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Halloween and Kids Having Fun!
My neighborhood had a fun and “normal” Halloween.
@bethanymandel has expressed frustration about the number of educational, socialization, and fun things the adult powers-that-be are depriving children these days. In at least one podcast she particularly lamented that some places were banning Halloween trick-or-treating, an activity that is conducted out in the fresh air with minimal brief contact between homeowner and child. So, I thought I’d report our neighborhood’s experience last night.
Kids (and their parents) were out in large numbers. The sounds of kids laughing and running filled the 60-degree still air. A couple of houses in the neighborhood had adult beverage treats for the parents and other adults. A church had games going in the park at the entrance to the neighborhood, with the pastor and his wife presiding as pirates (they live in the neighborhood). As one of the comments put it in the neighborhood Facebook group, everybody enjoyed seeing and hearing “kids being kids.”
My personal favorite costume was a kid in a giant inflatable dinosaur. Watching him try to run (or even walk) was hysterical. Except he was so wide and his tail so long that he couldn’t fit onto my next-door neighbor’s porch. Lots of princesses, Captain Americas, Spidermen, Mario Brothers. Many older kids (middle school) dressed in 1950s outfits. A gumball machine. A Gandalf who did a pretty good job of staying in character for talking as well.
This is in a new subdivision (250 houses all built since 2015) on small lots (50 – 60 feet wide, so easy for the kids to hit lots of houses) in a smallish town (population 30,000) in north central Texas. About half the houses in the neighborhood have teen and younger children. Most houses reported getting 75 – 100 trick-or-treaters. Word got around town that our neighborhood was up for trick-or-treating, so there were a number of out-of-neighborhood kids, but we were happy to host an opportunity for kids to be out in the fresh air being kids. And for the adults much more healthy than reading on-line yet more election “news.”
Published in Culture
Oh, and only one child and that child’s parent wearing a virus mask. They did not stop at my house. They seemed to be stopping only at houses of people they actually knew.
What a wonderful tale! I just loved thinking of that kid in the dinosaur costume–bless his heart. It sounds like you have a wonderful neighborhood. That’s a drawback for where we live–55+ community. So I love hearing that other people weren’t scared out of having fun together. Good for you!
Our neighborhood had the best Halloween I can remember, by far.
Lots of kids in great costumes with their parents and grandchildren. Instead of folks with the bowls of waiting candy sitting inside as in prior years, waiting for kids to come up and knock, everyone was out in his driveway, many with cheerful glowing fires in firepits. Everyone was just sharing the love and joy of normal free society. It was as if for one evening, the whole neighborhood had been transported in time back to America. There weren’t enough people in livestock-muzzles to make reality seem like a dystopian dream, like every other day in SW Ohio since the dehumanizing orders of mass isolation began.
A good turnout in our neighborhood as well (Wisconsin), although I didn’t have any later-in-the-evening teenagers come by as I have seen most years. I’m very happy to see that the fearmongers weren’t able to shut everything down.
I went trick or treating with the granddaughters last night and, I’m sorry to report, the experience was vastly different than yours. We saw about a dozen kids. Only about that number of houses in the neighborhood were offering treats, a substantial part of which was the help yourself variety. About 10-20% of last year. Not nearly as many houses were decorated. All or almost all the kids were masked, as well as most of the adults.
The girls live in the Portland suburbs. The governor discouraged trick or treating. I think that Oregonians live in much greater fear of the WuFlu than Texans. About 50% of parents are afraid to send their kids to real school.
That said, the girls had a lot of fun. I feel sorry for those hiding in their homes.
I really despise Halloween and we live in a gated retirement community so no trick-or-treaters but I am delighted by the reports of the normal activity. I would have been happy to participate if it applied.
Normal night here. Our little bit of Marietta has had several new families move in over the past two years, so lots of little ones! (16 years ago we were the new family!)
Seeing the word “normal” is so delightful, Bryan. Thanks!
Intentional decision on our part to find a neighborhood with young families. Both because I like watching children play, and so in my retired state I could wave at the parents from my front porch as they drove off to work. :)
But I know many like the quiet of a 55+ community.
Pretty normal night in Western New York, too. In years past we’ve had up to 200 kids, and last night, which was kind of cold, we had 160. That’s more than last year, which was cold and rainy.
The biggest difference for us was that the wife decided she wanted to do this with distancing, so we wouldn’t hand out the treats like we usually do. Instead we set up tables and built ramps so we could stand at one end of the table and slide the treats to the kids on the other end. We set these up and decorated them with lights and the kids got a kick out of them. A couple different ones told us we had the coolest house they’d been to.
It actually did make it more fun, and we were outside in the middle of it all instead of inside waiting to hear “Trick or treat.” I suspect the wife is going to want to do it this way next year even if COVID is over.
Very few parents or kids were wearing masks. I had expected to be scolded at least once for not wearing one, but that didn’t happen.
For most of our adult life we disliked Halloween and hid from trick-or-treaters. But after moving to this neighborhood two years ago, and seeing the neighborhood embrace of a fun neighborhood Halloween, I decided to try again to like the holiday.
Many of the people handing out candy were sitting in the driveway. I was up on the porch but outside the house.
Oh, and almost every kid said, “Thank you,” as did many of the parents from the street.
We had a great night, too.
We set up and decorated a table and let kids grab their candies. Most houses had similar set ups. The men sat outside talking and drinking beer while my mother, sister in law, and I took my kids around the neighborhood.
There were some very creative distanced candy delivery that were entertaining. One woman used a chute from her second story window to drop candy to the kids below, acting the witch with a microphone. It was a great night.
This was just like our neighborhood in Maryland. Best Halloween in years.
Big turnout here, too, and it was hard to tell who was more joyful: the kids or adults!
Our experience was more similar to Al French’s. Except that we had zero trick-or-treaters. Our local media and “health authorities” discouraged trick-or-treating, and our sheeple obeyed their betters. We would not have had many takers if we had sat outside, since I would have handed out individual bags of Welch’s Fruit Snacks instead of candy. [actually, I buy them at Costco in a big box, and they are wonderful] In the past, I used to dress up to give out candy, but I quit that a few years ago. At my old job, lots of people dressed up on Halloween, and they had a best-costume contest. Two years ago, I went as “everyone’s worst nightmare”.
Avid Trump Supporter
My son would have been glad to stop by multiple times. He loves ’em!
In our neighborhood in south Florida, the only people sitting outside handing out candy were Trump supporters and the families taking their kids out to trick or treat figured out early on that the only places to collect candy had Trump signs out. That is just one small example of how crazy the leftists have made our country. One 9 or 10 year old black kid asked me what BLM stood for. I said No, what? He said Biden Loves Minors.
One silver lining of the Plague Year has been the explosion of creativity it has unleashed. Outdoor socializing, movies projected onto the garage door, candy chutes for Halloween, all manner of Zoom-enabled activities (not looking at you, Jeffrey Toobin), etc. It heartens me.
Oh, and Welch’s Fruit Snacks are the bomb. We gave them out this year too, in individual baggies with Goldfish and a KitKat or two.
Our Halloween was basically normal too, and it was great! We typically have close to 200 kids, and this year we had about 125. It was a rainy night, so that probably kept the numbers down some. My teenaged daughter and I set up a table on the front porch so we were out of the rain, and let the kids pick what candy they wanted from a cauldron on the table. It was a better system that what I usually do, getting up every time the doorbell rings. And the kids liked being able to pick out the candy they wanted. A few masks, and most were part of their costumes – ninjas and scream masks.
And I’m sad to report I’m getting older – there were quite a few characters I didn’t recognize and had to ask my daughter who they were.
We had a great night with our twin toddlers in North Charleston, SC – they are still little so we just pulled them along in a wagon (they were dressed as animals and we were the traveling circus). Many of the neighbors are young professionals who don’t have children – so I was very grateful toward how much time and effort people put into setting up tables, stuffing individual bags with candy, handing out full size candy bars and canned adult beverages, etc. It was a great experience with everyone outside and it allows you to meet & greet – I think it’s better than ringing doorbells, actually! Probably had about 40-50% participation in our neighborhood.
We had trick-or-treating in my neighborhood, but it wasn’t business as usual. Through online communication, we learned that residents were going to put candy out for costumed kids to help themselves. There was no doorbell ringing and no contact. Still, a lot of people participated, both in offering and snagging treats.
I thought it sounded unfun. More of a candy scavenger hunt (“Which houses have the porch light on? Where have they put the goodies?”) than what I know as trick-or-treating. But my 7-year-old grandson thoroughly enjoyed it, so I’m glad we took part. We have a lot of candy left over, though.