It was fun! I swear though, I saw at least two different cars with their flashers on, flowing their kids as they trick or treated. This is a tight neighborhood, you can hit like 20 houses just going down two streets. One was a mini van and I overheard the adult driving tell their kid (the doors and trunk were open) “no you get out and walk”.
I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt here, maybe the parent is disabled. But 10 minutes later I saw another car on a different street doing what looked like the same thing.
Maybe its just a fluke thing! First time I’ve seen that though.
How was everyone else night?
I will admit to being a bit of a grinch about Halloween. Even as a kid, I didn’t really get into it. As an adult, it’s very important to my wife that we all do a themed family costume, and I really dislike the costumes I’ve had to wear, so I wasn’t really all that thrilled about.
BUT, actually getting out there with the kids, it was so good to see how happy they were. They had a blast and I loved watching them do it all. My littlest one literally jumping up and down in excitement every time she got candy. Totally worth it.
Only downside was that there was basically no one else the neighborhood who was trick or treating. We went late and people were telling us that there was only one other family out there before us. My wife thinks it’s social media, and people in our town will gravitate to just a few neighborhoods were the people there go all out. She was saying she saw on Facebook that people in the most popular neighborhood were buying 10-12 big bags of candy and expecting to hand it all out.
Common social media L.
You have to figure out the demographic of your block or street. Its obvious why we don’t get people at our house: its rural, no side walk, poor lighting, but most importantly no one has kids on my street.
Our town has hot spots for trick or treating too. Its because a lot of places in my town are like my street. No sidewalks, not enough lights.
I see this idea every year though. Sometime that idea is rooted in “how things were when I was a kid”. For example I’ve seen posts like “my parents say no one has come around for years”. The obvious reality is that their parents haven’t moved and none of the other families moved either. The kids grew up and moved out.
You gotta go where kids live, and my town has a shrinking demographic unfortunately which I think contributes to people collecting in specific places. If you look at the year over year enrollment of your school district, you might see a similar trend.
Personally, I love Halloween. Its a pretty chill holiday and though it’s still a wash in consumer capitalist culture, it’s easily not the worst offender, encourages some creativity and personal expression, while being an event that gets you talking to people around you, getting to know your community.
Teaching my 2-year-old to trick or treat. He likes to try and force his way into people’s houses
Do crimes!That’s adorable haha. I can totally imagine a 2 yo just pushing past peoples legs to investigate their house. Our kiddo loved saying trick or treat, and happy Halloween. He wanted nothing to do with his costume though LOL so we have a cute jacket that makes him look like a bear which was good enough.
We went around the block with our 10 month old, her first Halloween. It’s a good excuse to finally talk to some neighbors.
My personal bugbear is living near a high school in regional WA. It’s pretty walkable - we have the extremely wide streets and footpaths typical of newer developments in AU. There’s a school bus service. I see so, so many people driving their kids to school every GD day. High school kids! Admittedly I lived right by the school when I was attending but back in the day, if I asked for a lift in anything but torrential rain I would be laughed at. Get them a bicycle! It’s a safe place and a healthy thing to do. Plus we simply cannot be using cars so much…
I work in a district and the amount of people who do not use our bus service is staggering. It takes the Elementary school almost an hour to dismisse kids because of the parent pickup. Its been getting better though.
Had to work unfortunately. My partner informs me that our preschooler was freaked out by a house with clowns and called it quits early, recovered morale by eating candy. Guess we will avoid that house next year.
I know my parents used to do that when I was trick or treating, but we were in a rural area, and the evenings were quite cold! So we were rushing back into the car to get back to a heated place.
But then we would get to the village and they’d still do it. But not every house was decorated too.
But otherwise my night was great, I was working all evening for a party organized by the youth I work with and even though there were less people than last year, it sure was nice and cozy, I got to drive some of them home after the event - and feels like I’m doing something good for them.
I’ve been seeing that for a few years now.
Devil’s advocate, maybe they’re just not comfortable leaving their car unattended? Cause it’s always people driving in to a neighborhood that don’t live there. But, like… that’s still absurd. I don’t care how carefully and slowly you’re driving, you’re still a hazard. Just park and lock the damn thing.
Really fun! Luckily didn’t see any of that, but my neighborhood is quiet on Halloween and doesn’t really draw anyone from other areas. It’s much slower paced and with way less houses sitting out than where I grew up, but he’s having fun with it.
i saw multiple cars following their kids like that. i also saw one family driving and getting out every house. personally unless they’re disabled i feel like that kinda ruins trick or treating. let your kid run around the neighborhood, whats really gonna happen? parents are way overly protective these days. but i guess i would be too considering im terrified at the thought of having to raise a kid in a world like this
Kids got a ton of candy. Great fun. Saw a lot of people from the neighborhood I would like to get to know but this is the one day of the year I ever see them. The parents slowly driving down the street while their kids trick or treat is something I’ve been seeing for years.
