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.