Raise your hand if you need a mental break from news!!! 
It’s HALLOWEEN week! Are you celebrating in anyway? At home? At work? In your book club?
Do you have treats to pass out? What kind? Any fun pics of past fav Halloween pics of your kids costumes (scratch out faces)??? Are you mixing up any witches brew?? 
Have grandchildren that are dressing up?
All things Halloween here! 
Halloween is one of my favorite nights of the year. We give out all full sized candy. I tape each option to the window of our front door so the kids can point to what they want. It’s supposed to be in the 70’s here so we’ll have the windows open while we wait for the sound of trick-or-treaters.
Halloween sorta got blown away and drowned here by the hurricanes. Saving my broomstick for next year…
For sure 
H will give out full size candy bars here while I go hand out candy at D’s home while she and SiL take our Gds out to trick-or-treat. I can’t wait to see the Gds in their costumes.
Older Gd has been so excited for weeks. She’s role played trick-or-treating the last few times she was here, carrying my silver jack-o-lantern bucket as she collects candy from multiple houses (the couch, dining table, kitchen counter, etc.) H has to pretend he’s her dad and walks around with her, while I’m “mom” and stay home to hand out candy. She will be delighted that her mom is really going out with her and little sister, too.
We have several light-up Disney decorations on our front porch and little ones ask to have their pictures taken with them. Actually, a few teens asked last year, too.
It’s a fun change from our old house where we never had any kids come around. The street there was mostly unlit, the lots were a couple of acres, and the driveways were long and steep. I just hope the weather cooperates this year. The rain forecast has been up and down all week.
Last year it snowed on Halloween! This year temps will be in the low 70’s.
New neighborhood for us and we are NOT expecting many kids if at all. But I have stuff anyway which will turn into work/staff treats if we don’t use it. Bags of Pirate Booty, mini packs of Oreos and Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate packets. (I always have some candy and some NON-candy treats).
Since it will be a nice night we will sit out on the front porch anyway!
I hate dressing up in costume but do enjoy seeing all the little ones dressed up. When my kids were young, we didn’t have too many kids in our neighborhood as it was transitioning from a summer community to a year round neighborhood. The few families that had kids like us always had a potluck pre-Trick or Treating dinner outside then the dads would take the kids around while the moms went home and passed out candy.
There are a ton of kids in our neighborhood now. There is a pizza party at our community beach with younger families followed by a parade then the little kids go out to trick or treat. This is at the opposite end of my neighborhood, so the little ones don’t make it to my side usually. We get mostly the older ones out on their own. Dh bought a big variety bag of candy bars a few weeks ago.
I was planning on making the beef and mushroom stew posted in the Comfort Foods thread for dinner tomorrow night so we could just reheat Thursday. I didn’t want to worry about trying to cook on Halloween, but it’s supposed to be 80 degrees on Halloween! We will prob just grill something instead.
We never got trick or treaters because of our long steep driveway. This year should be different so I am prepared with a giant Costco bag. Any leftovers will go to church for the staff. The little boy next door informed me they were coming to our house first!
One thing that has really helped me in this election year, in our city, is instead of putting up election signs in our yards, many people have put up a “Love your Neighbor” sign. I have tried to arrange my skeletons around it, in supportive positions.
The new trend that I love in our neighborhood is yard skeletons that represent the humans that live there, plus a size appropriate dog skeleton of their pet standing between them. It’s very cute.
We have a lot of kids in our neighborhood, but very few on our block so we don’t have a lot of kids stopping by. They should- we always give out full size candy bars.
I don’t do Halloween decorations (I used to but I got rid of all the stuff before we moved) but there are some amazing displays in my neighborhood. One is an Olympics display using skeletons (that house had a Taylor Swift “Eras” theme last year!) and another house has skeletons enacting a nude (!) beach party,
One of the college houses nearby has a giant skeleton that changes clothes depending on the holiday. It’s always fun to see what its wearing. I think our youngest dog would have a nervous breakdown if we had anything like that in our yard!
It’s been hit or miss here since Covid. Pre covid, we had hundreds of kids. The last couple of year maybe 50-80. I have 400 pieces of candy to handout (peanut butter cups and assorted chocolate candies). We send left overs to work with H the next day.
Weather is amazing for today and tomorrow and then a big drop and possibly thunderstorms on Halloween so I’m not really expecting a big turn out this year.
Usually we sit out on our covered front porch but it may be too cold/wet for that this year. We’ll see!
We live 3 homes away from the most popular street in town for TOTing (hilly town, this street goes across town and is somewhat flat). The town hangs lights and closes down part of it to vehicles. It will be in the 70’s so will probably put a bowl outside and sit with neighbors. Our jack-o’-lanterns have already collapsed, I think it’s heat related. I bought 2 bags of candy from Costco which I hid, unfortunately I knew where I hid them. My husband was taking out the garbage and saw some wrappers, but I wouldn’t give up the location. We will probably run out, folks on the popular street give out over 1000 pieces each year.
We used to do a ton for Halloween, decorating wise - mostly inside, a little outside - but stopped when the kids were grown. Last year, we started getting back into it. H made “Pumpkin Head Man” who stands on our porch, lit up in red.
This year, since he retired, he decorated the inside of the house a ton! It used to always fall 100% on me… I love it! And he added some stuff to the front lawn. It looks really good. I’ll try to get a pic tonight.
We will never give away full size candy bars. We used to get over 1000 kids! It’s not quite as many now since the City has a big festival downtown, but I’d guess at LEAST 500 in the 1:30 that we sit outside handing it out. I used to buy 20 pounds from Walmart. I scaled back since covid. This year I got 15 pounds, but I went to Costco and saved about 50%, so I’m happy with that.
It NEVER rained once on Halloween when my kids were trick or treating. We had a couple of nasty days in the last few years, but this year is looking to be lovely. Mid to upper 70s as highs, lows in the 50s.
I love Halloween! I dress up, my dog dresses up, my kid comes home from college, and we all go out. I love looking at the creative costumes the neighborhood kids come up with and I feel zero shame taking the occasional Reese’s peanut cup if someone has left out a bowl on their porch.
I also watch the Exorcist every year - it’s annual Halloween tradition for me going back to my undergrad days at Fordham (we had two priests who were in the movie - Father O’Malley and Father Bermingham - and they would host screenings every year and talk about exorcisms - Father Bermingham had performed at least one - and the making of the making of the movie). Anyway…
My daughter and I also volunteer every year at Fairyland - a local little-kid theme park which, by the way, was the park that inspired Walt Disney to create his theme park - for their Halloween Jam. Such fun giving out treats to the kids and helping them make Halloween crafts.
So anyway, yes, I am a HUGE Halloween fan 
@abasket, what is Pirate Booty? I’m picturing something like gelt.
It cheddar puffs. Really tasty!
Oh, nice! That’s something H could enjoy. Thanks.
I really enjoy Halloween. We have a great neighborhood, and we do a few special things during the year. Thursday will be our Halloween Happy Hour…with lots of finger foods…really dinner. Most will be in costume, and it’s really fun.
This year, we have a couple of young children on the street. We all plan to bring their holiday treats to the event on the street (it’s a cul d sac so the party is actually on the street). Excited to see their costumes!
And it’s supposed to be 80!