Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Trick or Treat! Or not.

Sunday is Halloween. I don't exactly consider it a holiday--it doesn't involve cleaning the entire house and cooking until my fingers are raw for people who think a bottle of cheap wine is not only a suitable hostess gift, but also gets them out of EVER having the holiday dinner at their house. No, I'm not bitter about it. Why do you ask?

Anyway, I do like Halloween a lot, but I miss the old Halloween, when you got really good treats like popcorn balls and candied apples. If you tried that now, you'd have the cops at your door faster than you can say "sugar rush." And that's sad. It means you don't think you know your neighbors well enough to let your kids accept a homemade treat from them. I can understand it though, and it's certainly easier to buy bags of candy than to make stuff.

We live in a pretty large condo complex and in the summer the place is crawling with kids. When we first moved in, I figured we'd get hammered on Halloween. Our across-the-way neighbor told us otherwise. He said we'd be lucky to get half a dozen kids. I figured he didn't know what he was talking about and bought a ton of candy. Of course, he turned out to be right and I had to find places to pawn off the candy. There's an upside, though. I can buy a package of full-size candy bars and hand those out, since one package is more than enough. As a kid, that was the candy mother lode, getting a big candy bar instead of a mini.

Last year, this was one of our only trick-or-treaters, so DD took the leftover candy to school.


I guess I'll make popcorn balls this year and do the right thing--eat them myself.

7 comments:

  1. We have never had trick-or-treaters at our house since we moved here (this will be my 4th Halloween here). Trick-or-treat day changes every year (it's rarely on Halloween. They don't want kids out on a school night or something) so I really wouldn't even know when to expect children. This year I bought TImber a pirate hat and myself a bag of candy and am calling it a day.

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  2. Same here. We never have anybody stop at our house. It is pretty sad. I still bought the candy and started eating a few days ago. Well, you have to spread it out, right??

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  3. When I first came to the US I couldn't believe my eyes on my very first Halloween. All these kids dressed up, I thought it was the cutest thing ever.

    I especially love the wee little ones that say: "ticketee". I melt when that happens :)

    I hope lots of little ones will knock on or door, I know there are some kids in our building.

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  4. I had the same thing when we lived in a condo! No kids.........EVER. Not one in 9 years. It was weird.

    Then we moved here, to rural CT, super quiet neighborhood, ZERO thru traffic due to this road not being connected to anything, no street lights around, everybody is in bed by 11pm and it's pitch black out unless it's full moon. So no kids for Halloween, right? WRONG!

    I get 70-90 kids on Halloween!!! (I keep track sometimes because I'm curious like that.)
    People in minivans drive here from town (I guess?) and drop the kids off in huge groups. *blink*

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  5. What have they done to that poor dog?

    Our house in CT was on a busy street with no sidewalk so we never got trick or treaters. After the first year I stopped buying candy. I think the town did "trick or trunk" with people in the school parking lot distributing candy from their car(?!).

    I don't know what to expect here at the boarding school. We've been asking, so I think that got us on the list of dorms to hit for the faculty members who have small kids.
    Of course we busted into the candy days ago. I hope we have enough left!
    Hubby is very upset because it doesn't sound like people dress up for class.

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  6. We live in a neighbourhood with lots of kids and yet are lucky to get 20 come to our door. We don't even go through one bag of candy. So I make sure I buy what I like to eat since I'll be eating it for a long time afterwards. Apparently one of the houses (much) further down the street has a full-on Hallowe'en buffet on offer. I'd rather have pizza than mini-chocolate bars too. I wonder if they have beer for the adults? Maybe I should dress the cat up and bring her out?

    Anyway. Yeah, it is a sad state of affairs that we can't make treats for kids these days. And I also find that a lot of kids don't even bother with decent costumes. Which is also sad. A dollar store mask and jeans is not a costume. Put some effort in!

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  7. Halloween is stressing me as much as Christmas usually does. My 13yo daughter's "trick or treating" plans with friends have changed multiple times (from which friends to where, to when, to what costumes, repeat from the beginning). Tonight I told her I'd buy her a box of Hershey bars and a skein of Malabrigo if she'd just stay home instead. I thought I had her at Malabrigo, but she's holding out. So far.

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