Halloween

[Greg44]

I have a love/hate relationship with this holiday. I love to see the little kids dressed up coming to our door - so excited about trick or treating. I hate how adults have taken over the holiday.

We had a "bake off" here at work. I hate bake offs at work. Some employees take it way too seriously/personally. They think they need to be "food critics" - analyzing everything people brought... >:(

I reluctantly decided to bring something. At the recommendation on my daughter I visited "www.ourbestbites.com" and did their streusel topped pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Very good I might add -- I could have just eaten the batter. :0!

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/10/streusel-topped-pumpkin-chocolate-chip-muffins/

http://ourbestbites.com These ladies are very creative -

dd carved her pumpkin last night --- Nike swish --- like a true athlete!

Our Church did a "Trunk or Treat" on Saturday. Because of weather it was moved indoors. But in the past members decorate the trunks of their cars, and form a big circle in the parking lot - and the little (and not so little) kids go trick or treating from car to car.

What are you plans for Halloween? Do you get many trick or treaters?
Did you dress up for work? Do you shut off all your lights and pretend you are not home? Do you steal your kid's candy when they are not watching? :0!

[KayLR]

Trunk or Treat hardliners here----no wimp-outs on the rain here! We had intermittent showers, but they deterred neither the T-or-T'ers nor us! DH & I decorated the car/trunk to resemble a shark with gaping maw. We wore waders and fishing vests.

We loved seeing the little kids, too. Just when you thought you saw THE cutest one, another came along.

Ironically, we live 3 blocks from the church and never get ANY T-or-T'ers---we had more than 400 kids at Trunk or Treat for the second year in a row.

[Mrs-M]

DH will be holding the fort down tonight while the kidlets and I go out. Raiding the kids candy bags? Heavens no! How awful that would be. :laff:

http://img.tfd.com/wn/13/17E926-conniving.jpg

[iris lily]

I had to attend a party on Saturday and that was enough. Fortunately my costume took little effort.

Some years I am into it, some years, not. This year--not.

I had a perfect costume for the dogs in mind: A sheik with his harem. The big boy dog would be a sheik and the little 3 blonde girl dogs would be his harem, but I was nto sufficiently motivated to pull that off. Too bad because people love da bulldogs.

[razz]

We have had no t' or t's for some years now. I was surprised to read about 'Gate Night" in another thread as it is called Devil's night in some parts but life is pretty quiet in the boonies, thank goodness!

[frugal-one]

T & T just ended here. There were a few good costumes. One family even brought their dog dressed as a mailman! So cute. A little boy dressed as a penguin complaining that others were stepping on his fins. lol.... and a boy dressed as a ballerina. He was all boy so I am sure it was a joke! Our dog had to go to the door each time and it was an effort keeping him in the house. Glad it is over.

[goldensmom]

Not much trick or treating in town here these days and if you don't want to participate just turn your porch light off. A lot of organizations, churches and individuals have trick or treat/trunk or treat parties. I like seeing little kids dressed up and having fun. I don't like seeing high school and college kids dressed up or not and going door to door for candy. Adults can have costume parties anytime but many choose to do so on Halloween and I guess that is okay but primarily it is a kids thing.

[Stella]

We live in one of those neighborhoods where people drive to from other places to go trick-or-treating. We've gone through two Costco sized bags of candy.

My kids have now been out there for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Cheyenne is Iron Girl, Bella is an angel and James is a wolf. Some of the time. He keeps taking the wolf ears off, so about 70% of the time he's a toddler in a gray sweatsuit. No one seems to care. One dad I was trick-or treating with had a camera and a pine tree branch. He was a nature photographer. :) I made it about 2 hours and 15 minutes before crashing and tagging Zach in as chaperone.

One of my favourite costumes was Shrek and Fiona. It's a friend of ours who is 6ft7 and his almost 2 year old daughter. They were so cute together!

I steal candy right in front of my kids, not behind their backs. :) Seriously, I was handing out Halloween candy from the Easter Bunny last year. It's not like there isn't enough to go around. :)

[Maxamillion]

I LOVE Halloween. We got just a few trick-or-treaters here, probably about 11 or 12. I dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow, with the hat and a fake beard and mustache (the duct tape didn't do such a good job holding it on, lol; I finally gave up on the mustache and drew it in with some eyeliner). For ambiance, I had plastic chains hung across the window, and a silver goblet and small treasure chest sitting on my black stepstool. I used the treasure chest to hold the candy I passed out. It's a good thing there weren't that many people out, since I only bought one bag of candy.

[ApatheticNoMore]

My favorite holiday. Sometimes more into than other times, sometimes I dress up, sometimes not. Do enjoy dressing up when I do it, love joking around in my costume. Like this time of year also. Yea, I love halloween, but I don't always go all out for it.

[Lainey]

Just finished here in Phoenix - number of trick or treaters was down to about 15 this year. Don't know if it's changing neighborhood demographics, or more people doing church-sponsored events, or parents reluctant to let kids participate, or what.
Anyway, leftovers for work will have us on a sugar buzz for a week!

[Square Peg]

Halloween is our favorite holiday. Just fun, without the pressure that accompanies Christmas. We go all out. This year we decorated our house as a spooky doll hospital. We have a doll operating table spattered with blood and doll parts, clown heads with light-up eyes, a raggedy ann hanging by a nail in her head, a Barbie hostage scene. Lots of fun. Hubby dressed as the crazy doll doc, I dressed as the goth doll nurse. Well, that dress up was for our party on saturday. Tonight I dressed as one of the sick dolls. We had raggedy ann movies showing with heavy metal music playing as the soundtrack. Last year we did a car crash scene. Sadly we didn't have a ton of kids this years. My boys always make their costumes, nothing elaborate just some spin on a comic book hero usually. They aren't huge fans of t-or-ting and usually want to stop after a few blocks. This was their first venture out without an adult. Pretty exciting. They collected about 1/2 a pound before giving up. Not very motivated. My oldest is now 14 and didn't go this year. He was planning his costume and what not for next year and I had to break it to him that he won't be able to trick or treat next year. He is already 6'1, and I don't think t-or-ting would go over very well with the neighbors!

[Miss Cellane]

For reasons I do not know, my town usually has T or T the night *before* Halloween. But this year, with the snow from the nor'easter and the resultant power outages, they postponed it. We had T or T on the real Halloween night. Absolutely no one came to the door this year--I think a combination of change of date, the fact that many homes in town still don't have the power back and the fact that lots of people probably had plans for the evening that didn't include T or T.

Some towns in the area just completely cancelled T or T.

[Mrs-M]

Halloween (around our house), never a dull moment! Last night being no exception.

My last entry (yesterday) can be found on page one of this thread. I had ensured an early supper, which the boys (our two youngest) sat and ate all dressed up in their reaper costumes! What a hoot that was!!! Then, as I hinted around making a move and getting started trick-or-treating, my youngest reminded me that is was "too light out mom", adding that, "we have to wait until it gets dark out". :)

Well, we waited, then off we went. I packed with me a piping hot insulated cup of tea this year, and what a joy that was! Our journey went from our house, way down the hill, six or so blocks, over two blocks to the right, then back home again. We were just shy of the two hour mark by the time we arrived back home again, and as always, the boys were worked up in a flurry of excitement over getting to pour their riches out in the centre of the kitchen floor for mom and dad to go through.

DH said that there were two main waves of kids that hit our hood. The first consisting of around a dozen kids, the second consisting of around 30 kids! All in a 10-15 minute period! Overall we had 68ish kids this year. A respectable turnout.

[Gardenarian]

We had a great Halloween. I went with dd and her friends, and their parents. I dressed up Renaissance-style, dd was a cat. Dh had about 200 kids come by our house - our town is fabulous for Halloween. I'm amazed at how much work some people put into their decorations/costumes!

[Mrs-M]

Talk about a whopping number of kids, Gardenarian! Wow! I too am always taken with many of the costumes I see. The work and imagination.

[Zoebird]

so, halloween.

this is our second one in NZ. Last year was nothing, because DS was very young, and this year, he was not interested in the two halloween events we'd ferreted out for him. We went to the first one, and he looked at it and said "lets go home." and I said "well, lets go to the one with james and alicia (two 20 yr olds who are married and whom he loves). and he said "ok, but then lets go home." So, we get there (the church that the party was at for kiddies), and he sees james and alicia and asks if they are in a movie (because you wear costumes in movies). And they said no, it was halloween! and he goes. . .

"No, not really. It's spring. The day of the dead is celebrated in autumn, not spring. then, you dress as skeletons because they are magical and because they remind you that you are going to die. Death is good though, so nothing to be afraid of."

And they kind of look at him and go "do you want some candy?" and he goes "what does candy have to do with death in spring?" LOL and they said 'i don't know, man, but I'll eat all of the candy if you don't want any!!!" and he said "i think those other kids want it."

when does my kid turn down candy?

anyway, they wanted to get him involved in some of the games, and he said "i just want to go home now." so we got on a bus, came home, and he basically went straight to bed. We had three trick-or-treaters from our neighborhood -- all american kids -- and we'd not bought any candy. So we gave them a 250 (super big) bar of chocolate and told them to split it up as evenly as possible. They were pleased enough. LOL

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In years past, in the US, we loved to participate, but our neighborhood had issues. They sent around a letter like "if you don't have children, you are not allowed to participate in any aspect of halloween in the neighborhood, other than decorating your home." Meaning, we weren't allowed to do trick-or-treat and give out candy.

The board of the HOA came up with some rules about who could and couldn't participate in "children's activities" because of fears of "child molestation and abuse from strangers." As far as I know, there were no registered sex offenders in our neighborhood, so i have no clue what the fear was. And, it's not like if you ARE an abusive person and happen to have a baby, you're suddenly NOT going to be abusive.

anyway, they encouraged us to decorate the neighborhood, but had rules and a committee that enforced it, and then they had the halloween parade and an event at the clubhouse. But you could only go if you had children. And then, the children did trick-or-treat at the "registered" homes that had children.

you could be involved in these things if you had GROWN children not living at home, but not if you were a young, married couple with no children, or a single person with no children. It was a SERIOUS PITA.

so, we would go to a friend's house in another neighborhood and enjoy trick-or-treat over there. :D

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i haven't done a costume for halloween since i was 14 or so.

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we will be celebrating the day of the dead in April, complete with decorated sugar skulls (http://mexicanfood.about.com/od/sweetsanddesserts/ss/candyskullhowto.htm) and altar (http://gomexico.about.com/od/dayofthedead/ig/Day-of-the-Dead-Altar-Photos/).

i keep the altar very small and simple, and of course, completely compostable. :D we usually invite friends over -- one of our good friends is mexican american, so she's pretty keen on the holiday. :)

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i try to do 4-6 festivals a year. I usually manage 2. LOL

[Mrs-M]

Your son sounds like such a sweetie, Crackerjack smart, too! :)

What a disgrace Re: the HOA's Halloween ruling/approach. Absolutely shameful...

[CathyA]

We live down a very long lane in the country and in the 29 years we've lived here, I think we had 2 halloweeners. We don't even buy candy any more. When the kids were younger, we went to our relatives house to trick or treat. One year, my beloved MIL (RIP) dressed up as a witch to go along with us. Her fingers were very crooked. One home-owner said "Hey, nice hands!", thinking they were fake. hahaha MIL took a broom and brushed off all the porches. hahaha (She was really into cleaning).

I personally don't care for Halloween........especially what it has become. And the fact that its just more sugar for the kids, when many kids eat it all week long bothers me. Bah Humbug! haha

But when I was a kid, it was a pretty exciting night. I would always say I was sick the next day and stayed home from school. But I was not allowed to eat any of the candy. So I would spend the day examining it and categorizing it. hahaha

[domestic goddess]

I love this holiday. It is basically just about fun, with a bit of gluttony thrown in.
T or T begins shortly after school ends. Ends by the time it is dark. So the kids are out when they are plainly visible. Dd and dsil always accompany the girls. They went a little further than in past years. I was sleeping, so they just put candy in a big pot for kids to help themselves. The kids did a good job policing each other, and themselves. There were a few pieces left, but I did buy a bunch. So I got a Halloween treat, too!
When the girls are at school, their candy is fair game. They honestly have so much that they don't notice if any is gone. Surprisingly enough, they haven't gobbled it up.