Family, Food, holidays, Kids, Weather

Trick or Treaters?

58 Comments

I love Halloween. Not the original All Hallow’s Eve, but what it has morphed into: the costumes, the candy, the jack-o-lanterns. Even as an adult, I love to dress up (today I dressed as the Crocodile Hunter, complete with a large upholstery foam crocodile that draped over my shoulders).  I have a lovely decorative flag of a full moon with bats, a wonderful huge ceramic jack-o-lantern with the letters of our last name as the mouth and a whole bunch of Halloween luminaries that YA and I made when she was younger. (I’m not crazy about all the gory horror films that get trotted out at this time of year, but that’s another story.)

Unfortunately the reality of the trick-or-treat experience these days is not as much fun as I would have it be. I live on a busy street with a lot of folks who don’t leave their lights on; this keeps the foot traffic down. This year has a couple more strikes against it: it’s a school night and it’s REALLY REALLY cold.  I normally only get about 25 trick or treaters.  This year I only got 15 before I finally closed up shop.  The last 5 kids got a huge handful of candy each!

When has a holiday disappointed you?

58 thoughts on “Trick or Treaters?”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    It was cold last night–I am surprised you had even 15 T or Ter’s. We had very few. Lou went out and bought a 5 1/2 pound bag of candy for last night. I asked him to return it, knowing we would never have that many kids here. Guess whose sweet tooth would have insisted she dispose of all 5 1/2 pounds of the stuff. We traded it for a much more modest and less fattening amount. The kids who did appear had great costumes, though.

    I have found most holidays to be disappointing over time. As a kid, Halloween was often the one that was the most fun, though, as we were allowed to run wild and be crazy that night. That was an unusual occurrence when I was young. And all the candy was a great bonus. I hung on to that candy for weeks and months.

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  2. we had 20 or 25 show up after 10 years of no kids

    all little cuties in clown suits i noticed
    some star wars but mostly clowns

    my daughter who will have my first grandkid in april came over to hand out candy because she’s feeling matronly and her apt has a buzzer door this no kids

    i dressed as a corduroy cowboy with a big hoss cartwright sized hat and boots

    my amazon partner was saying she had kids school halloween parties to attend but when i asked what her costume would be she said she was going as a tired mom
    i suggested she put on a hat and she lit up
    an easy way to change the mood and state of mind is to put on a hat
    dr seuss had a rack of hats and if he got stumped he would put on a hat and change the head he was sitting in
    good enough for him…good enough for me.

    disappointment with holidays … i saw the bank is closed on 11/11 for veterans day
    not disappointed in the holiday just the excuse for a bank holiday the rest of us don’t share

    it turns out to be a holiday i do share which is kurt vonnegut birthday and i do a quick review of a story or two and a offering in the name of depression and mental illness that plagued him for his life

    i love irving r feldman’s holiday in a thousand clowns a celebration of a delicatessen owner owner in the neighborhood

    who is it sherrilee remembers? the velcro guy? i love the velcro guy.

    disappointment in holidays????
    i’ve had a few
    but then again too few to mention

    i don’t get caught up in
    thanksgiving and
    that christmas tension

    i’ve lived a life that’s good
    with holidays a small part of it
    but more, if you want more
    i just say shove it

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        1. He was adorable. He had on a little suit with a vest and a bow tie. Big glasses and a wig that was part bald and the rest the wild gray hair. And a clipboard and a little cane.

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  3. as i was out walking around yesterday i was commenting to those around me as to how minnesotan i felt with the 30 degree temps and no feeling of chill or cold
    i was informed that without wind and rain 30 is fine and i was reminded hat in a mere 51 days the sunlight hours begin getting longer again

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  4. A combination of events drove me to become a freelance writer, although my erstwife and I knew freelancing was not a reliable source of income. Still, I did my best to bring in money to supplement the good income my wife earned.

    When I was a child my mother’s pattern was to ignore other holidays while celebrating Christmas excessively. To some extent I carried on that tradition when I had my own family. Our Christmas giving was greater than our income would have warranted. The emphasis was always on giving gifts that were loving and carefully chosen, not just expensive. While our Christmas gift giving was not materialistic. relative to our income it was more generous than prudent.

    We did well enough until the Christmas of 1985. I had landed a contract so rich it allowed me to shelve my usual freelance work so I could concentrate on this big project, putting together a book for a contractor who was also a friend. But just before Christmas my friend’s one-man business hit hard times. I had worked for four months exclusively for him. He said he would pay me eventually, but not promptly. We went into that Christmas with no income from me for a third of a year.

    In spite of our best efforts, we had almost nothing to spend on Christmas. When my daughter ran to the tree on Christmas morning the pile of gifts was so puny she broke into tears. Those tears left scars that I’ll carry forever.

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      1. BiR: she was five or six. It was the last Christmas of believing in Santa. It was harder on the adults–me in particular–because of my family’s goofy habit of expecting Christmas to be spectacular. I have discussed this with my daughter. She doesn’t remember the tears.

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    2. Speaking of Christmas trauma/scars, I still remember when my oldest son figured out the “real” Santa Claus. He was so upset and felt betrayed that we had lied to him all those years. Man, that was tough. It wasn’t until the next Christmas that he sort of forgave us as he wanted to help put out gifts for his younger brothers. They played along as long as they kept receiving “Santa gifts” and didn’t feel upset about the grim reality. I still feel badly about that one.

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  6. Last year we had about 75 T or Ter’s. This year, 11! I thought it was because there was a big, first annual party at a park a couple of blocks away. I asked one Mom if they had been there and she said they had, but it was pretty lame, poorly attended, and closed up early. I guess it must have been the cold, school night deal.

    I have a friend who grew up in Green Bay. One year, must have been in the 90s, she asked me what day Halloween was that year. I gave her the look, and asked her what the heck she was talking about. She told me that where she came from, cities made a decision each year about what night would be the sanctioned T or T night. It was based on the closest weekend and the Packers game schedule. I don’t know if all Wisconsin towns did/do that, but I have occasionally remembered to check it out with some WI natives over the years and it was a thing, at least on the East Coast of Wisconsin. Are any babooners aware of this weird bit of Wisconsiana?

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    1. I lived in Hudson, which is technically Wisconsin though almost a suburb of the Twin Cities. There it was the custom to celebrate Halloween on October 31st regardless of what else was going on or whether it was a school night. I lived there in the 60’s and 70’s, though, so things may have changed since then..

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    2. I grew up in Green Bay, WI and I always remembered Halloween being on 10/31 (I think). Although moving the official trick or treating via citywide declaration to accommodate a Packers game would not surprise me. That city revolves around football.

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    1. My short-term analysis of last night now includes the realization that I didn’t have any older kids. Normally I have a division of younger kids earlier in the evening and then a handful of teenagers later on. But no teenagers last night. Hoping it’s not a trend just the cold.

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  8. I am a killjoy Baboon, I see. I did nothing whatsoever for Halloween this year. I think it was actually pretty quiet out there.

    One of the guys down the block is very neighborhood minded and goes all out with the haunted house decorating. He also happens to be the guy who collects for the alley plowing, and I have gotten in the habit of strolling down there with my check on Halloween and taking in the show.

    I was working in the basement so it was about 8:30 when I went down there and all was dark and in fact a lot of what I had seen he had up during the afternoon was already down, so I think it must have been a quiet evening here too.

    Usually I run out of candy (I may or may not have redistributed out of the s&h’s bag if I had a mob headed for the door and only two pieces in the basket).

    I think I gave up on expecting a lot from holidays awhile ago. I knew I was never going to meet my own expectations or memories, and so I simply stopped trying.

    We have wisdom teeth extraction planned for this Christmas!

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  9. My apartment is in a senior citizen complex. Anyone coming in must have a key or use a buzzer to get past the locked door. Of course, we didn’t have a single trick or treat kid, and that makes me sad.

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    1. If you feel like organizing people (and if you’re still there next year!), do what they do at our friend’s new apartment building, Steve: a group of residence were sitting around in the front lobby with little bags of treats for anyone who wandered in. They were playing cards and generally having a pretty good time, whether anyone showed up or not…

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  10. Hi–
    We did nothing at home to even realize it was Halloween. (I take that back; candy was on sale). And we never have. Living out in the country no one comes to our house. We even left the gates open at the end of the driveway. If it was nicer weather I might have worried about the local ‘teenage’ shenanigans, but too cold for their mischievous ways this year.
    Daughter had some events earlier in the week. She’d been shopping for costume pieces all month; I’m not sure she had a particular ‘theme’, just pieces she wanted. And she wore that to one party last week. Then a few days later, went to another party as something else, recycling a costume. Then Monday night she wore something else entirely. I thought that was a nice idea; be whatever you feel like being that day.

    A few college students dressed up. I wasn’t so sure about the ones wearing full face masks. Isn’t it unfortunate that nowadays I’m uncomfortable with “adults” wearing full face masks. There’s probably a rule against that on campus.

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  11. We had twenty kids. Not as many as last year, which I attribute to the cold. I normally buy an assortment of different candy bars, but this year Hans had taken it upon himself to buy our candy. He had bought all one kind (Nestle’s Crunch) because he wanted to be sure that if we had any left over, he’d like to eat it himself. He’ll be eating Nestle Crunch for a while.

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  12. We did absolutely nothing for Halloween for this year. No candy, no pumpkins, lights out while I skulked in the back of townhouse. My kids are all grown up and moved out. Although it is fun to see the little kiddies come by in costume, I just wasn’t up for it.
    I, too, have given up the high expectations of lovely, wonderful holidays filled with fun. I hate decorating and do not enjoy the putzy, fussy, Martha Stewart treats or decorated baked goods. So we have serene, quiet gatherings with my kids and just enjoy each other’s company. Maybe play a board game or watch a movie together. Gift giving is very practical and inexpensive with our very limited budget. It’s hard to have a spectacular holiday with limited money.

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    1. Although we did fun stuff at work. Decorated our department in theme of cards/casino. Everyone dressed up with playing cards on their clothes. One particularly crafty gal made her entire outfit out of cards taped or strung together with a neck ruff and a hat as well. Really adorable. I dressed as an elegant Vegas blackjack dealer in black & white. So I had fun at work and our department won the prize for Best Group Costume.
      I do admit that I enjoy dressing up for Halloween and where I work they always make a big deal of it by encouraging employees to dress up, decorate the department, the Executive Team strolls around in rented theme costumes and judges the decorating and costumes for prizes. It’s fun here.

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      1. At my office we had a dog costume parade yesterday morning. So you could bring your dog into work for the day if you wanted and at 10:30 we all got together in the “party room” and the dogs walked around in a parade and then there were some prizes — prizes really just being certificates. But it was a lot of fun and the dogs of course were very cute.

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    2. Yet it sounds like you have a good time even without lots of money. “Serene” and “quiet” are both good things and in short supply these days.

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  14. When my kids were growing up, my parents lived nearby and Robin’s parents were not so far away in Northfield. Early on, we got into a tradition of spending Christmas Eve with my side of the family and then getting up early on Christmas day to rush down to Northfield for Christmas morning with Robin’s parents and siblings. As nice, even wonderful, as those Chritsmases were, part of me regrets that a sense of obligation to family expectations prevented us from ever developing much tradition for our own nuclear family.
    Likewise, we have hosted Thanksgiving for both sides of the family consistently almost since we were first married. I sometimes envy those who could put together alternate families of friends for the occasion.

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    1. we hate irt when the wifes family comes and love it when my mom and one sister come. my brother is ame me me guy who bitched about easter and thanksgiving dinners not being to his liking one=ce too often and my not to be spoken of sister who i wont speak of.

      we do have the wifes family grace us with an announced visit form time to time at a holiday but that may be done.

      i enjoy our family tradition and dont appreciate others trying to come in and dictate.

      go home and dictate to yourself is my thought. i do that well and wish others would too.

      my problems begin when i try to dictate to others and other try to dictate to me

      my family had odd holidays that have fallen by the wayside. st niclos day with shoes in the hall
      passover with lamb and salad with bitters and applesauce with red hots in it. lamb cake form a mold and a story of the passover read at the dinner table,

      today is all souls day when the lucky ones get sprung from purgatory and let into heaven . (i think this is when the lutherans get a shot)

      others too

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    2. Yes, we tried to do that long distance for Christmas when Joel was young – Christmas Eve with the Hassings and all his cousins, drive down to Iowa on Christmas Day for another Christmas “Eve” and then another “Christmas Morn” on the 26th. Uffda.

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    1. Way too much candy here, too. Was at Aldi earlier and bought a large bag, and we had a handful of trick-or-treaters. I’ll have to bring the butterfingers to tim or something.

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  16. I’m not good at doing holidays. Don’t like doing fussy decorations. Don’t like cooking huge feasts (not against feasts, just against cooking it all myself – I’m a potluck type of girl). Really not good – actually, bad – at buying gifts (I hate shopping). So, while I may not be disappointed by holidays, I’m sure I’ve disappointed others over the years. I’ve pondered why I am this way, and I think it’s because of my struggle with depression – when I can barely make it through everyday life, doing anything extra for holidays seems like an impossible task.

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    1. I once read an Emily Post-type column about giving holiday dinners where she was aghast at the mention of having other people bring any of the food. WHAT PLANET ARE YOU ON, LADY? No way should any one person have to be responsible for the whole #*^%(@*^ meal – (unless you sincerely love to cater, I suppose).

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  17. I worked until 7, and then hid out t at home with the cats.

    Daughter has planned the meal for Thanksgiving, her favorite holiday. I really like Thanksgiving, too. She won’t be home for Christmas. We will spend Christmas in Brookings with son and Dil, who are indeed expecting their first child the end of April.

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  18. Earth Day.
    I know I will not live (65) to see the ramifications of the current administration’s assault on the environment. I have no grandchildren and that is for the best. I honestly weep for you Baboons who contemplate your relatives pitiful lives to come.

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    1. I’m a little east of you, balancing you out. I’m rooting for the Astros. Just because their uniforms are uglier, and just because – I guess. So far, so good.

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  20. Next year I’m going back to what we used to do for Halloween: wear my Wizard Cape everywhere I go all day long, including when handing out our salted-in-the-shell peanuts, of which the kids may take one or two handfuls. This year I barely knew it was Halloween.

    Congrats to Renee and tim on having First Grandchild on the way – April could be a fun month on the blog if you share pictures and stories…

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