OP.2: Oh, so *that's* why my neighbors and their kids all got in their cars on Tuesday evening instead of crossing the street. They were going trick or treating at strangers' houses.
Trick or treating at the mall is one of the most depressing things I've heard
We had no kids in our neighborhood, and trick-or-treated there anyway, and that's what I imprinted on: racing down a street to see if you could find one or two porch lights on, and sometimes getting someone who clearly forgot that it was Halloween and just goes to rummage in their pantry for something
This was me, when I lived in London. As a result, if you were early in the evening, you might be lucky enough to get a chocolate biscuit. Later arrivals got cheese and crackers, fruit, etc.
It's kind of amazingly devoid of warmth or community, yes.
Everyone is looking for the house that gives out edibles and razor blades.
I grew up in eleven story apartment buildings, eight apartments to a floor, so trick or treating was efficient. Elevator to the top, ring bells, average one or two hits a floor as you walked floor-by-floor down the fire stairs, see if there was time for one more building when you hit ground level. It was awesome.
On the photography thing -- I definitely have a specific mirror-face: if I can see myself, I automatically put on a facial expression that looks right to me (I'm not proud of this, but I'm vain. Not to any great effect, but it's there). I would expect that a photographer would want the option of eliciting other facial expressions, and if I could see myself it just wouldn't happen.
I thought this piece on "trunk or treating" out of cars was interesting (and, yes, depressing).
I would expect that a photographer would want the option of eliciting other facial expressions, and if I could see myself it just wouldn't happen.
Would you prefer a set of photos with their eye for your expressions or your eye for your expression? For me it's clearly the latter, because I think the generic photographer buys into a generic set of aesthetics that I find a little hokey.
I don't love trunk-or-treating, but 8 is totally missing the point (in my 2 second skim). It has 100% exploded and there are a billion trunk-or-treats here.
The point is that they're an event for a day that's not Halloween. Generally it's a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. The elementary school had theirs last Thursday. The dance studio had theirs two weeks ago. It's just a Halloween party.
It's heavy on community, because it's all people who are actually connected through their church, or through their school, or through the dance studio. Everyone knows everyone. But you literally can't go door-to-door, because it's not actually on Halloween. You'd never hold a trunk-or-treat on the 31st (unless maybe it was for super little kids who might not otherwise go trick or treating.)
As for the safety concern, I think parents just go with their kids to trick-or-treat at ages when Charlie Brown would have gone with just friends.
Maybe Charlie Brown's parents should have gone with him to yell at the assholes who put rocks in his bag.
My wife grew up in a neighbourhood of working class row houses (now *very* gentrified, but not so when she was a child) and it drew middle class kids from all around the city on Halloween, on the grounds that the houses were really close together and the front doors were 3 steps from the sidewalk. Her parents would get regularly get 600 kids trick or treating.
We are just bit off from a densely-housed couple of streets that do attract carpoolers. Due to several factors (such as house does not face the street) we are rarely visited. This year we got one group of three--who were driven to the neighborhood. Sometimes we'll get a couple of the kids from the busy streets whose parents want to show us their costumes.
I do recall some people driving to places to trick-or-treat 60 years ago when I was a kid. Maybe not as prevalent as today buy certainly a thing in my mid-sized midwestern city. Though I recall more of it being "go visit a friend or relative who lived in a good Halloween neighborhood."
I do also recall trick-or-treating maybe 5 or 6 blocks to a friends grandmother's house and us getting asked pointedly where we were from at houses where we were not known.
8 makes me feel very out-of-touch because 2023 is the year that peep first heard the term "trunk-or-treating". Or is it possible that I did hear about it previous Octobers, but managed to entirely forget about it? I guess I prefer the explanation that I'm out-of-touch.
I guess I am also old-fashioned, because I find the concept horrifying. But 10 made me feel better about it.
Utah is all about trunk or treating and one might think it's all about keeping the Mormon kids away from the heathens, except that everyone has trunk or treats and then descends upon the neighborhood for candy, so I think it's just that this state has the worst sweet tooth. My kids went to one trunk or treat but the last two weeks have been a sea of candy.
Anyhow, we drove to a friend's house for trick or treating. This is mostly because our neighborhood has no sidewalks and is so close to the trails that there's no trick or treaters, so we go to their house and have pizza and then the kids walk their neighborhood.
So, e.g.: the school had a trunk or treat where each grade sponsored a car and the candy was donated by parents. The kids got to go through individually and get candy and attention, and then there were some activities where they could squeal with their friends over costumes.
The church had one too but it was October 15 and I rebelled as the kids' costumes weren't done. Pebbles' dance school had a Samhain ceili in costumes that they could dance in, and everyone got more treats. My kids aren't particularly candy-seeking so this is absurd amount of candy for two kids but it should last us a while.*
The library had a trunk or treat. So did the cops. It's out of hand but fun.
*Except for Sour Punch candies which the Calabat loves, which is a shame, because they are great and I can't steal them because he has inventoried them.
Not drinking always gives me a real craving for sugar.
I think a lot of places started with the sparse conditions heebie grew up with, and then it got worse: worse road safety, more suburbanization, culture around road safety making parents less comfortable with kids running around with all the big cars and lack of sidewalks, places with sparse targets drying up altogether, so over time the culture shifts to go to the richer walkable places within a few miles, where there will be more density of candy. A lot of houses in a neighborhood competing against each other on decorations also seems to be a draw.
Also probably a thing for longer in the particularly unsafe neighborhoods for obvious reasons. My little moderately-okay inner suburb is smack next to one of the most disinvested parts of the region, so I think people from there crossing the city limit to come here (once the color line here was broken and it stopped being risky police-wise) has been happening for a while. I was out jogging Halloween night and the percent of black families I observed seemed disproportionate, at least.
xelA and his friends walked round the neighbourhood with a few lurking parents. This area is all terraced housing--same as the working class row houses that MattD refers to in 13, although very small by American standards--with a very small number of bigger houses, so it's very dense. The local convention is that if you have halloween decorations up and/or lit pumpkins outside, you are looking to be visited by trick or treaters, and if not, not.
Neighborhoods at rowhouse density are the old and (increasingly) rich ones in the US. Rare, at any rate.
Where I grew up suburban/ruralish the poor people lived in the condo developments but that's where you drove to for the best trick or treats because of high density.
I somehow convinced my parents to let me bring a can of shaving cream, modded for long distance firing, with the argument it was self defense against the other kids who would be out with them or with eggs. I didn't vandalize anything with it, mostly wrote things on pavement.
In our current neighborhood which isn't quite row houses but is pretty dense with 2-3 family buildings there's been one famous street for as long as we've lived there. It's a huge community party- adults going nuts with costumes and decorations, some with fire pits and food in front of their houses, and you see a lot of the people who live in the area. The adjacent streets are mediocre, but then a couple blocks over is the richest part of the city with huge houses* and some of them go way over the top- think fake graveyards covering their entire huge front yard and spooky lighting, animated monsters, and music/sound effects. Very inefficient in terms of houses per mile but they usually give out full size candy bars.
*we went to Lois Lowry's house. John Malkovich has a place in the area but don't know how often he's there- I've seen him walking around.
I live in a neighborhood of mostly rowhouses, but that describes most of DC, so I don't think we get too many people coming from out of the neighborhood to hit us up, so contra 13, 600 visitors would have surprised me. 300, though? Maybe.
I guess I can understand the concerns about "trunk or treating", but they exist in addition to a ridiculous number of Halloween events here rather than instead of, so I don't find them threatening. In addition to trick or treating in the neighborhood and trunk or treating at the local rec center, or kid went to Halloween events at the zoo and her gymnastics studio and a Halloween party Sunday morning at a friend's house (brunch with costumes, kids and adults socializing almost equally). And then there are school parties - not a thing at her school, but some schools have them.
My parents were very disappointed at the lack of trick or treaters when they moved to a new city after retirement. I tried to explain that no one is going to walk in the street from house to house in a neighborhood without sidewalks and a lot of speeding. Previously they'd lived in older East Bay residential neighborhoods that had sidewalks and little car traffic outside of daytime hours.
We get very few trick-or-treaters for reasons that are not really clear to me; only one group this year. There are a lot of kids in the neighborhood but our block is a slightly wealthier and lower-density enclave so that might be it.
I wonder if knowledge of "the hot streets" spreads more easily these days, causing a positive feedback loop.
Our street is dense by American standards, as is most of the city, but somehow our street is a pretty sparse zone for trick-or-treating, compared to a couple of other streets or neighborhoods nearby that are equivalently dense.
21: That's my neighborhood, too. We have townhomes, the kids (mostly South Asian and Black in my neighborhood) trick-or-treat in small packs with their parents, and they only knock on doors of houses that have lights on and some sort of Halloween decorations. My husband and I usually just stand outside in our jackets with a bucket of candy for the first hour and a half after dark so we don't have to keep going up and down the stairs from our main level to the door.
The only reason I know about trunk-or-treats is that my sister is an evangelical Christian who has worked in youth ministry, and her churches always have one on a non-Halloween day. I think most of the kids end up trick-or-treating, too--her kids do.
This semester I learned that two of my students grew up in families/churches that didn't allow celebration of Halloween.
My mom had Jehovah Witnesses around when she was the school librarian. She couldn't read Halloween or Christmas stories to the kids if there was one in the room. She also wasn't allowed to do blood transfusions on any of the kids, regardless of religion.
for my latest firm headshot i had my hair professionally wrangled (by chance in beverly hills with opinionated direction from some friends down there so it was v v v professionally wrangled, hardly knew what had hit it lol), followed the stage directions of the photographer (lovely french guy, had a great chat), he showed me the resulting options & we agreed on the best of the bunch. then he did his hilarious wizardry so that the version of me on the internet is uncanny-me, with my 20 year old jawline. would love to have it back day to day!
I had a headshot taken for work by a professional and they had a professional makeup artist. I think it looked weird.
This semester I learned that two of my students grew up in families/churches that didn't allow celebration of Halloween.
The schools around here demur and celebrate "Dress like your favorite book character day", usually a day or two in advance of halloween. This somehow allows the parents who think actual demons are a risk to join in the fun without crippling fear.
That must suck for the kids who want to dress up like superheros or Power Rangers or whatever.
There's always a book that exists about whatever you wanted to dress up as.
Maybe not Pokey, who went as Gudetama, but he's not in elementary school anyway, so the parents are okay with the demons.
I guess, but schools really should be supporting illiteracy if they want to be popular with the voting public.
I thought the whole point of balanced literacy is that you're supposed to just look at the pictures and get ideas?
the last two weeks have been a sea of candy
Dude, I feel like Valentine's Day and Easter have turned into additional candy-fests.
A charming photographer-guy has arrived in my algorithm. He teaches posing and camera angles as well. During his photo shoots, he stands in front of the subject and strikes poses that the subject imitates (which works because he is charming). So they're pretty much mirrored and goofing around together. Then he shows the best pics and they're posed and relaxed and flattering. His assistants are operating the cameras.
He is not especially conventionally attractive, but he shows why some pictures work and some don't and he clearly loves himself and getting good pictures.
We went trick-or-treating in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. There are a couple industrial blocks between our old house and the cuter houses. We knocked on a door in the industrial blocks and a guy opened it, very happy to get trick-or-treated. I didn't notice his costume but as we walked away, my kid's dad said "I think he's Jam Master Jay". (Perhaps the hat and necklace?) So I shouted back, "Are you Jam Master Jay?" and the guy was thrilled. Yes! He was so excited someone got it.
Which means that he got dressed up in a very low-propensity couple of blocks on a night when nearly no one was trick-or-treating. And we very nearly didn't notice or acknowledge his costume at all. But we did!
I hope his Halloweens are busier and more fun now.
The most intense trick or treating I experienced was in London N19 - we were on the ground floor in an area of 3- or 4-story, dense terraces, so extremely high front door to street mileage ratio and also a lot of kids. The opinionated academic made the mistake of baking two chocolate cakes, word got around, and it was like a run on the bank. They devoured both cakes despite us thinning out the ration, a bunch of chocolate, and the last few came away with oranges.
This semester I learned that two of my students grew up in families/churches that didn't allow celebration of Halloween.
Harvest festivals are the modern-day Christian alternative to Halloween, which is the Christian alternative to harvest festivals.
To be fair, I have an older Scottish friend who reports that when she grew up people didn't hold much with celebrating Christmas and celebrated Hootenanny (Hogswatch? Something like that anyway) instead, as was the custom.
Christmas Day wasn't a public holiday in Scotland until the late 1940s.
My great-grandparents were such staunch communists that they wouldn't celebrate any holidays. Not even birthdays, or so my grandmother reported about her childhood. They wouldn't have celebrated Christmas either way, but they rejected all the Jewish holidays out of a sense of conviction.
My communist grandparents on the other side were too merry and lazy to maintain the Jewish holidays, but there was no adamance to it.
I don't know when Purim is, but I celebrate the drunk part often.
such staunch communists that they wouldn't celebrate any holidays
I thought Communism pioneered some new holidays, like International Women's Day.
I think I've told this story before: when I was learning Russian, there was a dialogue we were supposed to repeat that assumed Americans never celebrated International Women's Day. It went something like:
American student: What is today's celebration?
Russian host: International Women's Day.
AS: Really? We don't have that holiday, tell me more!
RH: [brief explanation]
Since I'm from Berkeley, I changed it to:
AS: Oh, we had that holiday too at Berkeley High School.
RH: Are there many Russians in Berkeley?
AS: No, but there are many communists.
I grew up in eleven story apartment buildings, eight apartments to a floor, so trick or treating was efficient. Elevator to the top, ring bells, average one or two hits a floor as you walked floor-by-floor down the fire stairs, see if there was time for one more building when you hit ground level. It was awesome.
For the last 9 years I've been on the 10th floor of an apartment building, and I have never once got a knock or a buzz on Halloween.
49: Right, but they were probably Trotskists.
This thread reminds me that we have engaged the services of a professional photographer so our son can get senior pictures. I hope it works out.
The block we moved to early last year turned out to be one of Boston's top destination trick-or-treating spots. (Rowhouses, some like ours divided into a few condo units, and a lot of full townhouses that only vastly wealthier people can afford.) Last Halloween we bought a few hundred pieces of candy to give out, and after a bit more than half an hour we retreated inside, empty-handed, and watched out the window as kids kept coming for a couple more hours at least.
When I was little we just trick-or-treated around the block. Most of our immediate neighborhood were retirees, but they were all very game about giving out candy. Inevitably we got a lot of old people hard candies, like those strawberry jam bon bons and yellow butterscotch. Chocolate houses were rare and exciting.
My current neighborhood is very dense -- mostly single-family homes packed closely together on small lots -- and there are several families with small children, but no trick-or-treaters. I don't know if it's because our street is so steep, or Halloween traditions have changed, or the quality of the fentanyl in our candy is so bad.
My son wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween at school because of all the Orthodox Jews, but the school went all out dor Purim. No drinking for preschoolers though.
You may as well just serve ham and cheese sandwiches on lobster.
My wife excitedly bought full sized candy bars this year, and we wound up giving away about 100 to 120 this year -- she bought 90 full sized plus some "fun sized" packs as backup, which we dipped into.
It was a busy 2 hours or so, then back to quite. There were a few people driven in, but we're not the richest or most dense, so the true devotees likely head elsewhere. Our groups were a lot of 4-6 kids chaperoned by parents who lurked out on the sidewalk, instead of heading up to each house. Lots of cute encounters; it was a good night.
"I thought Communism pioneered some new holidays, like International Women's Day."
Not the Communists. You have the Whites, not the Reds, to thank, according to Wiki:
After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917 (the beginning of the February Revolution), IWD was made a national holiday on March 8
The reference to Soviet Russia is an anachronism. Soviet Russia didn't exist in March 1917.
Maybe that's why my mom remembers IWD from decidedly non-Communist Taiwan.
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No crypto-or-treating for SBF, I guess.
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If he ends up running a financial scam for the warden he just needs to make sure he's dug a tunnel before things fall apart.
Before he goes to prison, I hope he has to give Gabe Kaplan his hair back.
63: that cracked me up, and inspired me to Google Mr. Kaplan, and sure enough, he is bald now, so the circumstantial evidence is strong against young Sam.
We had quite a few over a 2 hour period. Had some people getting dropped off, most were probably neighborhood kids. We live on a long street, but with sidewalks only on one side. Kids don't care, and the weather was nice enough for them to run from house to house on the lawns.
Gave out all the candy, which is my goal. Granddaughter got a decent haul just up and down the street.
19: when I was very little I lived in an upper class with bits of upper middle class area that had become middle class due to white flight but is now solidly 1% types in the houses and very expensive for smaller places too. Anyway, the row houses and gas street lamps made Halloween pretty magical.
The trolley car suburb we moved to when I was 8 was walkable by American standards - hell there was even a somewhat incongruous apartment building on my street, known as the Yellow Peril - but it felt like such a let down compared to Boston.
We put out a plastic jack o lantern witch candy but did not do a proper carved one. Our neighbor across the street had tables and a fire pit, so everybody went there. We also had a bunch of peanut butter cups. Someone mentioned (med/pens doc) to me that they had avoided buying chocolate and peanut things because of all the allergies.
43:I think Hogmanay (New Year's) might be bigger than Christmas in Scotland. I was in Edinburgh for Hogmanay in 98-99, and it was fantastic.
re: 68
Yes. Historically it was always much bigger. As ajay says above, it's only been quite recently that people even took Christmas Day as a holiday.
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just before the end of the war, the scarcity of metal forced the government to resort to baked clay for coins|>
I don't think many Jewish Israelis celebrate Xmas, but my mom tells me they do have Black Friday sales.
It's very odd how little I remember about Trick or Treating as a kid. I don't remember a single costume I wore. The one thing that stuck with me is saying "Trick or Treat and Unicef!" Can the young folks imagine this? If this was controversial at the time, it didn't filter down to me.
I grew up in the suburbs in the tail end of the baby boom, and the streets were mobbed with kids on Halloween. We'd start out at maybe 6 p.m. and by 10 or so we would have filled a couple of buckets with candy, returning home to empty them and go out again. Or we'd bring pillowcases so we could stay out longer.
Then me and my three younger siblings would swap candy and gorge ourselves for weeks afterward. I'm generally not too nostalgic -- we baby boomers have earned our shitty reputation -- but I miss streets full of kids.
FWIW, trick-or-treating is an American import to the UK. I don't think anyone over the age of about 45 has genuine memories of it. I know people who claim to have always done it, but I'm pretty sure (because they grew up where I did) that they are confabulating memories. I remember my sister and her friends doing it in the mid 80s, but in conscious and explicit imitation of US movies and TV, and they were already in their early teens.
Instead, the thing when I was a kid was guising, which is a different version of the same folk tradition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-or-treating#Guising
A work colleague, who grew up in a similar bit of central Scotland to me was lamenting the death of guising the other day.
We definitely did it on my street growing up, but we were an American family on a street with many American families (because of the American school somewhat nearby). And anyway that coincides with the mid-80s timeline of cultural importation.
we don't have to keep going up and down the stairs from our main level to the door
Tube strapped to the handrail, shoot candies down it?
First saw this during distancing, but it seems to appeal on the really steep streets.