Halloween, what do you do?

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I sit outside in a lawn chair with a bowl of candy and a shotgun, wearing a Jason Voorhees mask, and every once in a while I shoot off a Bird Bomb shell, and I mix in a few Dragon's Breath shells now and then.

Never have figured out why I don't get very many trick or treaters. Must be my location...😉
 
At work I dress up in costume.
At home, we keep the light off and ignore. The whole neighborhood is overrun with packs of kids and parents. The police shut our neighborhood down by blocking the streets. You can barely drive through. I’ve worked until 8 p.m. some trick or treat nights and what a pain to get back home. A friend in the neighborhood said they spend over $100 on candy and it’s gone the first 15 minutes. People come in from miles around just for free candy, teaching kids door to door logistics, and showing off costumes.

Church usually has trunk or treat which is fun, sometime in October. We call it our fall party. People decorate their trucks or vans and kids go vehicle to vehicle on church parking lot for candy. It’s fun because the adults dress up too and play Halloween music. At the same get-together we have the annual chili cook off too.
 
@Patchouli our town does "Main Street Trunk or Treat". All the Main Street businesses set up in front of their shops for the kids. My church coffee shop goes all out and brings in a 30 foot trailer that gets decorated like a "cave" inside. The kids have to go in to get the candy, and a "monster" will jump out at them. I love the Trunk or Treat. It's hilarious and the kids go nuts...
 
Patchouli said:
@Spikedriver It’d be great if they took this to Main St. Nobody lives on Main St. All business. And a trailer cave…
I might take that idea to city council. Thanks.
:D
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You could pitch it to the shops too. Some of ours will stay open late during the Trunk or Treat, like the antique shop and the knick knack shop. Customers who never shop main street will sometimes stop by a look around.
 
We do the usual depending on the weather. If it is nice we will sit on the driveway. If it is not nice we will sit near the front door and greet Trick or Treaters. My wife will usually have something special for the kids she knows. Our neighborhood also gets a lot of drop offs looking for free candy. Over the years the numbers have gone down. It isn't my favorite holiday, but it is only once a year.

Want to teach your kids about taxes? Confiscate half of their candy, and tell them you are the government.
 
Before I retired, we would dress up at work, and our students would, too. We'd have a huge party in the afternoon and parents could come. We were one of the few preschools that did that, everyone else had done away with holiday celebrations in New Mexico.
We are in an amish community now and it's not recognized at all. The pumpkins for sale here are to bake and make pie with. Little granddaughter wants us to go to the High School town where houses are close together to trick or treat. Maybe. The grade school is going to the pumpkin patch today at a local farm and having a fall picnic. We also have a "pumpkin day" Saturday in the High School town where they will be having "spooky snacks" and pumpkin painting.
 
Patchouli said:
At work I dress up in costume.
At home, we keep the light off and ignore. The whole neighborhood is overrun with packs of kids and parents. The police shut our neighborhood down by blocking the streets. You can barely drive through. I’ve worked until 8 p.m. some trick or treat nights and what a pain to get back home. A friend in the neighborhood said they spend over $100 on candy and it’s gone the first 15 minutes. People come in from miles around just for free candy, teaching kids door to door logistics, and showing off costumes.

Church usually has trunk or treat which is fun, sometime in October. We call it our fall party. People decorate their trucks or vans and kids go vehicle to vehicle on church parking lot for candy. It’s fun because the adults dress up too and play Halloween music. At the same get-together we have the annual chili cook off too.
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Ok ok, I will not show up at your house looking for candy!! Lol
 
I have a collection of carved and un-carved foam pumpkins. I put out the carved ones with rbg tea lights. Cheese cloth spider webs from the eves and our pet cemetery (garden statues planted to look like stone). Sometimes I put out a wreath and decorate around the entry in the house so when the door is open the creepiness flows out.

To be honest my indoor decor year round is of the morbid/victorian nature. Lots of odd victorian photos like the hidden mother photos and the headless photos. I have a few postmortem photos but K doesn't like them so they live in an album rather than on the walls.
 
One year when I was teaching, I had my last Halloween anything. Kids were not supposed to dress up until afternoon, which meant that 30 children were under my care to get costumes on. There was all kinds of misbehavior in the class that day, including stealing. There were so many costumes of evil, and little of happy and fun characters. Children then had to change and get on the bus to go home. Children were gone, and pieces of costumes were everywhere. I decided I was done with Halloween. From then on, we had a harvest festival. It was wholesome. We made things like biscuits, butter, popcorn, and did things more harvest related. Children were busy and engaged in activities that they actually learned from. (School--a place for learning) We had fun and the children were just happier and more pleasant. I set up stations with various activities, and lots of crafts. Children left at the end of the day and we were all happy. No theft! No meanness! No pieces of costumes left behind!

After being with children all day and the energy zapping of it all, I would go home, turn off the lights and have a quiet evening. Bah Humbug for Halloween!

But if Halloween was mid-week, you could count on cranky kids on the days afterwards. Candy would be snuck into school and wrappers would be everywhere until I started telling children that they were allowed to bring Halloween candy to school and if they did, it was for me. That was the end of Halloween candy at school! Why didn't I think of that sooner?
 
My wife is nuts. Let me get that out of the way. This is all her doing.

At the moment, the entire front yard has been transformed into a graveyard, complete with iron fencing, 7' gated entry way, spooky lights, skeletons, ghosts, bats, pumpkins, etc.

On Halloween night, we set out a full-size coffin with a mouldering skeleton and many treat bags with candy and small toys.

We get all the neighborhood kids and then some...folks drive here from further away. :) It's fun and people enjoy it.
 
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Halloween night, the caution tape goes up across the driveway, and the porch light goes off. We got tired of the families with kids sending them out, and not passing out treats. used to be lots of fun, but not anymore.
 
dademoss said:
Halloween night, the caution tape goes up across the driveway, and the porch light goes off. We got tired of the families with kids sending them out, and not passing out treats. used to be lots of fun, but not anymore.
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I'll loan you one of my donkeys, they don't like kids😉😯😀
 
Weedygarden said:
One year when I was teaching, I had my last Halloween anything. Kids were not supposed to dress up until afternoon, which meant that 30 children were under my care to get costumes on. There was all kinds of misbehavior in the class that day, including stealing. There were so many costumes of evil, and little of happy and fun characters. Children then had to change and get on the bus to go home. Children were gone, and pieces of costumes were everywhere. I decided I was done with Halloween. From then on, we had a harvest festival. It was wholesome. We made things like biscuits, butter, popcorn, and did things more harvest related. Children were busy and engaged in activities that they actually learned from. (School--a place for learning) We had fun and the children were just happier and more pleasant. I set up stations with various activities, and lots of crafts. Children left at the end of the day and we were all happy. No theft! No meanness! No pieces of costumes left behind!

After being with children all day and the energy zapping of it all, I would go home, turn off the lights and have a quiet evening. Bah Humbug for Halloween!

But if Halloween was mid-week, you could count on cranky kids on the days afterwards. Candy would be snuck into school and wrappers would be everywhere until I started telling children that they were allowed to bring Halloween candy to school and if they did, it was for me. That was the end of Halloween candy at school! Why didn't I think of that sooner?
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Was it last year or the year before that someone made a post here about how awful it was that schools didn't have Halloween parties? I found the post. https://www.homesteadingforum.org/t...lebrations-over-inclusivity.7165/#post-194817

My opinion has not changed and never will. But that is my opinion and we all have them.
 
One year I put a large sign beside my door. I quoted part of a verse from the book of revelation, a really spooky sounding verse about spirits and knocking... I thought it'd cause minor consternation, might get a laugh or two... I was wrong... It caused major consternation!

Several groups of kids walked up on my porch. They all stopped and read the sign. They all walked away, not one single kid was brave enough to knock on my door.

I laughed for 3 hours... Later, more than one parent asked me the sign. When I explained it was a joke I got a few raised eyebrows. Obviously my neighbors didn't share my sense of humor.
:LOL::LOL:
 
Not one knock in the six years we have been here.
When I was in high school my best friends mother had been dressing up as a witch and handing out candy for years. When they opened the door one little girl ran up, bit her hand to the bone, and ran away. No more witch costumes after that. She really did make a good witch.
 
Just remembered... the lady in the bathrobe. Trick or Treating, I was maybe 7, two girls 10 and an older cousin driving. The 3 of us walk up on a porch and knock. We could hear movement inside so we wait, and wait. A lady finally opens the door wearing nothing but a too small towel, she's soaked, water still dripping from her hair, says "Wait" then shuts the door.

It popped back open, she dropped a shriveled apple in my bag then shuts the door again. I remember the 3 of us looking at each other wondering what the heck just happened!

She was having enough trouble keeping that towel up so I guess 3 apples would have been to much handle.:rolleyes:
 
This is me as a witch when I was 5. I was smiling in this photo, but I still remember me protesting the broom and the hat. Hometown always had a Halloween march in the auditorium where children were to walk around and show off their costumes. I was not having that broom! I made my mom hold it. I have often wondered how it is that I had a witch costume. My older brother was a bunny, and I loved rabbits so much at that age. I'm still jealous that he was the rabbit and I was a witch. If you know me at all, you know I don't like anything like witches, devils, or anything evil. Never have. It is part of why Halloween is not my thing.
Rita as a witch, 1957.jpg
 
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Caribou said:
Not one knock in the six years we have been here.
When I was in high school my best friends mother had been dressing up as a witch and handing out candy for years. When they opened the door one little girl ran up, bit her hand to the bone, and ran away. No more witch costumes after that. She really did make a good witch.
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Isn’t it kinda cumbersome to trick or treat in Alaska? Maybe they have parties for the kids at school. Maybe it’s always raining when it’s Oct 31. No fun trying to trick or treat with a coat on.
 
One of "OUR" holidays.
Black candles, red wine being drunk out of a silver bowl, waving a knife around over a granite slab, talking to elder spirits,
chasing each other through the woods in the dark in our underwear with switches, lots of incense, you know,traditional stuff.
LOTSA DRUMS.
 
Weedygarden said:
This is me as a witch when I was 5. I was smiling in this photo, but I still remember me protesting the broom and the hat. Hometown always had a Halloween march in the auditorium where children were to walk around and show off their costumes. I was not having that broom! I made my mom hold it. I have often wondered how it is that I had a witch costume. My older brother was a bunny, and I loved rabbits so much at that age. I'm still jealous that he was the rabbit and I was a witch. If you know me at all, you know I don't like anything like witches, devils, or anything evil. Never have. It is part of why Halloween is not my thing.
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That is SO CUTE! Love your blonde curls😊
 
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