Sunday, November 01, 2009

Where have all the children gone?

This is not a random sampling of trick-or-treaters.
These six are the only trick-or-treaters I saw last night.

We used to range far and wide, with groups of kids pointing each other to the best candy. "That house there has full-sized candy bars!" "The blue house on the next street has popcorn balls!" If there were parents out, they were only with the littlest kids.

When we were older, we'd trick-or-treat for Unicef, with those clever little folding boxes for collecting pennies, because begging for candy was for babies. But you know we were really in it for the candy, too.

Maybe it's still like that in other neighborhoods, other towns. Did you get many visitors?

14 comments:

  1. Got about 25 kids total, in about 6 groups. About average for a drizzly night in the DC area. Now I'm left (tee hee) with bags and bags of Reese's peanut butter cups. Oh no! Whatever shall I do?

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  2. I had a bunch - 80 - but we're a small town and it's just the thing to do.

    Lauren

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  3. Yes, we must've had about 25 kids as well. Not too bad. But I heard from others that they had a very slow night.

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  4. Here in Alameda, CA we didn't get any! Last year we got a small handful of kids before the sunset (about 4 groups of 5 kids) but that was it! We didn't have a lot of people with pumpkins out this year so maybe the parents drove by and decided our neighborhood wasn't worth it! Too bad...we had a great candy selection and we love to see what the latest costume trends are.

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  5. We got about 130, which is way down from last year's total of 200. I think the cold, bitterly windy night played a big role.

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  6. We had 87 kids (I use DumDums to keep track of the number.) The weather was mild and parents come out with most of the kids.

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  7. We got about 50 kids, I think. Even though it was raining for part of the evening, it stayed warm enough for kids to stick it out.

    My favorite was a tiny little devil who just looked up at me when when I opened the door. "What do you say?" urged his mom. "Twick or tweat," he whispered.

    I gave him his candy and his mom said, "What do you say?"

    And he stood there for a minute and then looked up and said, "Twick or tweat?"

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  8. We never get any, but we're at the end of the road in the country. My cousin in Denver had 750+. I can't even imagine!!!

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  9. We got about 50 or so (fewer than last year)and my mom got close to 300 (she says more than last year).

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  10. We only had about 15 but my friend lives on a pretty steep hill and it didn't look like a lot of folks had their lights on. :/ It seems like a lot of people go to the malls nowadays to do their trick-or-treating. I'm in Hawaii by the way.

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  11. We didn't get as many either. Poor Charles was disappointed as this was a rare evening that he was home for them.
    I think a lot of the older ones were at parties ... and maybe the H1N1 scare kept some home? I don't know.
    I was disappointed at how few houses were lit up on my block.

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  12. Only a few. They all go trick or treating at the mall now. It makes me sad.

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  13. We don't get any, but that's because we live in the country and most houses are at least 1/4 mile apart on very steep roads. That's a lot of hiking! The main streets of the two closest towns have Halloween parties and kids go trick or treating to all the local businesses. It's fun - but not the same as the neighborhood trick or treating I did as a kid.

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  14. We only had about a dozen. A co-worker who lives in a small town about 30 miles away had hundreds! They sound an old fashion siren at 6pm to signal the start of trick or treating and sound it again at 8pm to signal the end. All goes smoothly

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