What was Halloween like in your neighborhood?

[krunchykrome]

I remember as a child going trick or treating, the streets were crowded and flooded with children. There would be lines at houses to get candy. People would sit outside on their porches and wait for the kids. There would be scary music playing in a nearby bush at this house, or the owner of another house would dress up and scare the kids as they collected candy. I would go around with a pillow case and fill it up easily. If I got greedy, I could go back home and empty it and fill it up again going to more houses. But as I got older, I noticed that Halloween has been getting less popular every year. I say this because I stopped going trick or treating in the 9th grade. And by that time, there were hardly any people on the streets. It wasnt fun anymore. Last night, we got maybe 30 or so trick or treaters. Im not sure how many children live in our neighborhood. For those of you with plenty of children in your neighborhood, whats Halloween like there?

 

[Platypus]

I noticed the same thing.. I didn't have a single trick or treater past 5:00pm yesterday

I remember as a kid being out til like 10-11pm and casuing all kinds of hell.

ah well,

 

[Injury]

Blame:

-Commericalization. Kids aren't excited about wearing a scraggly one piece outfit with a stupid plastic mask.
-Regulation. "Trick or Treating will go between the hours of 6:30 and 8:30! Screw that. Go until you can't carry any more candy. If people want to sit on their porch handing out candy until 3am, fine! Collect on it!
-Paranoia. Parents are afraid something might happen to their kids if they are out too late or walking in strange neighborhoods when its dark.

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Platypus
I noticed the same thing.. I didn't have a single trick or treater past 5:00pm yesterday

I remember as a kid being out til like 10-11pm and casuing all kinds of hell.

ah well,

FIVE PM? LAME!

 

[FoBoT]

we only had 3 dingings, but i got home late, so we might have missed some

the school sponsored a "trunk or treat" , so that may have siphoned off some kids

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: Platypus
I noticed the same thing.. I didn't have a single trick or treater past 5:00pm yesterday

I remember as a kid being out til like 10-11pm and casuing all kinds of hell.

ah well,

It's a little sad, because halloween was one of the most fun days of the year for me while growing up. I would put soo much time into my costumes. My preferred costume would be a zombie. My parents would spend a lot of money on me buying me all the fake blood and gore stuff I needed to become a zombie. They let me rip up jeans and shirts and put fake blood on them at all. It was really a holiday growing up.

 

[40Hands]

Halloween still kicks ass in my book. Horror movies, chicks in skimpy clothing, and a reason to have a crazy house party.

 

[Crucial]

My parents neighborhood schedules their own trick or treat time at night. The city has the "official" time during the day. The neighboorhood houses all have their own parties and decorate with all kinds of stuff. It is getting bigger every year.

I don't remember there being lines when I was a kid.(I'm 31 now) I think the halloween decorations are growing every year around here.

 

[DougK62]

I agree with you. I attribute the decline on two things: 1) increase in fundamentalist Christians 2) fear of child predators

 

[Twista]

Dunno, i slept through Halloween. Didn't hear a single door bell rofl.

 

[Soybomb]

I thnk halloween is more popular than ever financially. This year we had fewer trick or treaters but it was really cold and windy too.

 

[theknight571]

We had about 300 trick or treaters between 6:30p and 8:30p.

Alot of the costumes left something to be desired.

We even had people come around not dressed up at all. (They get no candy from me)

 

[pkme2]

No takers again this Halloween. Had the goodies and will give them away this year to the neighborhood kids. The houses are so far apart so that maybe one reason and the streets are dimly lit.

It could be many reasons, but its not like it was when I was growing up. I hear of Halloween parties being the norm now.

 

[Queasy]

There were a bunch in my neighborhood but only a handful came to my house. We're at the bottom of a rather long hill so some stopped coming down it about halfway according to a neighbor who was sitting outside. SLACKERS!

Originally posted by: pkme2
It could be many reasons, but its not like it was when I was growing up. I hear of Halloween parties being the norm now.

Yep. Trunk-Or-Treat at schools, churches, etc seems to be pretty popular in the Atlanta area.

 

[crystal]

3 or 4 rings this year and about 2-4 kids each ring. We still got a bucket of chocolate candies.

 

[Kwaipie]

In the last 15 years, I've had 3 trick-or-treaters. My same neighbor kid and his friends.

 

[Brainonska511]

When I was growing up, I feel there were more kids walking around, but in the years that I no longer trick-or-treated, I felt that the number of kids walking around declined. Here in Chicago, the kids actually came through the dorm to trick-or-treat since the neighborhood isn't the best one.

 

[krunchykrome]

Originally posted by: Kwaipie
In the last 15 years, I've had 3 trick-or-treaters. My same neighbor kid and his friends.

:laugh:

 

[GoPackGo]

We only had about 10 kids last night...

I agree, when I was growing up the streets were packed with kids. My parents would get hundreds ....

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Twista
Dunno, i slept through Halloween. Didn't hear a single door bell rofl.

Me too.

Personally I never saw the big deal. It was just like every other day for me growing up. Might as well have been Caps Lock day.

 

[Phlargo]

yeah it was pretty quiet at our house too.. we maybe had a total of 30-50 trick-or-treaters. And we live in a neighborhood full of small children. Are people so paranoid that they aren't letting their children go out anymore?

 

[waggy]

around here it was bad. but then again there is maybe 12 kids in town.


so we went to a friends of mine. they live in town in a new sub-division (full of new starter homes). so it has a LOT of younger families. man it was great. nearly every house in the area was giving out candy. hell a few were giving out shots to adults heh.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I was talking to some coworkers about this yesterday. I was joking around saying that it would be funny to be 'that' guy who just tries to scare the kids somehow instead of handing out candy. The problem is I would end up getting arrested and accused of trying to molest kids if I did that.

It's really sad. I remember as a kid running wild in the neighborhood (not just on Halloween) and never worrying about anything. I don't know if it is because people are different now or if over time people have just become more aware (and possibly over protective).

 

[FlashG]

We only had about 10 kids as well. It's a shame because a couple of houses on my block were really fixed up nice. When I was a kid we would hit 12 blocks and wind up at the play field and trade our loot.

 

[Baked]

We had a riot broke out in the Castro Halloween thing when two gangs started shooting at each other. Four people died.