<p>Emeraldkity- this is my D’s 4 night plan
Thursday night = Sorority exchanges with a Halloween theme
Friday night =Friday night with a Halloween theme
Saturday night = Saturday night with a Halloween theme
Sunday night = Halloween with a recovery theme I guess!!
Got to love college.</p>
<p>clever idea, abasket! (#20) 
And “Halloween with a recovery theme” is very funny - thanks for the chuckle, ilc.</p>
<p>Our biggest challenge is predicting how many kids we’ll have. We haven’t guessed right in years and always end up with bags of leftover candy. The last few kids here usually get several fistfuls of candy while we tell ourselves to remember to buy less next year.</p>
<p>I think all 3 ds (27, 24, 20) have some kind of Halloween plans this weekend, but only the youngest one’s involve costuming - just dug what she needed out of her closet today and mailed it off.</p>
<p>My worst trick-or-treating memory - the time d1 got a tetanus booster earlier that afternoon and discovered, when we were several blocks from home, that she could barely walk back. Piggybacked her home up several daunting hills while dragging the other two along. I’d never survive that today.</p>
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<p>False dichotomy alert!!</p>
<p>Maybe I’m just not up with the times. We didn’t trick or treat past junior high; we would’ve felt silly. Nor would my kids. But they’re older than yours, PG. I’ll just have to accept the “curmudgeonly” epithet. Well played.</p>
<p>What my friends and I love to do is go to Target/Walmart the day after Halloween and buy the candy at ridiculously marked down prices.</p>
<p>A pig-out ensues. :)</p>
<p>We did go trick-or-treating last year…we got VERY dressed up and went in Petaluma. The parents were actually excited to see us, said that we looked great, and all gave us candy. They also said that they had seen almost no children. We saw maybe only 3 or 4 groups the whole night. Granted, we did go a little later in the evening, but I remember there always being kids out when I was little. Has something changed?</p>
<p>Last year as a freshman, my D dressed up as a zebra, loosely interpreted: zebra-pattern hoodie, white shirt, black jeans, white shoes.</p>
<p>This year, she’s going as Tom Cruise in Risky Business; yes, the dancing-in-the-living-room scene, modified for gender and modesty. This isn’t gratuitous sluttiness; tomorrow her dance class is doing a flash mob on campus, and this is her costume for that performance.</p>
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For the record, we trick or treated in high school, my kids are all adults and they also did in high school. May have in college once or twice. With masks, whose to know how old they are?</p>
<p>I seriously hope never to get so cranky that I object to a teen out having innocent fun.</p>
<p>Yeah, I guess if a gaggle of football players comes by in their uniforms, and announces they’re dressed as football players, for let’s face it, free candy, it makes me, in your words, cranky.</p>
<p>So,what age is too old? 20? 25? your thirtysomething neighbors? Or, for that matter, too young? Should I assume the infant in arms in the adorable bunny costume is going to be the one eating the candy, when there are not other kids in sight, or is she just a prop, cuz Mom or Dad want candy?</p>
<p>I think everyone, at every age, should enjoy the holiday–it’s totally devoted to fun. I think the candy collecting part is for kids. I am a bit taken aback that teens and older are encouraged to think they are no longer taking part in the “fun” if they don’t get stuff. (actually, now that I think about it, maybe that doesn’t surprise me.)</p>
<p>I guess I’m in the curmudgeon school as well, because my rule of thumb is: If you’re old enough to earn the money to buy your own candy, why should I buy it for you? So I guess that means late-middle-school-ish is the cutoff for me. </p>
<p>Around here, the older they are, the less effort they put into the costume. One year, a bunch of surly 17-year-olds showed up with no evident costume and shoved their pillowcases toward me. I asked, “What are you supposed to be?” They kind of laughed, and one said “High school students.” </p>
<p>But the worst, and we have several of these every year, is when a young parent shows up with an infant in a stroller. Baby is not walking age yet, dressed in a costume, often asleep. Mom, not in costume, holds out a plastic pumpkin. I can never decide which is worse: Is she trick-or-treating on behalf of the baby, who will be getting all those sugary treats before he can even gum real food? Or is she trick-or-treating on behalf of herself, an adult roving around a strange neighborhood expecting other adults to buy her candy for her?</p>
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<p>Aw, lighten up! For some people, Halloween’s a big deal and they’ve looked forward to trick or treating with their kids and they like to show off their babies. I myself am not particularly into any babies that I didn’t myself gestate, LOL, but why rain on their parade? </p>
<p>Since we’re talking about H, let me share my favorite H memory that still makes me smile. My younger sister and I would tnt around our neighborhood, of course (in the days where you started after dark! none of this afternoon nonsense!) and then come home. My grandfather, who was 6’1", would show up every year in a costume pretending to be a tnt-er and of course we’d squeal with delight when we identified him (it wasn’t that hard) – we’d invite him in and we’d all share our loot. Now, he wasn’t going door-to-door, he was just showing up to delight me and my sister, but it’s really a very fond childhood memory of mine and that’s why I can’t get behind getting all worked up about who comes to the door.</p>
<p>^Maybe one should have some appropriate baby treats on hand! I’ve only seen the too young babies a handful of time, but I admit I’ve had somewhat curmudgeonly thoughts about them. Teens hanging on to their childhood? That I find sweet.</p>
<p>I would rather those teenagers go door to door collecting candy instead of out drinking or TPing houses and egging small children!! If there are hanging out in the neighborhood where they are known, chances are they are staying out of trouble!</p>
<p>I remember my son and a group of school friends having a pizza dinner at our home and then heading out to ring doorbells; I don’t think they went to more than 15 houses or so. They then came to the house and traded candy for an hour with each other, watched a movie.</p>
<p>This is what my D and friends did during her HS years (she’s fanatic about Halloween): Set up an elaborate, though tiny, haunted house event on our front porch. used portable clothes racks to make a divider down the middle, and hung black sheets on front and back of porch, down the sides, and from the clothes racks to make a cavern-like path kids would have to get to before they got to the door. Placed scary flashy, screamy things along the way to go off as they went through. Had black lights flashing to further disorient. Played Halloween CD of scary music, screams etc. As little bro and friends got older, enlisted them to wear dark costumes and either hide and jump out, or pretend to be mannaquins and then “come alive.” </p>
<p>It was set up so that small and/or timid kids could bypass the whole thing and go right to the door, but most opted for the scare. </p>
<p>She’s a mischief night baby, so she often also had Halloween themed birthday parties.</p>
<p>When she got to college, she rallied her hall frosh year to win the “hall decorating for Halloween” award, and is planning now for her scary costume for the Colbert part of the rally she’ll be attending (on her 28th birthday.)</p>
<p>What we don’t have is kids who grow up too fast, thankfully. :)</p>
<p>And again, I’ve never got the “better this, than that awful alternative” argument. Either get candy, or go out drinking and causing trouble–that’s the only two choices?</p>
<p>My s is in New Orleans. Halloween is a BIG deal there!! He ordered some muscle tshirt form ENGLAND to go as the guy in the Old Spice TV commercial, lol.</p>
<p>We have a tradition in our neighborhood-- we have always given out fullsize candybars (not those tiny funsize things that you end up giving 2-3 of anyway) so we get a LOT of trick or treaters at our door. We used to give some of the dads a beer too, but dont do that anymore.</p>
<p>I don’t mind the teenagers, as long as they’re wearing costumes. I always have candy left over, anyway.</p>
<p>Has anyone noticed that a lot of the kids no longer even say “trick or treat” when they arrive, nor do many say “thank you” after you give them candy?</p>
<p>Several years ago, we carved 2 pumpkins as Bush and Gore (there were downloadable templates on the web) and I had the kids “vote”. I then gave them the appropriate candy accordingly :)</p>
<p>I hear one of the popular costumes this year is going as the Jet Blue flight attendant guy who bailed down the chute with a beer. I guess its an easy excuse to carry a beer bottle, LOL</p>
<p>Mom of 3 here. (20, 18, and 13) LOVE the big kids who dress up. Some of them tower over me at the door, but as a mom of a 6’6" “kid” (who was taller than me in middle school) I find it curious that some are so offended by young people who are just having a little fun. And the comment about late middle schoolers being able to make money and buy their own candy…hmmm, better tell my 8th grader to skip that house because the kid is unemployed, the little slacker! </p>
<p>Extending childhood for a bit longer seems harmless to me. Kids these days (oh gawd…now I sound ancient) are under so much pressure (IMO) to perform…get high gpa’s, perfect SAT’s, pile on the EC’s, that a night of harmless, sugar-high fun seems ok to me. I always buy enough to account for the inevitable groups of teens who come by later in the night. It does help get rid of the extra candy, so it’s a win-win for me.</p>
<p>And here is a thought…post a note on your door asking big kids to pass on by if you feel strongly about it. I’m sure there are some out there who might not like it, and leave you a little “trick”, but I am guessing that most will honor your request.</p>
<p>Happy Halloween!</p>
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Here’s how to avoid the trick: put a large, empty bowl in front of your door, with a sign that says: “Please take only two.”</p>
<p>LOL, Hunt. I think some neighbors have pulled that stunt in the past.</p>
<p>My s’s quit trick or treating after MS, I believe, but used to offer to take some of the little neighborhood kids around so the moms could stay at their houses to give out the candy (little ones start early and often the dads are still at work)</p>
<p>^Yes, my D enjoyed doing that, too! (will always be a total kid at heart.)</p>