(no subject)

[elizilla]

We got almost 60 trick or treaters tonight! Early on, I feared we wouldn't get any. According to the neighborhood watch newsletter, trick or treating was supposed to run from 5pm to 7pm. I guess other people didn't get that memo, since they didn't start coming by until almost 6pm, and the last ones came through around 8:30.

The conservative christian family across the street participated this year. Their house is normally dark on Halloween, but tonight they had jack-o-lanterns and everything. And our neighbors on either side were both into it as well. There have been years when we were the only house on the block with the lights on.

New this year was the appearance of pre-teen girls in burquas, watched over from the sidewalk by mothers in burquas. I don't think this was a costume; they were real. We had several family groups like that come through. Some of the groups included smaller middle eastern looking girls, still young enough to go out with their hair exposed, in more ordinary costumes, like princesses and witches.

A pair little kids, maybe eight or nine years old, sang
Trick or treat, smell my feet
Give me something good to eat
If you don't, I don't care
I'll pull down your underwear!

I said to Michael that it was a good thing their parents were waiting in the car or they'd have been cringing in embarassment. When I was a kid we used to chant that at home, but my parents threatened an early end to the evening if we dared to tell any adult to smell our feet. And we only had the first two lines. The underwear bit was new to me.

Halloween wouldn't be the same without the spooky chaos of children swarming up and down the dark streets in the cool rustling fall winds. But trick-or-treating is a tradition that requires community participation, and more and more people seem to be opting out. Halloween 2001 was so quiet that I was afraid that soon all we'd have would be stylish parties for the adults, and brightly lit, overly supervised activities at the elementary schools for the kids. Trick-or-treating would vanish, a victim of the mean world syndrome. But tonight it went very well, with new participants joining in. Maybe it will survive after all.

Comments

[lazaruslong42.livejournal.com]

I really need to start reading that watch newsletter... Shanna and I couldn't figure out when we were supposed to be out. Now I'm not so worried that we ran out of candy at 7:15.

Missed the teens in burqas; far too many teens in "annoying teenager" costuming, though. And one guy who had to be thirty, with no child in evidence... ah well. Some people have no shame; I, on the other hand, will buy perfectly good candy later this week for 75% off.

(We live about two blocks from y'all over on Carriage Way.)

[foms.livejournal.com]

I was disappointed. I think that (at least, in our new neighbourhood) the ratio of hallowe'ening houses to non- was reversed from what I was used to.

It may be partly that the area is slightly less densely populated but I really think that you're right and people just aren't participating. With fewer houses participating, fewer kids come out. It's just not worth as much trouble for the haul that they'll get. Con_girl says that she noticed fewer natural pumpkins this year. Plastic reigns supreme?

What's this about a set time for trick-or-treating? This smacks of 1970, in Montreal, when the threatened to cancel hallowe'en due to the state of martial law. Phooey! Even in the nastiest neighbourhoods, kids running around having fun can put the nastiness on hold. People got reputations, don't they? Nobody wants to be known as the one who spoiled the candy night.

[elizilla]

Setting an official start and end time is not a new thing. Thirty years ago, in the town where I grew up, they called an end to trick-or-treat time by ringing the bell at the firehouse. Our town was small enough that when I was ten or eleven and finally counted as old enough to race around trick or treating with friends instead of with my parents, my friends and I would try to hit every house in town before the bell rang to send us home. Some years, when the weather was good, we could achieve that goal, but only because by the time we got to the other end of town, most of the houses would have run out of candy and turned their lights off, and we could run past them.

We also tended to skip houses that were alone at the end of a long driveway, or cul de sacs with most of the houses dark. Unless we got word from other kids that the treats being given were particularly good, that is. And that kind of information spread like wildfire out there. I've tried to get my house listed on that gossip network, some years, but I don't know how effective I am. This town may be so large that the kids don't all know each other out there.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

Hm...far better than us. We got one group, three kids.

Not sure if it's the mean world syndrome, or living in China-town. Probably more of the latter than the former.

[hotwire7.livejournal.com]

Four year old Jacob went trick-or-treating this year and had a great time. He went with a friend of his and the two Moms. They did it in the friend's neighborhood where the houses are close together. I think this tradition still has a lot of fun and life left in it.

And yes, Jacob learned that little rhyme in preschool too, all four lines. When I was a kid there were only the first two, somebody must have "improved" it since then.