Halloween 2023 Thoughts

[Ryan]

I have been seeing a lot of posts on TikTok about Halloween being over because so many people are not getting trick/treaters.  If you read the comments, people say that Trunk/Treat killed Halloween and some comment about the 2000's being the last time people enjoyed doing it.

I have a different view and wondering if others see the same things:

• Neighborhoods - There are probably 9 neighborhoods that feed into our school system.  The kids all trick or treat in 3 of them, mostly because the entire neighborhood makes it a big deal.  Most of our neighbors keep to themselves, they'll hand out candy but very few decorations or enthusiasm.  The neighborhood less than 4 blocks away has everyone participating happily so it pulls all the kids from other areas.  
• Too much candy - I hate to say it, but I think people my age (45) have ruined Halloween by giving out too much candy.  My kid literally brought home 20 pounds of candy in probably 3 hours of trick/treating.  I remember staying out all day/night and having a huge lot of candy, but literally 80% was kind of garbage candy.  20% of it was snickers, kit-kats, milky way.  If you look at my kids candy haul, I think he probably got 20 full-size bars and just a ton of everything else.  It's all top-quality stuff too.  There is no way I can let him keep all that candy.
• Trunk/Treats - I do think to a lesser extent Trunk/Treats are having an impact.  They are quick, easy, safe, and have willing/enthusiastic participants.   

What are your thoughts?  How was it by you?

[wvugurl26]

I would say we had 75 kids. I think more kids went to the top half of the street as more houses were participating up there. You could look down the street and see at the townhouse end only about 1 house in every 4/5 pack was participating. My set was the outlier with 3/4 handing out candy.

It was pretty cold last night about 40. I'm sure trunk or treats impact it to some degree. Locally I think it has more to do with the day of the week and weather. When Halloween falls near the weekend and it's decent weather, we have hundreds of kids. Cold/flu/covid season seems to have hit hard locally as well.

We did full size candy bars.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

We live at the end of a dead end street where there are only 4 houses.  You have to walk 1/4 mile for these houses (uphill) and I don’t think it’s worth the effort for 4 houses so far apart.  As a result, we got squat.  

My sister was out walking the dogs yesterday evening and saw a bunch of kiddos out, but they were going to the houses that were closer together in another part of the development.   

[minnesotapaintlady]

I am very sad.  I couldn't convince my 13 year old to go this year.  20 years of collecting "Candy Tax" from the kids has come to an end.

We live in the country, but our town gets lots of trick or treaters despite trunk or treats and other things.  I do think people are starting to think maybe all that candy for their kids isn't great though. 

[azucena]

Kids get more candy today than ever before. I'm willing to bet that my 11 yo gets candy daily in one or more of her classes as a way to incent good behavior. Attempts to speak up about it were shut down by, oh, it's just one piece. Yeah, in multiple classes some days.

We went to my hometown parade this summer. Kids literally stepped around candy to pick up only what they wanted. I've never seen so much candy left on the streets after this parade.

When I was growing up, we got candy in our Easter baskets, at this same parade, and at October. My 4 siblings and I were allowed two pieces as part of snack on Mondays. We never had open access to it. My parents never bought candy. 

I do the same Mondays only rule with my daughters. I do think they sneak into it sometimes which we never did for fear of consequences. They don't fear me.

Trunk or treats are an easier way to get candy for both the kids and the parents. I take our trunk or treat candy and give it out on Halloween. Daughters then collect around round door to door. No way we need both batches at our house.

Wish we would choose to celebrate on nearest Friday night. Weeknights make it tough. Weeknights with temps in the low 30s like last night are brutal.

[Cheesy FL-Vol]

I wonder how much mass shootings has put a damper on the holiday?

[Ryan]

Nov 1, 2023 12:34:16 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I am very sad.  I couldn't convince my 13 year old to go this year.  20 years of collecting "Candy Tax" from the kids has come to an end.

We live in the country, but our town gets lots of trick or treaters despite trunk or treats and other things.  I do think people are starting to think maybe all that candy for their kids isn't great though. 

My 8th grade and younger kids went trick/treating, but my Freshman did not.  It didn't help that it was pretty cold on Halloween.  

[Ryan]

Nov 1, 2023 12:44:16 GMT -5 azucena said:

Kids get more candy today than ever before. I'm willing to bet that my 11 yo gets candy daily in one or more of her classes as a way to incent good behavior. Attempts to speak up about it were shut down by, oh, it's just one piece. Yeah, in multiple classes some days.

We went to my hometown parade this summer. Kids literally stepped around candy to pick up only what they wanted. I've never seen so much candy left on the streets after this parade.

When I was growing up, we got candy in our Easter baskets, at this same parade, and at October. My 4 siblings and I were allowed two pieces as part of snack on Mondays. We never had open access to it. My parents never bought candy. 

I do the same Mondays only rule with my daughters. I do think they sneak into it sometimes which we never did for fear of consequences. They don't fear me.

Trunk or treats are an easier way to get candy for both the kids and the parents. I take our trunk or treat candy and give it out on Halloween. Daughters then collect around round door to door. No way we need both batches at our house.

Wish we would choose to celebrate on nearest Friday night. Weeknights make it tough. Weeknights with temps in the low 30s like last night are brutal.

The amount of candy is just insane.  I told my boss at work that we give most of it away and he was shocked, I told him that they get WAY more candy than I used to get and they get it with far less effort.  Too much of anything makes it less special. It reminds me of trying to explain to my parents that more presents for their grandkids is not a good thing since it makes them appreciate everything way less.  I got 1 present from my grandparents at Christmas, they were giving each of my kids hundreds of dollars worth of presents.  It couldn't be just 1 nice present either, they wanted a volume of presents to give.

I think the other aspect of it is community, my neighbors complain that there are no trick or treaters but then at the same time they seem to not really enjoy the holiday all that much.  On the flipside, I always take my son about a mile away to this nice neighborhood and, as a 10 year old, he says "I really like this area, everyone decorates and they are really nice".  He is picking up that those people like having people actually come to their house.  

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

We don't get as many as we used to because not as many houses do ToT anymore on our street.  It's pretty much just us, my dad and two other houses anymore. 

Go a couple streets up and holy cow.   Gwen was getting full size candy bars at several houses.  There is one that does Tootsie Roll banks, another one 8oz pop cans, another one does chips.  It's freaking awesome.  I got offered a full sized Kit Kat bar.  Hell yes!

We will usually do the Trunk or Treat with the school but that is it outside of traditional ToT.  The kids don't need a truck full of candy.   Sometimes we'll do an event like a museum if we are in the mood.

I enjoy Cosmic bowling if Halloween falls on a weekend.  No candy but we bowl until 1 am.  The kids loved it.
.  
As far as eating candy we allow them to go nuts on Halloween night.  Our parents always allowed us to eat as much as we wanted when we got it home.  By the next morning they are sick of it and much more willing to let us dole it out a piece or two at a time. 

Good candy gets eaten, crappy candy eventually goes with DH to the office in the next couple weeks.

Weekday Halloweens seem to have less turn out and less lights on which makes sense we all have to go to work the next day.  When Halloween falls on a Friday or Saturday you see a lot more houses participating.

[soupandstew]

TorT  numbers have really declined some of my neighborhood over the last 5-10 years.  I think all of the factors others have listed are part of it - weather, day of the week, lack of neighbors decorating, trunk or treats, and parental burnout.    I really miss my little (and not so little) kids, parents and pets.  

[Cookies Galore]

We got a couple hundred kids but it seemed like there were less ToTers somehow. Still busy and consistent but not a constant flow of insanity that I've come to expect from Halloween in my town. My friend a couple of blocks down, however, said it was insanity as usual.

I wonder if it being a Tuesday had a lot to do with it. I can't remember if last year was similar in flow.

[raeoflyte]

I hate trunk or treats. They're just so lame.

Both my kids went out last night. 10yo turned in at 8pm because their friends pumpkin was full. 14yo went back out with dad and came home at 9pm. His bag weighed in at 8lbs.

There is definitely too much candy/sugar available but I don't police it for my kids at this age.

[giramomma]

It was fine. My 5 and 11 year old were out for 1.5 hours and got 7lbs of candy, total.

We don't have time to do trunk and treats. I have no idea where they get done around town. We didn't even have time to carve pumpkins this year.

It was cold out, in the 20's degrees.  Folks did not want to sit and chat for very long, because cold.

We let our kids keep the candy. Otherwise, why go trick or treating for 3 hours if you have enough candy after 1 hour?  I guess I don't understand. If you notice your kids are getting the good stuff, why out and collect more if it's too much?

October-April is Sugar season. We let the kids eat the candy slowly. We throw out the dregs at Christmas. There's always cookies around. Part of our tradition is decorating sugar cookies, which it has been requested that we do for thanksgiving, too this year. Then there is christmas treats/cookies/candy, followed by valentine and easter.

Ohh, I forgot we also have two of the kids' birthdays between halloween and Christmas. So there's that, too. 

The kids know that we use the next 6 months to reset. We only have birthday cake and maybe a desert here or there.

I'm a tad older. I was not allowed to go trick or treating, save for one year. Razor blades and drugs in candy and all that. My kids have a good time with Halloween, and we don''t go overboard. My 5 year old is definitely not over Halloween.

ETA: We probably have at least 50 neighborhoods in my city, probably closer to 70. We walked a mile and a half and I would say we got 1/3 of our neighbhorhood. Where we are, we'd have to drive to other neighborhoods.

[zibazinski]

The end of elementary school basically was the end of trick or treating for my friends and me. Our parents just felt that we had gotten too big/old and it was a “ little kids” activity. A group of us did sneak out from a sleepover and tried to trick or treat but had many adults mention that we were too old to be out with the little kids on Halloween. We were in 7th grade. So, of course, when I had older kids and even adults come up to trick or treat, even though I gave out candy, those old feelings came up. Now I live in an area with no kids and looking at the price of candy, it’s kind of a relief.

[resolution]

We had around 600 kids this year before we ran out of candy and had to turn off the lights. We started out with 985 pieces of little snickers, kitkats, m&ms, etc, but they were all bite sized, so I was giving each kid two pieces. Once we got down to the last bag we cut back to one piece per kid, and then we shut out the lights and hid.

Our weather was nicer this year than it was in previous years, so we kept the front door open and sat in the entry way, which seemed to drum up more business than usual. Some kids appear to be really hesitant to knock on doors for some reason.

[toomuchreality]

I bought Hostess Halloween snacks
(Chocolate Twinkies and Cupcakes), along with small pkgs of mini cheese balls one large bag of candy and Nutragrain bars, to give out.

I wore my Halloween attire.

I didn't get even one TOTer! Nor did I hear any outside. It was one of the quietest nights, ever. And boring.

I even put a note on my door saying, I am home and have TREATS! I hope I see you, in your costume. 🎃 I have a pumpkin decoration up, instead of my purple wreath, on my door.

Nothing. I was (still am) so disappointed and depressed.
Worst Halloween, ever.

If I live in the same place next year, I probably won't do anything.

[Ryan]

Nov 1, 2023 14:16:32 GMT -5 soupandstew said:

TorT  numbers have really declined some of my neighborhood over the last 5-10 years.  I think all of the factors others have listed are part of it - weather, day of the week, lack of neighbors decorating, trunk or treats, and parental burnout.    I really miss my little (and not so little) kids, parents and pets.  

My wife and I were saying that we missed it as well.  My oldest doesn't trick/treat, but he did have friends over.  That was fine.  Our problem was all the drama surrounding the trick/treat groups for my middle schoolers.  

[Ryan]

Nov 1, 2023 19:48:08 GMT -5 giramomma said:

We let our kids keep the candy. Otherwise, why go trick or treating for 3 hours if you have enough candy after 1 hour?  I guess I don't understand. If you notice your kids are getting the good stuff, why out and collect more if it's too much?

My boss at work gave me a sideways glance when I told him we give most of the candy away.  Part of the reason they continue to trick/treat is because it's a fun activity with friends.  If they came back with an amount they could pig out on for a week or two, then it would be fine.  My son came back with 20 pounds of candy though.  Even if you ration a few pieces a day, it'll drag on too long.  My kids are not the type to get sick of candy.

We let them enjoy, let the novelty wear off, then we start to give some away.

[azucena]

Nov 1, 2023 16:45:12 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

I hate trunk or treats. They're just so lame.

Both my kids went out last night. 10yo turned in at 8pm because their friends pumpkin was full. 14yo went back out with dad and came home at 9pm. His bag weighed in at 8lbs.

There is definitely too much candy/sugar available but I don't police it for my kids at this age.

Our school trunk or treat is all about the hoity toity parents trying to one up each other with their trunk displays. Makes me ill to think about how much they spend for one night in an attempt to win a prize which this year was a free car wash.

[azucena]

Somewhat related, DD11 has been into scar makeup lately. We hit Walmart yesterday to score some more latex and blood for 50% off. Looking fwd to see what she continues to design with it.

Also got some baking kits for her and her friends to mess with. Loving that they are old enough to tinker in the kitchen mostly unsupervised.

[busymom]

I give out candy to the older kids, even if I think they're "too old".  My parents had us stop going out beginning in 7th grade. But, I'd rather the older kids were getting candy than getting into serious trouble.  Someone in our extended community got their tires slashed.  

[steph08]

I'm all about trick-or-treating. My kids are 7 and 9, so we're in a good age range for it.

We live in a rural area, and we TOTed three towns this year. Our town does a trunk or treat, which we have never gone to. Instead, we go to a family friend's town and TOT and have pizza on Saturday. Then on Sunday, we hit another town that has a small parade and TOT, then we go to my parents' town. FYI, my parents' town consists of 500 people. The other towns aren't much larger. 

My kids got a decent amount of candy, but I didn't weigh it. They will have a piece or two when they pack their lunches for school and a piece or two after dinner. Eventually, they will have eaten all their favorites and will forget about the rest. 

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Nov 1, 2023 19:48:08 GMT -5 giramomma said:

It was fine. My 5 and 11 year old were out for 1.5 hours and got 7lbs of candy, total.

We don't have time to do trunk and treats. I have no idea where they get done around town. We didn't even have time to carve pumpkins this year.

It was cold out, in the 20's degrees.  Folks did not want to sit and chat for very long, because cold.

We let our kids keep the candy. Otherwise, why go trick or treating for 3 hours if you have enough candy after 1 hour?  I guess I don't understand. If you notice your kids are getting the good stuff, why out and collect more if it's too much?

October-April is Sugar season. We let the kids eat the candy slowly. We throw out the dregs at Christmas. There's always cookies around. Part of our tradition is decorating sugar cookies, which it has been requested that we do for thanksgiving, too this year. Then there is christmas treats/cookies/candy, followed by valentine and easter.

Ohh, I forgot we also have two of the kids' birthdays between halloween and Christmas. So there's that, too. 

The kids know that we use the next 6 months to reset. We only have birthday cake and maybe a desert here or there.

I'm a tad older. I was not allowed to go trick or treating, save for one year. Razor blades and drugs in candy and all that. My kids have a good time with Halloween, and we don''t go overboard. My 5 year old is definitely not over Halloween.

ETA: We probably have at least 50 neighborhoods in my city, probably closer to 70. We walked a mile and a half and I would say we got 1/3 of our neighbhorhood. Where we are, we'd have to drive to other neighborhoods.

I started piling all my favorites together and told Gwen I had to check her candy cause razor blades and stuff.  If I lived afterwards she could have the rest.  She said nice try. 

[toomuchreality]

Nov 2, 2023 13:17:00 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Nov 1, 2023 19:48:08 GMT -5 giramomma said:

It was fine. My 5 and 11 year old were out for 1.5 hours and got 7lbs of candy, total.

We don't have time to do trunk and treats. I have no idea where they get done around town. We didn't even have time to carve pumpkins this year.

It was cold out, in the 20's degrees.  Folks did not want to sit and chat for very long, because cold.

We let our kids keep the candy. Otherwise, why go trick or treating for 3 hours if you have enough candy after 1 hour?  I guess I don't understand. If you notice your kids are getting the good stuff, why out and collect more if it's too much?

October-April is Sugar season. We let the kids eat the candy slowly. We throw out the dregs at Christmas. There's always cookies around. Part of our tradition is decorating sugar cookies, which it has been requested that we do for thanksgiving, too this year. Then there is christmas treats/cookies/candy, followed by valentine and easter.

Ohh, I forgot we also have two of the kids' birthdays between halloween and Christmas. So there's that, too. 

The kids know that we use the next 6 months to reset. We only have birthday cake and maybe a desert here or there.

I'm a tad older. I was not allowed to go trick or treating, save for one year. Razor blades and drugs in candy and all that. My kids have a good time with Halloween, and we don''t go overboard. My 5 year old is definitely not over Halloween.

ETA: We probably have at least 50 neighborhoods in my city, probably closer to 70. We walked a mile and a half and I would say we got 1/3 of our neighbhorhood. Where we are, we'd have to drive to other neighborhoods.

I started piling all my favorites together and told Gwen I had to check her candy cause razor blades and stuff.  If I lived afterwards she could have the rest.  She said nice try. 

Good one! That's funny.



My DGD2 got sick and fell asleep around 6:30PM on Halloween. She slept through the night and trick or treating. 😫 Her sister is sharing the candy she got. 🥰
A cold is making its way around their family. And now me. Luckily, it has been short lived, so far and not too bad. Or so I've heard.

[tractor]

We don't get any kids at our door out in the country, so I don't have any candy. If some were to show up, I'd offer bourbon shots. 😊

We actually go into town for truck or treat, it's great, had over 600 kids come through. I think, in general, it's a scary world out there, and going up to strangers houses just isn't a thing anymore.

[finnime]

We had about 15 ToT'ers in this small town. It was nice. Most were younger children accompanied by an older sibling or parent(s). We lived in a much, much larger town in Maryland which was also a close neighborhood. Our home was on a corner. We'd get hundreds of kids. The first year was totally overwhelming, but then I got used to it. Last year, my first here, I was really unsure. I got full-size bars, 2 boxes of 30, and hoped for the best. This year I just got one box and DH ate a number. We had in any case the right amount of candy.

If the ToTer is a teenager I go ahead and give them candy. It's just candy, and it may be that they're younger than they appear, or that they know this ritual is soon to end for them and they really want to get one more shot at it. I don't want to end someone's childhood earlier than need be.

I have great memories of trick or treating as a child and with my own kids, too. I hope the tradition continues. Covid did a number on this custom, too.

[Tiny]

I was home on Halloween (Working from Home) but I do not have a working doorbell. Since I couldn't hang out and watch for ghosts and goblins - I left my house undecorated and dark.

In my nieghborhood the biggest issue is lack of kids. I think there maybe only 2 or 3 families per city block with kids. That's out of 30 plus houses (both sides of the street).


Also, Halloween started in the middle of September here... Between October 1st and October 31st - all the local attractions (zoos, museums, Schools, Public libraries, local Park Districts, City Rec Centers, the local Forest Preserve Districts, and on and on) had some sort of Halloween event. And then there were all the Bars that had nonstop Halloween for Adults (zombie crawls, haunted bar crawl, and on and on).

My relatives kids - mostly "traveled" on Halloween - they Trick or Treated at the grandparents, Aunts/Uncles, Friends of their parents, and then maybe hit their friends houses.

Halloween use to be 1 day. If it fell on a weekday you might have gotten to dress up at school and have a "parade" and treats. If it fell on a weekend you might have had a Halloween party - with friends or family.

I don't think Trick or Treating is as wonderful, magical and special for kids today because there are so many opportunities to participate in Halloween events in the weeks leading up to Halloween. If you have to miss going out trick or treating on Halloween - you probably still got to wear a costume (maybe multiple ones depending on how many events you went to) at least once, you probably still got candy, you probably still went to a themed party.


Now you can pretty much do a Halloween something from mid-September thru Halloween.


In the years before 2000  Halloween was pretty much just an eye blink - if you couldn't do something the weekend before Halloween or on Halloween you missed it.   

[jerseygirl]

Not missing Mischief night - night before Halloween. Trees festooned with tp looked kind of pretty. Doorbell ringing kind of annoying. But I remember it as exciting with friends