I live in one of the nicer neighborhoods of my small city. It also is an area that is conveniently laid out in an easy-to-navigate grid about 4 blocks square. Our county’s Trick or Treat is traditionally held on the Thursday prior to Halloween from 6:00-7:30.
At about 5:45, our neighborhood fills with cars driving around to pick their drop off spot. At least 30 cars drove by my house just prior to 6:00 when normally one might normally drive by. It was busy this year as always.
I pretty much see the same as you’re seeing. And grew up doing it much like you describe.
I found it funny, I live on a fairly affluent street and the first trick-or treaters today came from a totally random family that had just drove up in a mini-van and stopped right on our dead end street, right in front of our house. My dad taught me a lesson a long time ago...he said you will know when you have something when everyone else wants it. We don't get a LOT of trick or treaters by nature of how our street is designed, but I figured these people for sure thought they were hitting gold by parking right outside our property. They got out, left the mini van outside our home and hit the other houses on the street. I chalked it up to the high end lighting and big house we have. It's the biggest on the street, in a fairly affluent neighborhood and we have cool colored lighting showcasing our very mature oaks, evergreen's and spruce trees. We don't give out much high end candy though, but some of our other neighbors go pretty heavy with the size/quantity they try to unload. We had about 12 to 15 total trick-or-treaters.
When I was a kid we ran free with a pillow case and made a game to see how many houses we could get to. I enjoy going with my children, but they are too young to go on their own. This year my 6 yr old was so much faster then the other 2 younger kids we have that he ended up darting off with the neighbors and their kids. We couldn't keep up and kinda let him run with them. We did text throughout the episode and they kept us updated to the cross streets they were at so I felt comfortable with that method.
I then got in my car and drove over to the "super creepy house" as my kids say. Its one of those houses that went so overboard with decorations I kinda joked to DW "I know what they spent their stimulus checks on" as they keep adding decorations every year to the point its almost ridiculous. But I brought the kids there because I had promised we would go see the home up closer. My 4 yr old loved the creepy decorations.... 20 to 30' tall skeletons with digital eyeballs moving and changing colors... 400 sq foot spider webs with spiders of 8' wing spans. It was the type of people that have "garage parties" when its not halloween. They seemed like nice people, and they were quite generous with the treats. They had gifts (slime containers), grab bags with candy, healthy snacks, and then just like random chocolate and sour candies. They were partying and having a good time.
One thing I noticed today vs when I was a kid is there are seemingly quite a few more options so competing for trick-or treat events is a thing. There is now "trunk or treating", there is the farms with various halloween events, there are hay rides, and haunted corn mazes, theatrical events at the local performing arts centers...and even the local businesses do a trick or treat where all the storefronts have candies to help promote their shops. The scary movies at the theaters. We tried to do all of that stuff this year over the past month. However it must be noted that the kids had the most fun trick-or-treating. And we kinda did too, only because we got to see the neighbors and they got to see our "cute" kids all dressed up. The littlest was a pumpkin, middle was a Unicorn and a Skeleton, and the oldest was Chase from Paw patrol.
The next door neighbor put on a holiday party where we all kinda brang a food item, there were games for the kids to play (we had a race to see who could mummify their friend quickest, guess how many hershey kisses, guess the weight of the pumkin, etc) and a couple bonfire pits outside to roast hot dogs. It was great fun. Here in the NORTH its sort of a transitional period as the snow will soon come along and we will see less and less of each other as the weather worsens and the daylight becomes scarce.
I think next year I will up the game a bit and go beyond just some candy bars and sour treats as we really do only get about 15 to 20 revelers so we could probably give out some cooler items/ or bigger treats. Some of the neighbors had individual grab bags with each of our childrens names in anticipation for a good spooky spoilin. Some had like the MEGA candy bars, I am not talking just the king size, but like the 24 square Hershey's bars. One family gave the kids an 8 pack of gum each. I thought that was funny. I asked the kids if they wanted to swing over to grandma and grandpas as they have a house possessed by someone displaying an insane amount of blow-up characters...my 6yr old son said he didn't want to because his wrist hurt from carrying the heavy load of candy he had hauled into his pumpkin bucket. Fun times were had. If I wasn't concerned for exploiting our families privacy I would post the pictures of there cute costumes. Dad went as a baseball player.
Ahh the memories. Now I am sitting in bed with my old navy "believe" shirt with the santa clause stocking cap image...onwards and upwards! Only 55 days until the big guy in the red suit comes and spoils them again. I really enjoy this time of year. I could do without the pumpkin spice and candy corns though, not my cup of tea.
