The latter has been popular in rural areas too for years, because the alternative is driving your kids from house to house. I would have made it to like 5 houses a year max if I’d tried to walk as a kid (and probably got run over, lol).

I just got back from taking one of my kids trick or treating with his friends. It was great. My wife and I got to walk and chat with the other parents while all of our kids knocked on doors and shouted “trick or treat!”. Lots of friendly, generous, nice people. And lots of shouted reminders from us for the kids to not walk on people’s front lawns, to say thank you, to be careful crossing the quiet roads. There were so many other kids out too. It was pretty crazy, but in a good way. About half of the houses were giving out candy in some way or other, with only about a quarter having an un-monitored bowl.

Then on the way home we drove past a church that was having a ‘trunk or treat’ in their parking lot. That just looked sad. There was no excitement for going up to the really cool houses that were decked out in amazing props and decorations. There was no need to hone analytical skills to determine which houses were giving out candy and which ones probably weren’t. Just going very short distances from one car to the next getting candy. My kid asked why they do that. I said it’s probably because they are a closed community who don’t really want to associate with ‘outsiders’. Give me the conventional experience over that all day every day!

Trunk-or-Treating!

They’re doing trunk or treat now, when they go to a planned event hosted by businesses during the sunlight hours. I guess it’s still fun, but it loses the neighborhood charm.

My town does this at the city square. It started with all of the businesses around the square getting together to give out candy. Then the next year more people showed up for it. Then last year the city took over, did no advertising and almost no one showed up for it. Heck we went to another area to give out candy because we did not know. This year the city did it again, with zero advertising. There was a decent turn out for kids, but very few people giving out candy.

Our town is small and old, there are huge gaps between houses, much more so than when we lived in the city.

Classic “bait and switch” tactic. Guess OP isn’t an used car’s seller.

ONE bag of sprite per child

King size candy bars, give out 2 to each. Everyone always loved that guy

Or give the option of a nice potato.

Buying boxes of full-sized candy isn’t even that much more expensive than the fun-sized, and the psychological impact is immediate and dramatic. Every year I hear kids go “Woah, big candy bars!”

I do the same, minus the fire pit and friends but add in a costume. I’ve been a drunk pirate lately. I used to jump scares, but I find this routine more fun because, apparently, everyone is on edge and creep scares are jsit as easy

We’re also a sit outside house. Luckily October is pretty warm nowadays (wait…)

I’d sit outside with a table, candy, and a sign that says “You HAVE to say trick or treat, change my mind!”

That sounds like such fun! We got none this year. Maybe next time.

I did this and they stole the bowl too.

No candy for you!

I had a doctor’s appointment on Halloween a few years ago. I was getting ready to go out, I put out a bowl of candy (nice mix of different chocolates) and went back inside to grab my purse and my test results for the doctor. I was inside for maybe 45 seconds? During which time I heard a couple kids come up to the porch, say something like “What do you think?”, and a slight scuffling sound. When I exited the house about 20 seconds later, they’d scooped the entire bowl clean and disappeared.

That kid will grow up to be very successful in the corporate world.

Yeah, in my area trunk or treat is the main reason for no trick or treaters these days. It’s a very urban area, so getting a lot of candy on foot would be easy, but walking around a parking lot is way quicker. It seems to be what most parents prefer also, so I think it’s here to stay.

I have a tube-based distribution system from the second-floor window that I started using during COVID to keep my distance from those plague incubators that came calling, and just never stopped using it.

I live in a moderately cold climate, and Halloween evening nearly always drops to around -5℃ to 5℃. So it’s much nicer to just sit in a cushy armchair by the window with a warm blanket over my legs and drop candy through the tube. A surprising amount of adults, teens, and tweens are tickled pink by that system, although a lot of little kids need a surprising amount of direction to get their candy.

And yes, I always drop either two pieces or - for those in dark hoods and carrying scythes - full-sized snickers.

And even people who live in safe areas will like their kids into a car and go drive

Yeah, I’m annoyed about that sort of thing, too – albeit more about the car-brained laziness of parents idling a car from house to house instead of parking and walking with their kids, rather than the class issues – but that’s a different rant.

I greatly value the experience of knocking on my neighbors’ doors and it’s sad to see people discount this community building experience.

Thanks, you said what I was thinking but struggling to express.

I think maybe I’ll bring it up with my community association, to see if next year we can’t make some sort of organized effort to encourage door-answering (and communicate that renewed expectation to trick-or-treaters).

My workplace (which isn’t a preschool, but has preschoolers) floated the idea of doing a “trunk or treat.” But my manager nixed it with the explanation that it was “cringey.”

I don’t agree with her on much, but I agree with her on that. Instead we decorated the doors in the center and had the kids practice trick-or-treating the proper way.

That’s not it at all. Literally, my children told me, “I don’t want to go up, I just want to go to the houses with bowls”. But it’s not a lazy thing, it’s a social anxiety thing. We don’t chat with strangers, we don’t make small talk with people we don’t know, we don’t ask people things we can find out without asking people things. We’re socially awkward parents and we have socially awkward children.

Millennials, the ones who would much rather text than call on the phone their dearest friends and closest relatives, are 35-40 years old. They’re the ones with halloweening children and those kids are just ask averse to face to face interactions with neighborhood residents as we are.

Candy inside. Ring at your own risk. Muah ha. Ha. Ha.

A few years back, I handed out candy for friends while they took their kids around the neighborhood, and a group of kids jokingly asked for potatoes. I obliged and grabbed them each a potato from the pantry.

When my friends came back, the potato house was apparently the talk of the kids in the neighborhood.

WTF really? My parents were super anal about anything not prepackaged.

Kirkland pickles

The pickle thing is weird. I also would be concerned about contamination.

Do you at least make them say “trick or treat”

The last time I was handing out candy at my old neighborhood, kids would ring the doorbell but then they’d just stand there and stare at me until I handed them candy. You’re supposed to say “trick or treat”!

That was happening to me sometimes, too. I’ve tried just standing there without offering the bowl to make it awkward until they figure it out, as well as just straight-up telling them “c’mon, say the words,” but it’s just so cringeworthy that they don’t get it in the first place.

7? I guess as long as it is announced. My neighborhood doesn’t start until after 6 so people can get home.