We are only a year or two away from the day the kids all dress up, then drive in costume to the grocery store where mom or dad just buys the big bag of mini candy bars.
I know that I only put a couple razor blades in the candy I pass out each year -- most of the kids are going to be perfectly fine.
Lame. Way to take all the fun out of it, adults.
i pass out each year, too.
i suspect that the hysteria over the entirely improbable event of your child's being poisoned by candy is really a cover for obsessions with virginity.
In my hometown the fundie churches started hosting Halloween parties but calling them something else so the kids wouldn't be tempted by Satan but otherwise the costumes and candy were exactly the same except maybe someone said some Bible verses at you.
How great is it going to be when someone uses the opportunity to grab a kid, stuff him in the trunk, and race off? Pretty great, I think.
Never heard of this, and I live in the metro area Becks just visited. So do the first 2 commenters on this thread. Here we have good 'ol Trick or Treating, on the 31st, not some weekend "beggars night."
3 - hey! I saw Mergansers the other day, and then somebody told me what they were, and then I knew what your handle meant.
My parents' church does this due to it being a very rural area and that no one was willing to burn gas for three hours driving their kids up and down the mountain. My parents get to see a lot more kids and hand out a lot more candy now and really enjoy it.
Here they've decided to make a new rule: sex offenders are not allowed to turn their porch lights tonight, and police will enforce it, so no little kids will go to a sex offenders house and get molested. Apparently there was an epidemic of this. And there will be no problems, like anyone beating up a neighbor unfortunate enough to be out of town on Halloween because his light wasn't on, the pervert.
My parents' church does this due to it being a very rural area
Now that makes sense. But in the suburbs it's just lame.
IDP, I've actually moved to northern Alberta -- I didn't want to make a big deal about it, but you've kind of forced my hand here. It looks like the days of you speculating about the places where I run my errands are, sadly, behind us.
I'll assign pretending to share your life to my cousin.
And there will be no problems, like anyone beating up a neighbor unfortunate enough to be out of town on Halloween because his light wasn't on, the pervert.
Do you guys not have the website? Utah's got the whole shebang, with pics and addresses and all.
"sex offenders are not allowed to turn their porch lights tonight, and police will enforce it"
jesus fuck.
aside from the blatant A8 violations here, there's the rank stupidity.
why don't we just make it a law that streets where muggers have been found to lurk have to turn off their streetlights?
So, so, so, lame. It's just a little ground glass. And we wonder why we can't win a war against a bunch of irregulars who bury their guns like so many squirrels with acorns.
I imagine we do, but his light wasn't on! Child molesters aren't allowed to put lights on! They're all around us!
I really hate people.
Utah's got the whole shebang, with pics and addresses and all.
What about reenactments and artist conceptions of the violations? Something worth doing is worth doing well.
I've found that putting razor blades in the candy doesn't work any more because the kids have wised up. Fucking nanny state, messing with our colorful ancient traditions.
What about reenactments and artist conceptions of the violations?
Not quite that detailed, but quite a lot of info. Pic, what cars they drive, what they were convicted of, "targets", etc.
A friend was just recently telling me how the most festive and most popular Halloween house in his neighborhood turned out to be the home of a pedophile. The guy resumed his elaborate decorating after he finished is sentence, but somehow not alot of parents were letting the kids ring that bell anymore.
letting the kids ring that bell
IYKWIM.
7 - This wasn't going on where you live. This was the place I visited before I visited there.
And, as other said above, this makes sense in a rural area. But not in suburbia.
And! Two of my coworkers had to take the day off today because the towns where they lived had moved trick-or-treating up so early (like 5 PM - 6:30 PM) that it was the only way they could get their kids ready and take them out. It was either take a day off/leave work super early (because of their commutes) or miss out on taking their kid out trick-or-treating.
have i mentioned that i think the whole holiday is repellent from beginning to end?
it's as new, superficial, and deeply fraudulent as frosty the snowman or the "under god" clause in the pledge. the first city-wide halloween celebration, my paper told me this morning, was celebrated in 1926.
and it merely encourages a sense of entitlement among small children.
grown-ups: if you want a chance to put on fancy-dress, you go for it.
but as a holiday for kids, the thing is pernicious from start to finish.
furthermore, why does steve boylan keep writing emails from my computer?
i suspect that the hysteria over the entirely improbable event of your child's being poisoned by candy is really a cover for obsessions with virginity.
I agree with this. It's telling that the razor blades / ground glass / poisons are always said to be hidden in an apple.
I think Halloween is at least as authentic as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer -- and, by the way, I sat down and watched that whole show a couple years ago, and it does not hold up well.
28--
get off my lawn, swift. and my front porch!
and no, my light's not on, and no, not for that reason.
i'll get you, cindy loo hoo, if it's the last thing i doo!
Since leaving home for college, I don't think I've ever had trick or treaters come to the door. Lights on, even.
it's as new, superficial, and deeply fraudulent as frosty the snowman or the "under god" clause in the pledge. the first city-wide halloween celebration, my paper told me this morning, was celebrated in 1926.
As opposed to old solemn holidays that really were blessed by God?
My neighborhood does a midafternoon everyone stand around in the park while kids buzz from parent to parent getting candy thing that's like this, but it's more for the little kids, and it's about displaying costumes in daylight. Kids trick or treat normally too.
32: as opposed to holidays which celebrate the indomitable spirit of the Worker!
34: Only someone who has never waited in line at a Duane Read could suggest such a thing.
the fundie churches started hosting Halloween parties but calling them something else
The public school where my wife teaches does the same thing, because of pressure from fundies whose kids actually curl up in a corner in the fetal position at the mention of witches and ghosts.
Our first year in our house, Magpie and I were completely unprepared for the trick-or-treater onslaught. I had to run out twice to buy more candy.
as opposed to holidays which celebrate the indomitable spirit of the Worker!
I find that every day, year after year, decade after decade, miserably celebrates the indomitable spirit of the Worker. And by indomitable I mean replaceable.
and it does not hold up well.
Oh, come on! Island of the Misfit Toys? Story of my life!
The Trick or Trunk thing is silly. My niece is going to one. In a parking lot. At the church.
32--
different holidays have different pedigrees. christmas is pretty old. even the christmas trees. not so much santa. ditto for easter, minus bunnies.
i heard tell once that passover has been celebrated for a while, too.
hannukah in its current form is maybe a bit of a perversion.
i'm not saying any of them were really blessed by god, only sanctified by long custom. it's hard to change things that have been going on for a long time, even if they're pretty stupid.
stupid things that have not been going on for a long time? i don't see why they should get any deference whatsoever.
The kids who only go to Halloween "trunk parties" are the ones who will never develop any sense of independence until they get drunk at college and end up voting for the wrong Republican.
In Taiwan Christians (2% of the population) celebrated Halloween (a pagan holiday retrofitted for Christianity). The rest of the Chinese, real pagans, had a much more serious day when ghosts were really thought to walk the earth. I imagine that the younger, more educated Taiwanese blew it off, but the older and less educated took straight.
As opposed to old solemn holidays that really were blessed by God?
Bitzer's right. Halloween just hasn't been the same since they killed all the Druids.
29: Let's get real. If Rudolph were a real flying reindeer he'd have flown Santa and the other twits into a mountain and then gone off to Ipanema.
Josh/Magpie is another Unfogged couple?
40: But is Halloween really getting any deference, or are people just having fun dressing up their offspring and loading them up on sugar? It's a very transparent sort of holiday; no one's pretending it's about the birth of a god (but wishing for iPods) or the death of a god (whose Holy Body turns into chocolate. I think.) It's a holiday where you get candy. It's superficial, but honestly so.
When I first saw the title I misread it as "Trick or Crunk" and I thought: This is going to be so awesome.
and end up voting for the wrong Republican
Getting to where it takes real skill not to do that; eyes of needles, etc.
Rudolph did play a role in WWII, in the Finnish snow troops.
46--
that seems fair; if i want to shut it down for stupidry, then i have to argue for its stupidry, and people can argue back for its awesomery, or at least its efficacry.
so we agree that the 'hoary custom' argument doesn't defend it, but i still have to attack it on other grounds.
43--
interesting point, pops. revealed complexities in the individuation of holidays. i think hannukah is still the same holiday, despite the massive accumulations of tat and ersatz christmas. so is halloween still all hallows eve, a.k.a. the night before all saints day? is it, even older, still the druidic autumnal harvest fest, just deeply perverted?
anything can get antiquity if the similarity-relations can be weakened enough.
bitzer, these comments are going to come back and bite you on the ass when you die and go to the pagan version of Hell where we good little pagans sit down and have polite if slightly flaky conversations with you about your motivations and values and which gods get to bless which holidays. I simply cannot wait.
Trick or Trunk in the 'burbs is completely stupid, as is doing it before dark, as is doing it on some night other than Halloween.
Bitzer, I'm of the opposite opinion.... its nice that kids can have fun with costumes and get out in the neighborhood at night, its when adults co-opt the holiday that pisses me off. Maybe I'm a grinch, but I see something very pathetic about grown-ups who can't let go of childhood enough to recognize that thier part in Halloween is to give out the candy, not to be the center of attention with a goofy-ass costume.... Its just another part of the "infantilization of everybody" trend.
rmp, i'd say that i too can't wait to see you in hell, but it would mean something different than what i intend.
alter 'hell' to 'dcon', and you'll see my sincere intent. but no biting me on the ass if we do meet there.
but if you thought i was laying down the law on which gods get to bless which holidays, you're wrong. let each bless their own, says i. i was just laying down the law on how old holidays have to be in order to gain a pass for hoary antiquity.
answer: older than 1926.
so all the pagan holidays are safer than houses.
52--
good work, spike--i think i can help you find your inner halloween grinch, if you're willing to work with me.
Also, the Halloween decoration arms race in my neighborhood needs to stop. I am currently living next to a giant, inflatable, lit-up-in-the dark witch, mass quantities of orange lights, and a slew of fake gravestones. Why am I supposed to be impressed that somebody blew $40 at Wal-Mart to purchase all this crap?
In my day, all anybody ever had was a pumpkin on the front porch. And we liked it.
I've actually been working very hard to keep my Halloween grinch contained - its starting to piss off my wife. Apparently I don't understand the spirit of the season.
JESUS is the reason for the season, Spike. In this case, zombie Jesus.
1: But if we did that, Halloween would just be like any other day.
bitzer, I kid, I kid. Besides, if 1926 is the bar for authenticity then I think every neopagan alive today is going to find that our holidays fail.
I like Halloween because I've long wanted to decorate my office with an exceedingly realistic looking severed head on a pike. If I put this on on Halloween, everyone would think it appropriate.
60--
sure, i knew you were kidding, which is why i did not wish to see you in hell.
neo-pagans? oh. they're different. possibly even *worse* than frosty the snowman.
I tend to term all of us neopagan and use it interchangeably with pagan for the simple reason that I don't really buy any FamTrad claiming unbroken lines to anywhere, anytime. I realize that I am outside the various folds in this regard.
We didn't really celebrate Halloween much at all when I was little. I remember my sister and her friends beginning to make a bigger deal about it in the late 70s/early 80s. I assume it was coming in from the US.
Kids nowadays go trick or treating. That didn't exist until about 15 years ago.
Guy Fawkes was always a bigger day when I was little.
Now that makes sense. But in the suburbs it's just lame.
This doesn't really need the antecedent sentence to make sense. In fact, its pretty universally applicable.
re: 60
Some of the pagan revivals go back to the 18th century. Loads of druidical/ossianic bollocks dating back to the early 19th.
JESUS is the reason for the season, Spike. In this case, zombie Jesus.
I'm wearing a crown of thorns right now! And I've got an 8" steel spike and two 5.25" inch spikes ready to hand as well.
Wait, Jews get to do Halloween too?
69--
well, sure, only it's a bit different.
spelled "khallow'in" to begin with, and spread out over eight days.
And leavened candy is right out.
71--
do you know what it's like coming home with a bag full of horseradish and shankbones?
Hrmf. The kids who come around to our place squeal with delight at the Hillel sandwiches we hand out.
Last night I got the fundie anti-Halloween thing from a Jewish parent, which was a new one for me, despite being a member of the tribe myself. Is this a new trend? I tried to get him to get an explanation, but all he had to say is that his kids get to do Purim instead. Which of course is no explanation of why they don't get to do Halloween.
Oh, I can see someone Orthodox forbidding Halloween as Christian nonsense; you wouldn't expect them to go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve either.
Orthodox don't do it in my neighborhood, for what I suppose are a raft of reasons including those mentioned.
Everybody else treats it as a secular holiday, and are actually bolstered in that by the opprobrium of Orthodox and Fundie alike.
do you know what it's like coming home with a bag full of horseradish and shankbones?
I don't, but Zeus does.
78--
you mean prometheus discovered fire *and* maror?
74: yay! Purim! Who wants to dress up in stupid costumes and eat stupid candy when you can build a shed in the yard?
Orthodox don't do it in my neighborhood
That's because they are on the subway platform making out with transsexual prostitutes, if AWB's accounts can be trusted.
80: Pulling our shankbone leg, aren't you?
74-Isn't that Sukkot? Purim you get to dress up. When I was a kid, our choices were pretty much Mordechai or Esther, but--according to last night's interlocutor--these days it's apparently Halloween without the pumpkins.
75, 77-Yeah, I would have been less surprised had he been orthodox (and not at all if we were talking Hasidic or something), but he's definitely not (and even the handful of orthodox kids I grew up with did halloween). I'm not saying there's no explanation, and 75 is probably it, just that I was surprised to encounter a (non-orthodox) Jew who appeared to regard Halloween as anything other than secular (most of us distinguish between it and Christmas mass, what with the whole "Christ" thing in one but not the other).
83: Of course, I was guessing that Sifu was pretending not to know the difference for laughs.
If he wasn't Orthodox, that is weird. Just cranky, I guess.
80, 83: Every year I mean to make hamantaschen, and every year I forget. I love poppyseed filling, and a friend's mom made excellent ones when I was a kid.
poppyseed filling
Decent US brand? Sokol is too sweet.
You buy poppyseeds, and boil them up with water, sugar, some raisins, maybe some lemon juice, and bob's your uncle. Not hard. (That's the filling I use for coffee cake, but it tastes about the same.)
sure, but i think it's really just another virginity fetish that drives all these rituals with hymentaschen.
83.1: really? Man. I'm this close to getting my honorary jew certification revoked.
90: They come sew your foreskin back on?
91: honorary, I said. You don't have to do the work for the honorary degree, do you?
I'm this close to getting my honorary jew certification revoked
I qualified for one of these once. I was walking through Frankfurt (the city with I think the second largest Jewish population in Germany) and got stopped by some children from the Jewish school who were doing a survey to test how much people knew about Judaism. I totally kicked ass on the quiz, getting all but one question right (I guessed wrong on the number of Jews in Germany). As we got to the end, the little girl looked up at me suspiciously and said, "You're really a Jew, aren't you?"
Josh/Magpie is another Unfogged couple?
Somebody doesn't read.
Purim you get to dress up. When I was a kid, our choices were pretty much Mordechai or Esther, but--according to last night's interlocutor--these days it's apparently Halloween without the pumpkins.
When I was a kid (~20 years ago), we had the option to dress up as any character from the Book of Esther.
I went as the gallows.
8 - Hi Megan! On the internet nobody knows you're a duck, unless you blow it by choosing the wrong handle.
47 is a great idea, like Truth or Dare but better.
93. Cute story. Better not to ask what Grandpa did in the war.
A lot of places have those mall trick or treat things where the kids go from store to store. Safe! And look what a great place the mall is, where all these fabulous corporations are *so nice* to your kids!
Barf.
Anyway, I see no harm in kids trick or treating at a pedophile's house. Let the pervert hand out candy--giving a kid candy is not, actually, the same thing as molesting him.
I do wonder about the costumes at school thing, though, if only because every once in a while you're going to have some kid who's going to wear something hideously offensive and do the teachers really want to have to deal with that shit? Plus, you know, freedom of religion and all that.
99: you caught the part where he said the girl was from a jewish school, right?
I was just at the corner convenience store/bodega getting an afternoon snack, and these kids came in trick-or-treating (except they just held out their bags and said "candy!"). I didn't know it was acceptable to do that in stores! It benefitted me, though, because I was right behind them and the proprietor gave me a lollipop.
I guess I still look young.
I can't resist united the disparate strands of this thread with one awful joke...
Q: What does a Jewish pedophile say?
A: "Hey kids, go easy on the candy."
101. Spies and informers are everywhere, Ben.
100: At the same time, everybody else ought to be free of the stupidity of parents who so terrify their children that the kids go fetal at the mention of ghosts and wizards cocksucker. We're here, we're high on sugar, get used to it.
My mom made me (out of two pieces of cheap fabric left over from a dress she'd made herself years before and two minutes with some pinking shears) the most awesome red shirt for a vampire costume in 5th grade that I still have it hanging in a closet at their house and remember it fondly 20+ years later. Hell yes I wore that and some plastic fangs to school that day. I think if someone had told her their religious views precluded her handiwork she would have left pinking shear wounds all up and down their ass.
93: Didn't we just have the story here that German spies were caught by being overly-knowledgible (ack!) about the US?
"Why yes, I do know all 4 verses of the Israeli anthem."
they come sew your foreskin back on
Gosh, I hope they don't use the same one you had to start with. Eugh.
Merganser, are you a duck in any other sense than handlewise?
Gosh, I hope they don't use the same one you had to start with
Nah, they use what you've got now.
Only somewhat off-topic:
These animals (quite probably including one of AWB's midwestern relations) are experiencing a true heartland halloween of pumpkin-smashing. Way better than circling a church parking lot.
I promise you, 30 years from now there will be adults complaining about how they've just ruined Trick or Trunking.
"Slut-O-Trunk" certainly sounds unenjoyable.
the most awesome red shirt for a vampire costume in 5th grade that I still have it hanging in a closet at their house and remember it fondly 20+ years later.
Based on this, RMP, you're probably younger than I am, but, based on your comments, I've always pictured you as a grumpy old curmudgeon. In a red, plaid flannel shirt with old man jeans, suspenders, sensible Earthshoes kind of shoes, a beard and glasses. Leaning on a roughish kind of desk, in a cabin kind of house, surfing the internet by the light of a hurricane lamp. Kind of an older, crotchety Norm Abrams.
Naw, I'm just from the mountains. We're born crotchety. I'm only 33, have better-than-20/20 vision, have only a goatee, do not live in a cabin, wear dress shoes or cute sneakers and don't own a single piece of plaid. But, uh, thanks. I think.
107: Well, I'm not a furry, if that's what you mean.
Dammit. Twice in one day, and I don't even comment that often.
No, was wondering if you had a particular state association.
a particular state association
The state of intoxication!
Ah! I don't have any connection to Oregon (?), I just like ducks, and especially the elegant dishabille of the merganser's crest.
117 should get it exactly right, but I have grading and class prep. Maybe later in the evening.
FUCK. I'm really not trying to do that.
The fucking trick-or-treaters here keep shoving UNICEF collection boxes at me.
You're ten years old! Take your goddamned candy and go away!
Princesses and adventurers - Robin Hood, Spiderman, Boba Fett - seem to rule the night in my neighborhood. Only two costumes have involved flowing black robes or skull masks. There was one adorable landshark outfit on a toddler. The vast majority of the kids were somewhere between three and eight. We're going to give out a lot of candy over the next decade.
Phew, ran out of candy. My honey's coming with more, though; maybe he'll be more generous to UNICEF-beggers.
When I was a kid, we thought the old people who gave out quarters were lame. It's not as though we had money or allowances of our own, but a quarter or two at the end of the night didn't seem very special. My parents usually took the change (along with choice bits of the candy), anyway. They called this procedure "taxes."
112: I believe you're thinking of McManus.
I took my son out earlier. The cutest costume I saw was a lobster costume on a 10-month old (who was already walking!). She was accompanied by both parents, both of whom were dressed up as fishermen. Which I thought was perhaps a bit too cute, but maybe that's too snarky of me?
but maybe that's too snarky of me?
Yeah, unless their costumes looked like they cost hundreds of dollars or something.
My daughter is out and about at the moment. Is it a sign of blogging jaundice or sensible reserve that I'm not inclined to put a cute picture of her up on my blog?
Sensible reserve. I thought about putting up pictures of my Wonder Woman and MegaMan, but better the world should be spared the cuteness.
What's the costume of the year? Last year, clearly Borat (adults more than kids). This year, I know there's some candidate action and some Transformers action, but I haven't seen anything particularly topical or timely. I tried to get my girlfriend to go with me in a Jack Bauer/Maher Arar pairing, but she didn't know who either was.
128: Actually, their costumes did look expensive, and they had one of those super-spendy SUV strollers.
Re: the cute picture. Aren't you supposed to save that for Fridays?
but better the world should be spared the cuteness
I was thinking more the unhappy ingrates around here, but this was my basic line of reasoning, yes.
I was bitching about the decoration arms race before. Now I will bitch about the candy arms race. I just got back from taking my kid around the neighborhood. Seems that people around here do not simply give out candy, they give out bags of candy - zip lock backs with 5 or 6 pieces of candy each.
Man, when I was a kid, we got like one or two fun-sized candy bars per house - a zip lock would have been like hitting the mother-load. Now every house has them.
Kids these days are wicked spoiled. Anybody else's neighborhood like this?
I just had more kids ring the bell. 910 pm!! Go to bed children!
No trick-or-treaters yet. I doubt I'll get any; this is the kind of extremely lame suburban area with very fancy houses but no sidewalks or streetlights. I suspect the parents up here are too overprotective to let their kids wander the streets at night, and they may have a point.
I saw some kids trick or treating in my neighborhood as I came home. Yay!
Some kids, ha. Here in Park Slope, I had to elbow my way past hundreds, maybe thousands of ToTers across eight blocks. I just wanted a falafel sandwich and a nap! Not to be rammed into by scores of strollers full of unhappy infants!
Weirdest child-costume I saw today was a six-month-old baby dressed as a "baby," with a large plastic rattle and a bonnet and exaggeratedly big pacifier, round red circles on its cheeks. I wondered if the mom wasn't supposed to be dressed as "mom." I can't tell the difference.
The fucking trick-or-treaters here keep shoving UNICEF collection boxes at me.
Ha! Our kids trick-or-treated for Unicef tonight, and it appreciably reduced their candy load. Plus, we're giving out satsuma oranges and little boxes of raisins. ABANDON ALL FUN YE WHO ENTER HERE. Isn't that scary, kids?
Weirdest child-costume I saw today was a six-month-old baby dressed as a "baby,"
Well, Park Slope. An ironic gesture, obviously. The mother is probably a writer, or something equally decadent.
I did get a pack of adolescent brats earlier this evening who were cracking themselves up with lines like "Trick or Weed" and "Trick or Fuck Me" before they got to the door. Yeah, seriously. I pathetically muttered something about watching their language and they pathetically mumbled things in garbled punk language that translated, I believe, to something like "Shit, I didn't know the door was open," and "You idiots." I gave them candy anyway. But only one little piece each.
Since I know you all care, I have documented the components of my costume.
In other news, Jack Bruce's Songs for a Tailor is good.
I gave them candy anyway. But only one little piece each.
At least you didn't give them satsuma oranges.
The dental office a few blocks away was giving out toothbrushes. Along with a business card for said office.
what's wrong with satsuma oranges?
I had the devilish thought earlier today to give out condoms (it's not like I'm using them) along with some sort of Planned Parenthood promotional material (there've been a few anti signs posted in my 'hood recently), but then I realized that would be really, really wrong.
145: By the time UNICEF gets them to the poor third-world children, they've gone bad.
146: "These chocolate coins are horrible!"
The dental office a few blocks away was giving out toothbrushes
There's a dentist here who does a candy buy-back the day after Halloween &mdash a buck per pound, plus a free toothbrush.
just wanted a falafel sandwich and a nap! Not to be rammed into by scores of strollers full of unhappy infants!
Oh, bah. You aren't allowed to just want a nap on Halloween. Not that scores of strollers are particularly in the Halloween spirit, either.
Tonight's most memorable interaction:
Us to 10-ish y.o. kid in mustache: What's your costume?
Kid: I'm Super Mexican!
Me: (thinking he's got some luchador outfit on under his jacket) Oh, awesome.
Kid: (shows off homemade t-shirt reading "I love Home Depot")
Friend M: Ohhh, that's not right.
Kid: Yeah, that's what my sister said. (pause) And my parents.
Slightly OT here, but I love my dentist -- in addition to the free toothbrush and floss, he sometimes sends us home with homemade taffy.
in addition to the free toothbrush and floss, he sometimes sends us home with homemade taffy.
Drumming up more business, presumably.
Our neighborhood was fucking swarming. I didn't know there were so many kids living around here--I've never seen any of them before. I'm not sure where they all came from. It's not as if this is the sort of neighborhood in which you'd want to raise a family.
A lot of people seem to import/export their kids by car to other neighborhoods, I've noticed, which may be a factor.
We were going to give out raisins, but decided to give out nothing instead. Our front porch light is broken, so we were probably taken to be sex offenders anyway. (And indeed, no one came to the door.)
155 to 153. Shrub has not recently had a kid (AFAIK).
Correct, still kidless over here.
155: about 15 months ago, why?
158: As far as she knows, anyhow.
159: This fact is in tension with your previous comment about your neighborhood not being the kind of place where you'd want to raise a family.
You just said that your neighborhood isn't one in which one would want to raise a family, Landers.
You raise your kids in the neighbourhood you have, not the neighbourhood you want.
I'll move before the family-raising begins in earnest.
We had two trick-or-treaters, who came together. Our total number of trick-or-treaters, in the 3.5 years we've owned this house, is 6. What the hell? We have our lights on and everything. Do we have to put up decorations to lure in the kids?
Taking a toddler around in a duck costume may have actually melted some of the ice-bound cockles of my heart today folks. I really dislike interacting with strangers, and tonight was fun. Also.
Whatever, Chopper. You can't compete.
Oh Lord, Chopper. That is one adorable duckling!
Oh, and the kitty! The cuteness is overwhelming.
Ben, it doesn't work if you just link to kids of people you know. Go generate one of your own, and then I'll coo over your kid.
Thanks, Di.
142: You're going as "Platonism for the masses"?
I'm not asking you to coo over her. I'm asking you to acknowledge your defeat.
Chopper, that's really cute. I'm not embarrassed to say "adorable."
Merganser is more cleverer than I am.
In my unbiased opinion, duck >> kitten.
Believe it, because I'm so clever.
w-lfs-n, it's future parents like you who are responsible for the escalation of the candy/costume arms race.
112: I believe you're thinking of McManus.
Afraid not, I was thinking of RMP. Now that you mention it, I don't have an image of McManus.
83 trick or treaters tonight! Last year (the first year I counted): 72. I like to think that healthy number of toters means people in the area here haven't totally freaked out over Halloween's perils.
It is? Don't current parents deserve at least a share of the blame?
I saw a flamboyant gay boy in a red vest and gold sequin hot pants offering himself up as an "organ grinder".
"Future parents like you" is nonreferring when "you" denotes me.
181: No. Current parents are flawless.
(I'd post a pic of my little vampire, but she's too cute, so cute that you can't handle the cute.)
174: There's no contest. You don't get to look at a Randy Moss touchdown and swagger like it's your own.
184: Not necessarily. It might refer to people who will become parents but are similar to you in other ways.
That's true. "Future parents such as you" would be the nonreferring phrase.
I had the devilish thought earlier today to give out condoms
I have a great stack of NYC-brand condoms that I've been dying to get rid of, but I know that nobody, just nobody is going to trust the condoms given out by the spooky eager white girl.
I found some at the bottom of my purse just the evening, after I'd run out of Halloween candy, so I put them in the bowl. When my honey came home he was aghast: "you've been handing out condoms?!?" I was a little sad to have to deny it.
183: Also adorable, and seriously cute.
184: The future tense takes care of the current non-reference.
Just got home. Plenty left. Wife says every kid polite, some forgot to say T or T, just said Happy Halloween. We've got Reeses and M&Ms, chosen for just this exigency.
Daughter unhappy with expensive mail-order "Harley Quinn" costume. Itched. Wore to school.
You used the present tense, IA. I am not currently a future parent.
Of note: both Flickr and Google image searches on "slutoween" are surprisingly disappointing.
The hordes of tiny grasping hands are finally letting up. (I've only gotten up four times while writing this comment.) I didn't count how many we got this year, but dozens for sure. Our neighborhood is ground zero for the little plastic-pumpkin crowd. We got more trick-or-treaters in our first year here than I'd gotten at every place I'd lived up to then combined.
A kid just came by in the same duck costume Chopper's kid was wearing. Cuuute!
Harry Potter - home made costume, no less.
Not the best picture of him, unfortunatly. He was pretty annoyed about having to wear the hat.
Kids nowadays go trick or treating. That didn't exist until about 15 years ago.
Not sure when it started in the U.S., but my grandfather, who was born in Harlem in 1896, went trick-or-treating when he was a kid. They didn't have money for costumes, so he & his friends would turn their coats inside out and whack each other with bags of flour to become ghosts.
(Though going door-to-door for All Saints Day is quite an old custom, I believe, at least in some parts of Europe. But not so much cute kids asking for treats and more serfs begging for a little something to postpone the revolution.)
JM, what's with the hating on UNICEF? I was so happy that a bunch of the kids tonight were collecting for UNICEF. I loved doing that when I was a kid.
CRAP I FORGOT TO GIVE PK THE UNICEF BOX AGAIN.
Dammit.
5 years living in this county and never gotten a single kid with a UNICEF box. I guess thats what happens when you live around Republicans.
I'm looking for a prop to add the final touch to the lumberjack costume before I head down to the Castro. I considered buttered scones and/or a set of panties sticking out of my waistband. An axe is likely to get me in trouble with the cops, isn't it?
Okay, that little Harry Potter is adorable. The duck, on the other hand, I want to eat.
Here's PK at today's school costume parade, which I found out about at 8:30 pm last night.....
192: We should do this in French, in which tongue my position makes better-than-perfect good sense. Allons-y!
Update: only one kid expressed disappointment at the oranges and raisins; others seemed quite pleased. My daughters were quite successful at fundraising for UNICEF, given that they covered only a couple of blocks, and they also discovered that candy is not universally tasty. In fact, some of it sucks. Take that, Candy-Industrial Complex.
When I was a kid, the favorite house on the block was the guy who worked at a seed company and gave out huge packages of sunflower seeds, and my best friend's mom always gave out raisins. There were also folks who'd give out the occasional toothbrush. In Canadia, a lot of people gave out bags of potato chips and the like. IME, kids kind of like the stuff that's a little bit different.
Best comment from a trick-or-treater: "Wow, you guys have thousands of books -- you must be really smart!"
Best adult costume, spotted on Market Street on my way to BART: a guy in a tux, with a "New Year" sash, a bottle of champagne and a frouey Victorian lampshade on his head, lurching "drunkenly" down the street singing Auld Lang Syne. Also, the announcer in Embarcadero station had a pirate theme going. "Bicycles in the middle cars are unsafe for you and I and the pirates. Arrr!"
The worst were the bright orange coupons for a small ice cream cone at McDonalds that expired that night. Who is going to go to McDonalds after trick or treating?
Man, Becks, that's crappy. McD's coupons did always suck, but ones that expired that night? Wow.
I think they expired that night. We kids always rushed to use them and they were always expired by the time we went there.
In Canadia, a lot of people gave out bags of potato chips and the like.
In Soviet Canuckistan, we're all about the taters, whether begged, borrowed, or deep-fried.
One of my sisters (yeah, ogged, the cute one who is still single) is a food lobbyist. She claims that Canadians like their chips a little bit rancid in flavour, which taste just won't fly south of the 49th parallel.
I used to like to eat potato peelings raw, but my mother rationed me, in fear that I might get worms or something.
212: Aww, thank you.
211: All I know is that I like potato chips. Mmm.
Very ghosty.
Turns out that Mrs. TJ will be producing a little monster of our own, in the not too distant future. For costumery, I'm thinking Sandtrout.
The McDonalds coupons last till New Years and are absurdly cheap compared to the menu price. Almost like they're trying to get you to give ads to children.
Congratulations, TJ.
This YouTube costume is clever, though you'd think someone with a computer could come up with better graphics.
A friend of mine also went as YouTube, but just bent a tube into a U shape and hung it on a string around her neck. Not quite as elaborate.
Congrats, TJ & Mrs. TJ.
Best quote from the link in 215, on giving out the McD's coupons to trick or treaters: we did this last year, was a great thing, especially for the little little ones, who didn't need the gum and stuff. OMG.
McQueen, handing out boxes of raisins? Might as well give them and egg and point out your car to get it over with.
Dude, I held out the bowl of raisins and satsumas, and the kids gladly took them. Their sugar-saturated bodies, and their parents, thank me. The car remains eggless. And if on future Halloweens they shun us as the weird house with the crappy treats, then fuck 'em.
Dude, I held out the bowl of raisins and satsumas
You, sir, are cursed.
198:
Though going door-to-door for All Saints Day is quite an old custom, I believe, at least in some parts of Europe.
Here it's the 11th of November when children go round the neighbourhood trading crappy songs for candy, in honour of the end of World War I I believe. This time I may even remember to get some candy to give to the hordes of cute multicultural kids coming to the door.
Hallowe'en / Oíche Shamhna when I was small was mostly about the ring in the brack, the apple bobbing, blind tig, the coins in a basin of water, the apple on a string etc. - we had a big kitchen and my parents would set up all the traditional games and I think a few of our friends would come in and we'd do all this stuff.
We also however dressed up as witches/ ghosts etc. and did the rounds of the street. Mainly you had a plastic mask or maybe a cardboard witch's hat and the rest of the costume was homemade. One year my brother's mask was a skull face and we finally found a use for the never-worn báinín (Aran) balaclava, to make the rest of the head match a bit better. Most people gave out nuts and so forth, some would give sweets and some would give small change. We didn't say "trick or treat", we just made supposedly scary noises and "spirit fingers" when they answered the doorbell. I think it's all more American-style now.
Also very popular in Ireland on this night among young men especially is stealing gates off hinges and other such pranks. Bonfires are/were common and, in urban areas, fireworks (illegal in this jurisdiction but easily smuggled from NI).
Here it's the 11th of November when children go round the neighborhood trading crappy songs for candy, in honor of the end of World War II believe
Must be some sort of transference, or general European holiday, as Holland was not belligerent in WWI, which Nov. 11 commemorates. Armistice Day, now called Veteran's day in the U.S., also generalized as living memory of WWI is now gone.
There must be Canadian military cemeteries in Holland; I wonder where my uncle is buried.
(Spellchecker just now caught Canadian spellings of neighborhood and honor; must be the subject matter.)
"The Lily, Thistle, Shamrock, Rose, The Maple Leaf forever!"
Oh wait, I see it: you wrote "in honor of WWI[space]I believe," which I read as WWII with an inadvertent space.
