So last night was the first time I got to hand out candy to trick or treaters as a home owner. Man, I had an absolute blast! It's so much fun to see everyone all dressed up and excited about the holiday.
By and large, the majority of the kids who came by were dressed up really well. But there were a few younger kids who showed up without *any* costume on! Whatever happened to pride in your costume? I bet at least three or four of the kids (young enough to still be excited by Halloween) showed up without any costume on. The ones who didn't try at all got no candy, or maybe one piece if their explanation of thier "costume" was good enough.
Don't get me wrong though, most of the kids who showed up were just awesome! My favorite kids for the night were:
1) the little boy dressed as a cop who hid "below" my steps (in plain view) and when I answered the door said "booo!! arrgg!! narr!!!" He got a lot of candy for trying to scare me.
2) The brother and sister dressed as a pair of witches who were more interested in petting Pixel than getting candy. They were so excited to be out trick or treating, and just so happy and vivacious. Man, those kids were awesome -- they got a ton of candy. They reminded me of myself when I was that age and just how happy and excited I was to be out.
3) The older brother who took his little sister out trick or treating. He dressed up as phantom of the opera, had a nice costume, and asked for absolutely nothing because he was too old; but he still wanted to get dressed up. How awesome is that?
All in all, I contributed to the dental bills of 42 kids.
I don't recall trick or treating ending so early though. My last batch of kids was at 8:30! I could have sworn people stayed out later than that when I was a kid.
Did everyone have a nice Halloween? Feel free to post your experiences here. :-)
"They reminded me of myself when I was that age and just how happy and excited I was to be out."
LoL. Sounds like getting out was a real novelty! Did your parents lock you up?! We only had one batch of trick-or-treaters; they seemed to have costumes but I couldn't really see very well through the peep-hole in the door! I didn't have anything to give them so we pretended to not be home. I was a bit worried as to how they got in the building - we live in a block with an over zealous entry system.
While I'm on the subject - bah, humbug!
LoL, getting out dressed up as the headless horseman was a novelty. ;-) And it sounds like Halloween isn't so big over there? Or is it?
I grew up in Manhattan, and we did halloweenin shifts, our booty bag was made out of a pillow case (which on the record noght, was emptied 4 times!). Costumes were planned months in advance, routes were marked on maps and it didn't stop until you got yelled at, at least a dozen times for waking someone up. Ah, halloween. A good thing.
Well, Bill obviously celebrated Halloween in Manhattan, but I've been led to believe that Halloween generally is "celebrated" much more in the Midwest than elsewhere.
@Aaron - I think if you have kids it's a big deal.. We usually make a scary pumpkin lantern and leave it at that. I grew up (for the most part) in the country, so there was nowhere to really go trick-or-treating.
I took my kids out. My five-year-old was dressed as a cheerleader, and the two-year old was dressed as a princess. As we were roaming the streets we didn't see too many kids out -- so I guess our neighborhood doesn't have too many kids and I think the houses that were giving out candy were happy to see anybody stop by.
@Phil -- that means they probably took in a big haul. I know at mom and dad's house, on nights when they don't run out of candy, the kids who come by later (in costume, not talking about the high schoolers out in sweaters) get a ton of candy. :-)
They got combined about 3/5 of a plastic grocery bag full for going to about 30 houses. And then we went to a local carnival where they got to play on a jumper, had popcorn, balloon animals and of course more candy. =)
The point is that they had loads of fun but came home exhausted -- no problems getting them to bed last night. =)
My job was holding back our two miniature Rottweilers (a.k.a. our two Dashchunds) while my wife peddled the candy. Not as many kids as last year, as we usually sit outside on the truck's tailgate and catch them as they go by.
@Phil -- sounds like a ton of fun. :-)
@Christian -- depending on where you are in the country, the weather may not have cooperated. Lis was telling me it was storming pretty bad in Texas.
42 kids! Cool.
My first year here (North Carolina) I had over 70. Over the years the numbers went down, and some years I've had as few as 5-6.
Last night, we made somewhat of a comeback, with about 20 young Halloween celebrants.