Old people shuffling around = Living dead. That’s all I’ve got.
Arlo thinks the zombie apocalypse is when all the zombies disappear.
Just outta curiosity, for those in the US and who usually have trick-or-treaters visit, how many did you get this year?
I had five. IIRC that may have been down ore or two from last year. It’s not like there are no kids around here I don’t think.
We had about 40 to 50 here in south Minneapolis, mostly in batches of four or five at a time, over a period of a little over two hours. Up a bit from last year as best I can remember.
For once I bought just the right amount of swag — when we closed up we had only three “fun-szied” candy bars left. (If we’d have been overrun, we could have dipped into our personal candy stash in the basement, but that wasn’t — quite — necessary.)
We got virtually no trick-or-treaters this year. I wouldn’t call this an absolute trend, though, because it varies from year to year for no apparent reason.
I got a rock.
One of my dogs ATE a rock; I spent eight hours in two vet clinics and $$$$$$$$$$$$ to get it out. Not a fun way to spend Halloween.
Maybe Arlo was experiencing a sugar crash.
@ Grawlix – As I already reported elsewhere, we had at least 60 kids this year, although I didn’t keep exact count (and we’re not in the US).
We had a new record of 216. After I moved into this shared house in early 2014, I started to notice a stack of tally-marked 3×5 cards that was thumb-tacked to a cork bulletin board in the kitchen. When Halloween came around, the owner pulled the stack off the bulletin board and told me it was the Halloween tally from the last (like 20+ years). 2 years ago, we got a bump from the 150 range when a fellow down the street made a spooky house in his garage/barn. We just happen to be in two half-loops of roads that have very little car traffic. They’re off a more busy road and intersect it in 2 places. We think parents drop the kids off at one end and wait at the other. I learned at our block party that the people on the busy road get 0-3 kids on Halloween. Previously, since 2001, I’d lived on streets, in suburbs north of Boston, where we only visited by 0-3 trick or treaters.
Over the past 18 or so Halloweens here, it’s rare that I get more than one doorbell ring — and that’s usually a nearby neighbor with a kid or two. Everybody drives to more Halloweeny neighborhoods, for yard decor and presumably richer hauls. The few I get are usually en route to or just back from same.
I always wonder if there’s a story behind it. We’ve got kids here; they skate, make noise and generally do kid stuff. And there are lights and such all over beginning Thanksgiving Day. But decorations for Halloween are far more minimal and there’s less activity than you see and here on a regular evening.
One family group, two kids total. And an excited little dog in a “prisoner” outfit.
We got 112. We are in a good neighborhood for trick-or-treating, and it’s possible that it’s also a factor that we give out full-size candy bars. In the years after we first moved here, in 1999, we would get around 150 trick-or-treaters most years, but in recent years we’ve gotten 50 to 100, so there was something of a resurgence this year for us.
Back in the 1990s we lived in a different state, but also in a neighborhood that seemed like it would be a good choice for trick-or-treating. We tended to get around 50 trick-or-treaters then. That was more than most people I knew.
Around 200 this year, about the same as the past 3 or 4 years. For some reason my street is quite popular with trick-or-treaters. A local cop parks at the 4-way stop at the end of the block with lights flashing and directs traffic for 2 hours. I’m in a small town of around 5000 in a relatively rural area, so that likely makes a difference.
My housemates told me we got no trick-or-treaters at all. Now we have to use up all those Hershey’s Special Dark Miniatures ourselves.
I was at the church playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the pipe organ.
Over and over? Or just once through? Either way, you DESERVE all those Hershey’s Special Dark Miniatures (of all the Hershey’s so-called chocolate, that’s the best).
I wonder how “Tubular Bells” (a.k.a. Theme from The Exorcist) would sound on a big antique pipe organ…
FWIW, I have Mannheim Steamroller’s ‘Halloween Music’. Strange . . .
Do kids still go out at night, or do they visit during daylight hours these days? I’ve heard conflicting reports.
Yes. In other words, this depends where you live.
In the city where I lived in WI, T&T was during set hours on the afternoon closest to Halloween (and hope that the Green Bay Packers weren’t scheduled to play). The village next to us was on Halloween night, so parents trucked their kids all over the place to get more candy (and more use out of the costumes). Every year, controversy ensues, but every city, village, county wants to stay with its own policy.
Here in FL, T&T has been on Halloween night, with no set hours,
@ Stan – The daylight question is complicated by the fact that the American end of DST was (stupidly!) moved from just before Halloween to a week or two after it. Here in Germany, we sometimes get the first kids (usually little tots) as early as 4:30 pm (before sunset), but this year the first kids showed up around 5:45, about an hour after sunset (but still not completely dark). The last stragglers rolled around just after 8 o’clock, but we turned off the porch light and pulled in the pumpkins at 8:15, to avoid disruptions during dinner. Some years, we’ve had older teenagers (frequently sans costume) show up as late as 9:30pm.
“In the city where I lived in WI, T&T was during set hours on the afternoon closest to Halloween”
I’m guessing there was supposed to be a “Sunday” before “afternoon”.
When I was a wee tyke growing up in Delaware, the neighborhood would have “mischievous eve” the night before Halloween. I think the idea was that kids could get their pranks (back then it was throwing eggs and soaping cars, people didn’t waste perfectly good toilet paper) out of their system, bearing in mind that they would be looking for treats at the same house the next night. All of this took place after dark, there weren’t even street lights that I remember.
Grawlix: Woodberry and Harris made in Boston in 1890 for a church in Chester, NH and still there. 8 ranks on two manuals and pedal. Tracker action. Originally hand-pumped but now has an electric blower. Andréa: I played the Bach twice, and in between I played a whole bunch of creepy Vierne “Pièces en Style Libre”.
Still in the church in Chester where it was originally installed, that is.
Not normally home for Halloween as we go to Lancaster, PA to have less of Halloween. In the old days before we started doing same we had the little girl who lived with her parents and grandmother on one side of our house for the 2 years or so they lived with grandma. Then a family with 3 children moved in on the other side of that neighbor and they came for maybe 3 years or so. There was a family with 3 little girls across the street (we had a waving friendship ,but if they crossed the 4 lane street they would be killed, so they never came. Any other children in the area where in the neighborhood behind us and did not know us and did not come.
Only other time in the past 25 or so years we were home for Halloween was the year of Superstorm Sandy and no one came around that year.
So this year I figured the little girls who live on either side of us would come by. They did not. No one else did. In thinking about it when we were out picking up takeout for dinner we realized that in the afternoon after lunch we did not see anyone in costume walking around in any of the areas we drove through, nor had we seen anyone out on our drive to pick up dinner – and then we did not see anyone on our way home.
I read in the newspaper that night that depending on the neighborhood there has been less and less trick or treaters. Either the school has a party instead or they do “trunk and treat”. I mentioned the year of Sandy as we saw that being done then at a Home Depot and thought it was just some parents who wanted the kids not to miss out, but it too dangerous to walk around on sidewalks with trees and electrical lines down. But apparently it has caught on – if anyone doesn’t know about it people gather in a parking lot – at a school, mall, etc. with their cars in a circle and they decorate the cars for Halloween. They open their trunks and the kids go car to car. Safe for them to walk around and the parents know who is giving the kids the candy.
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Old people shuffling around = Living dead. That’s all I’ve got.
Arlo thinks the zombie apocalypse is when all the zombies disappear.
Just outta curiosity, for those in the US and who usually have trick-or-treaters visit, how many did you get this year?
I had five. IIRC that may have been down ore or two from last year. It’s not like there are no kids around here I don’t think.
We had about 40 to 50 here in south Minneapolis, mostly in batches of four or five at a time, over a period of a little over two hours. Up a bit from last year as best I can remember.
For once I bought just the right amount of swag — when we closed up we had only three “fun-szied” candy bars left. (If we’d have been overrun, we could have dipped into our personal candy stash in the basement, but that wasn’t — quite — necessary.)
We got virtually no trick-or-treaters this year. I wouldn’t call this an absolute trend, though, because it varies from year to year for no apparent reason.
I got a rock.
One of my dogs ATE a rock; I spent eight hours in two vet clinics and $$$$$$$$$$$$ to get it out. Not a fun way to spend Halloween.
Maybe Arlo was experiencing a sugar crash.
@ Grawlix – As I already reported elsewhere, we had at least 60 kids this year, although I didn’t keep exact count (and we’re not in the US).
We had a new record of 216. After I moved into this shared house in early 2014, I started to notice a stack of tally-marked 3×5 cards that was thumb-tacked to a cork bulletin board in the kitchen. When Halloween came around, the owner pulled the stack off the bulletin board and told me it was the Halloween tally from the last (like 20+ years). 2 years ago, we got a bump from the 150 range when a fellow down the street made a spooky house in his garage/barn. We just happen to be in two half-loops of roads that have very little car traffic. They’re off a more busy road and intersect it in 2 places. We think parents drop the kids off at one end and wait at the other. I learned at our block party that the people on the busy road get 0-3 kids on Halloween. Previously, since 2001, I’d lived on streets, in suburbs north of Boston, where we only visited by 0-3 trick or treaters.
Over the past 18 or so Halloweens here, it’s rare that I get more than one doorbell ring — and that’s usually a nearby neighbor with a kid or two. Everybody drives to more Halloweeny neighborhoods, for yard decor and presumably richer hauls. The few I get are usually en route to or just back from same.
I always wonder if there’s a story behind it. We’ve got kids here; they skate, make noise and generally do kid stuff. And there are lights and such all over beginning Thanksgiving Day. But decorations for Halloween are far more minimal and there’s less activity than you see and here on a regular evening.
One family group, two kids total. And an excited little dog in a “prisoner” outfit.
We got 112. We are in a good neighborhood for trick-or-treating, and it’s possible that it’s also a factor that we give out full-size candy bars. In the years after we first moved here, in 1999, we would get around 150 trick-or-treaters most years, but in recent years we’ve gotten 50 to 100, so there was something of a resurgence this year for us.
Back in the 1990s we lived in a different state, but also in a neighborhood that seemed like it would be a good choice for trick-or-treating. We tended to get around 50 trick-or-treaters then. That was more than most people I knew.
Around 200 this year, about the same as the past 3 or 4 years. For some reason my street is quite popular with trick-or-treaters. A local cop parks at the 4-way stop at the end of the block with lights flashing and directs traffic for 2 hours. I’m in a small town of around 5000 in a relatively rural area, so that likely makes a difference.
My housemates told me we got no trick-or-treaters at all. Now we have to use up all those Hershey’s Special Dark Miniatures ourselves.
I was at the church playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the pipe organ.
Over and over? Or just once through? Either way, you DESERVE all those Hershey’s Special Dark Miniatures (of all the Hershey’s so-called chocolate, that’s the best).
What kind of organ? (Pipe organ fan here).
Fun article:
https://www.wqxr.org/story/what-makes-the-famous-bach-organ-piece-toccata-fugue-so-spooky/
I wonder how “Tubular Bells” (a.k.a. Theme from The Exorcist) would sound on a big antique pipe organ…
FWIW, I have Mannheim Steamroller’s ‘Halloween Music’. Strange . . .
Do kids still go out at night, or do they visit during daylight hours these days? I’ve heard conflicting reports.
Yes. In other words, this depends where you live.
In the city where I lived in WI, T&T was during set hours on the afternoon closest to Halloween (and hope that the Green Bay Packers weren’t scheduled to play). The village next to us was on Halloween night, so parents trucked their kids all over the place to get more candy (and more use out of the costumes). Every year, controversy ensues, but every city, village, county wants to stay with its own policy.
Here in FL, T&T has been on Halloween night, with no set hours,
@ Stan – The daylight question is complicated by the fact that the American end of DST was (stupidly!) moved from just before Halloween to a week or two after it. Here in Germany, we sometimes get the first kids (usually little tots) as early as 4:30 pm (before sunset), but this year the first kids showed up around 5:45, about an hour after sunset (but still not completely dark). The last stragglers rolled around just after 8 o’clock, but we turned off the porch light and pulled in the pumpkins at 8:15, to avoid disruptions during dinner. Some years, we’ve had older teenagers (frequently sans costume) show up as late as 9:30pm.
“In the city where I lived in WI, T&T was during set hours on the afternoon closest to Halloween”
I’m guessing there was supposed to be a “Sunday” before “afternoon”.
When I was a wee tyke growing up in Delaware, the neighborhood would have “mischievous eve” the night before Halloween. I think the idea was that kids could get their pranks (back then it was throwing eggs and soaping cars, people didn’t waste perfectly good toilet paper) out of their system, bearing in mind that they would be looking for treats at the same house the next night. All of this took place after dark, there weren’t even street lights that I remember.
Grawlix: Woodberry and Harris made in Boston in 1890 for a church in Chester, NH and still there. 8 ranks on two manuals and pedal. Tracker action. Originally hand-pumped but now has an electric blower. Andréa: I played the Bach twice, and in between I played a whole bunch of creepy Vierne “Pièces en Style Libre”.
Still in the church in Chester where it was originally installed, that is.
Not normally home for Halloween as we go to Lancaster, PA to have less of Halloween. In the old days before we started doing same we had the little girl who lived with her parents and grandmother on one side of our house for the 2 years or so they lived with grandma. Then a family with 3 children moved in on the other side of that neighbor and they came for maybe 3 years or so. There was a family with 3 little girls across the street (we had a waving friendship ,but if they crossed the 4 lane street they would be killed, so they never came. Any other children in the area where in the neighborhood behind us and did not know us and did not come.
Only other time in the past 25 or so years we were home for Halloween was the year of Superstorm Sandy and no one came around that year.
So this year I figured the little girls who live on either side of us would come by. They did not. No one else did. In thinking about it when we were out picking up takeout for dinner we realized that in the afternoon after lunch we did not see anyone in costume walking around in any of the areas we drove through, nor had we seen anyone out on our drive to pick up dinner – and then we did not see anyone on our way home.
I read in the newspaper that night that depending on the neighborhood there has been less and less trick or treaters. Either the school has a party instead or they do “trunk and treat”. I mentioned the year of Sandy as we saw that being done then at a Home Depot and thought it was just some parents who wanted the kids not to miss out, but it too dangerous to walk around on sidewalks with trees and electrical lines down. But apparently it has caught on – if anyone doesn’t know about it people gather in a parking lot – at a school, mall, etc. with their cars in a circle and they decorate the cars for Halloween. They open their trunks and the kids go car to car. Safe for them to walk around and the parents know who is giving the kids the candy.