.
>We live in an apartment complex and I took my son out trick or treating so don’t know how different it was this year.BUT…I heard more than one parent at work comment that it’s “just too dangerous these days”. Whaaa? We’re not talking about dumping your kid the middle of the ghetto with a cheerful “good luck” and wave. We’re talking about escorting them, remember? Supervision? Through familiar neighborhoods. I suspect more than a couple of the ones using the danger excuse just didn’t want to deal with it. Poor kids.On that note, it did seem like there were fewer kids out this year. My son and his two friends profited from it though. Oh…and the friends’ parents and I told the boys if they weren’t polite and didn’t stick together, they had to pay us a candy tax. Worked like a charm…
>We had many less t-o-t’ers this year than last year. We literally had two huge bowls of candy left over, and this was after I started giving out several items to each child. The saddest thing is, I bought the candy I actually liked this year, which means I am finding *myself* eating the candy now. I just have stayed with last year’s ploy of buying the horrid dumdums or generic bland candy that I don’t have any urge to touch.
>You could get the same pumpkin carving kit with only a $20 markup at Williams Sonoma.I would have made a George-o-lantern if I were you.
>Zip. Zero. Zilch. Not a single one, which was fine- I forgot to buy any candy. My back up plan was to just give them some of Maddie’s that she got at the trunk or treat, which is probably where all of our neighborhood kids went, too.
>We went to a Trunkfest at a local church. It is totally the way to go, in my opinion. No knocking on doors, just lining up and filling bags with candy. And live music playing in the background. Very festive and very fun.
>I bought 8 jumbo bags, just like last year, and they were all gone in 1 1/2 hours. Last year it only took an hour and I only had candy for the little one’s who come early. This year I actually had to give candy to the big teens who show up later. Fortunately they were all really polite and actually had some pretty good homemade costumes that they put some effort into. The only odd group I had was a set of parents that dressed their infant up and demanded candy for him even though there was no way that child was eating solids yet! I can’t decide whether I was irritated because I thought they were rude or if I was just jealous because I hadn’t thought of it when mine were that young.;)
>That picture of you with your kids is the BEST!Some asshole kids stole, that’s right, STOLE the all the candy and the pumpkin container I had naively left on our front doorstep assuming people would just grab some candy and steal the whole damn thing.Sniff.
>That picture of them in costumes with you is ADORABLE! And your pumpkin?! WOW! That is spooky – spooky and amazing! I’m very impressed!And I’m totally with you – if the kids are rude then they get a little candy and sent on their way to be rude to someone else. The neighborhood had TONS of kids, but not too many made it down by us (we’re close to the edge of the neighborhood). We had a few though – and the ones that did come were adorable and walked away with handfuls of candy!
>I am DYING over your lil story! hilarious! I am sending this to my friend who has her own “rules” for trick or treating! We only had 3 trickortreater groups too and when we took our kids out we were the ONLY ones on the street! Talk about spooky! I guess church carnivals are the place to be?PS Your kiddos are ADORABLE!
>Oh, your children look so cute in their costumes!!We had a similar phenomenon in lack of trick-or-treaters this year too! And the weather was gorgeous (for New England)!!I not only have the tons of candy Princess collected because all my neighbors were trying to unload gobs of candy they bought but no one was stopping by to collect, we also have tons of candy that we bought and could not give away, including the good stuff like Snickers and Reeces’ Peanut Butter Cups. I don’t know what to do with all this refined sugar goodness.
>Bruiser looks highly p’d off. Punky looks very sweet. I had some grabby children come to our door too. Some people have to manners at atll.
>Nobody wants candy from the House of Mold. I think you’ve struck on a great deal for people for whom Halloween holds no interest (me). Can I order my mold online?
>We hardly had any, either. I blame the fact that four churches in the area had “Trunk or Treat” where people from their churches brought their candy to the church parking lot and anyone coul djust come to the churches and “trick or treat” without taking things from strangers.
>Martina! ROFL!! That was a good one!
>This is the first year I bought candy for trick or treaters and was surprised to have only 5 small groups show up! I live in a condo complex and I swear there are more children during the day. At one point, I did see a van full of fairies drive off so I suspect they were headed for a party or something. Also, only one group said Trick or Treat. Very strange evening.
>I had the same weird “where did all the trick or treaters go” experience. The first year we lived here, we ran out of candy and had to go to the store TWICE. This year, we’re stuck with a HUGE leftover bowl of candy. Which my husband thinks is just dandy!
>It was the same way in our neighborhood in nashville.I definitely think it was the church thing, especially since Halloween fell on wednesday this year.And I’m totally with you on the manners=candy thing. When we used to live off of 8th ave. downtown, those kids didn’t even dress up. Lame. So i just locked the door and ate the candy myself.
>That pumpkin carving is pretty awesome. And good on you for not just letting little miss grabby take what she wanted – hopefully it taught her a lesson and she wasn’t as rude at the next house!
>Those trunk-or-treats take all the fun out of it. Seeing other’s decorations, the parents or kids who answer the door dressed up (like me!), walking their asses off to counteract the sugar rushes so they can still get to bed at a decent hour.
>Your little ones are adorable in their costumes!We live in a huge subdivision connected to another large subdivision and even though the streets are typically always full of critters, there seemed to be less of them cavorting around. We live in a small cul-de-sac and our neighbors on the corner always do a huge “Haunted Yard”. They overdid themselves this year and even blocked off the cul-de-sac. We just gave them our large bags of candy to give out and found out later that they gave out over 21 JUMBO bags – crazy! I think all the teens flocked over there.
>Love the picture of your kids!! Sooo cute! I especially love the look on Bruiser’s face!We had a great Halloween, my eldest daughter ran from door to door with a neighborhood friend. My son started out strongly, running to keep up, but finally gave out half way, and just sat in the wagon like a little prince, eating skittles and hershey bars, saying “You go get candy for me” as I pulled him through the neighborhood (Kaelin was strapped to my chest as a contented, but heavy little pumpkin). It was a great night, mostly kids from our neighborhood– we probably had about 50 by my estimate (we got two boxes of 30 big candy bars and by the end of the night we had around 10 left).
>Your daughter looks and smiles exactly like you, so cute!We had even less this year than years before, which was strange as it was about 50 degrees out, instead of the usual 25 degrees.Maybe in the balmy whether, they wandered farther to greener pastures?
>We went to my MIL’s neighborhood (also flat). And she had MORE than usual. Apparently everyone came to Small Town, Ohio to trick-or-treat.In hoochie costumes to boot.
>I would be interested to get your take on this Trunk or Treat idea.
>What does “trunk or treat” mean? Am I missing something?? I have a feeling it is incredibly obvious! We had a good turnout this year, at the end of the night we had lots of teens but they were sweet and joyful. Some were in costume and others were not but all were happy and not being mean, so I figure at their awkward age they deserve candy just for being nice, I heaped it on them. They all thanked me and that felt good
>Had a great Halloween… the 2 year old was a pirate and got really into it this year. We live on a busy road with no sidewalk so we got 1 TOTer, but the in-laws neighborhood was rockin! I was glad to see them all out, especially after the thousand church “Fall Festivals” that were going on. It’s HALLOWEEN people. Ignoring that and calling it something else doesn’t really change it. I’m so glad we’re Episcopalian… our priest said “we’re not doing anything here. I want you all to go out and trick-or-treat!” Love that bald man…Cute photo of Punky and Bruiser! Glad they had fun. And where can I get one of those caramel Reese’s cups?? YUM!
>I was in Philly as my mother was having surgery. It was a good crowd in her development…my old stomping grounds. According to my wife, our development in Nashville had a good crowd.
>I feel like the trick or treat from house to house is so awesome, and I get pissed when people go to malls and churches, etc. Think about it, people are waiting in their houses to GIVE YOU CANDY! That is what makes it cool, that completely odd element! Knock on the door and they come out with a BOWL OF CANDY! I too require a trick or treat. Again, this is free candy, walking around to get it and saying trick or treat is a small price to pay.(We’ve been talking about the trick or treaters responsibility here, but the people in the houses need to do their part too. I hate passing house after house with their lights off. Get you ass to the store and buy a bag of smarties, and turn the light on for an hour, willya?)When I am president Trick or treat in neighborhoods will be mandatory. All citizens will be issued a small flag to plant in their lawn to indicate that they have candy. Even the White house will have candy at the guard gates, and as long as you have any attempt at a costume and say “Trick or treat” you can have some. And no, your costume cannot be a tourist or a senator.
>Gertie, they had trunk or treat and trick or treating at the mall when I was a kid and at the time, I thought it was for losers. So I have a bit of an irrelevant prejudice against it now.I think it’s fine for parents who don’t live in a trick or treating neighborhood or who feel weird about “begging” for candy. But I’d probably never do it myself.Violet, I noticed a lot of dark houses as well… Irritating.
>Somebody PLEASE tell me what the TRUNK of “trunk or treat” is, it is killing me to feel out of the loop…
>Bossy hates when kids don’t read their Halloween Etiquette books.
>I totally agree with you on the candy. Dude these kids come up to our door & reach out to get their own candy…I’m like HELLO? Who does that unless invited to reach in? Seriously!
>Hey girlie. When you going to email me and tell me what kind of domino necklace you want for FREE??? (wink)
>”we left with Punky so that she could collect some candy for me to eat later”I told my daughter that this was one of the perks of parenthood–eating up the good chocolate!
>We could have used you in NYC this week. Forget saying trick or treat – there were teenagers (from, um, other neighborhoods) walking around with no costumes saying “gimme some candy!” to the people on the stoops of brownstones handing it out. It made me want to grab their parents, shake them, and say, “proud?”
>Okay, first of all, Snow White looks like a mini-you.And the baby is adorable! I love the cranky face, lol
>Nice pumpkin. It took me 2 hours to carve Ariel and Scar for my kids and they collapsed within 24 hours!We had the opposite problem with trick or treaters this year. We usually have a handful ring the doorbell and have tons of leftover candy. This year I tried to scale down on the candy a little bit and we went through almost all of it!Love Punky’s costume. My 4 y.o. was Snow White, too…
>Ah yes, Halloween on Wednesday in the South means more kiddos at church than trick or treating. There were a lot fewer kids in East Nashville this year too, but we had a great time!
>Just wanted to say I love your writing. Keeps me entertained while I try to work. I’m still cracking up over the old Halloween candy post (Logan – tee hee)! Keep up the good work!
>Char – trunk or treat is where people park their cars and sit in their trunks to pass out candy. You go from trunk to trunk instead of door to door 🙂