40ish & Beyond Parents

Its almost Halloween! Does anything happen at your house on Halloween? A party, a special meal, costumes? Decorations? Do any trick-or-treaters come to your door for candy?

We don't "celebrate" Halloween particularly. I have a couple of ceramic jack-o-lanterns, one is a small candy dish and the other is the size of a medium pumpkin and has a "face" cut out, the top comes off and I can put a tea light candle inside (for indoor use); and just realized that I haven't set out either of them!

I got a medium-large pumpkin to carve, I will do that on Saturday afternoon and set it on the porch around 5pm. The sun is setting here at about 6pm (although that will change by Sunday evening!) but sometimes very little kids start ringing the doorbell before dark.

We get a lot of trick or treaters here. Since Halloween is on a Saturday I'm anticipated a lot of kids will be out, and probably until later than when it falls on a school night. I got a huge bag of candy (150 pieces) at Costco because it is quite possible that we'll get that many kids. My next door neighbor has said that this year her yard will not be an extravaganza like the past few years (with strobe lights and music blasting etc) so maybe she won't draw so many kids, but I suspect that by now she has a reputation of sorts as a house to visit. I bring in the pumpkin and turn off the front light when we run out of candy, or by about 8:30pm even if there is still candy--by then I'm tired of the doorbell, opening the door, etc. Bah humbug LOL!

I used to wear a witch costume to pass out the candy but not any more. Dinner will be something simple and quick to prepare and eat with possible interruptions!

I've packed my Halloween treat bags yesterday...I'm ready for 90 kids (but even have some small bags of chips if we would ever even get more than that number of kids come to the door). However, it's been about 75 children for the past few years. So we shall see.

It's also Ray's birthday on the 31st. But we'll have the family here on Sunday (or those who are not working that day). So we'll have cake and celebration then.

I'm not much into Halloween parties and the dress-up thing. But I enjoy seeing the children come to the door in their costumes.

Shirley

We are heavy into celebrating Halloween.  All of my kids and grandkids will be coming out and bringing food, costumes, and candy.  Not sure if we will have the "most haunted house on the street" this year, but we will have fun.  We will probably get about 150 trick or treaters and, of course, the kids will all go trick or treating.  We have spooky music, fog machines, purple lights, jack-o-lanterns, and lots of other "props."  My older kids have always enjoyed Halloween and we tend to do it up big.  In past years, Nick has been the "chainsaw guy" and (after taking the chain off the saw) he starts it up and chases the kids -- they love it.  We usually end up with a pack of spectators standing across the street to watch.  We have developed a code system whereby we can let him know if the kids are very little (no chainsaw) or teenagers who love to scream and yell and run around. 

Noe is going to be a hippie ghost and Bella is a duck.  I am usually a witch, too, but this year will be just wearing an oversized shirt with dracula on it. 

We don't make it a late night -- probably until 9 or 10. 

Happy Halloween to all of you! 

Janet

We don't do any decorating for Halloween, inside or out. We also leave off the porch light (as usual) and leave off the lights for rooms on the front of the house because we do not hand out anything (not that this stops some from ringing the door bell and then pounding on the door if we do not answer, which drives the dog crazy). We live in a huge development so it isn't like the kids are going to be deprived of candy, and I don't know the kids in the neighborhood anyway.

Trick or treating is a controlled event around here. I was amazed after my first Halloween in this house 9 years ago because there were no pranks or vandalism evident the next morning, as had been the annual event in my previous house. The kids are only allowed to trick or treat from 6 to 8 tonight so there is a lot less of the older kids wandering late at night getting into mischief. Some years the town office announces that the trick or treating will be done on another night, not necessarily Halloween, though I am not sure why. There are fire police who act as crossing guards on Main Street which runs a block from where we live so the kids can safely cross the main road through town.

That said, we celebrate for the whole week of Halloween at work <g>. Monday was spirit day when people came to work in the company colors and a prize was given out for the one with the best accessories. Tuesday was the day when they collected canned food for a Food Pantry and a name was drawn for a prize among those who donated. Wednesday people were to come to work in clothes supporting their favorite team. Thursday was "casual" day. And Friday was the day to come in costume. I usually only participate marginally, maybe glam it up with lots of gaudy jewelry or something but that is it <g>.

But this year I was inspired so I went to work as an oak tree (as it turned out, I wanted to be a "nut" tree but didn't have any nuts to glue to myself <g>). I wore brown slacks and a dark green sweatshirt and dark green oversized ribbed hat. I also had a life size squirrel with an acorn (stuffed animal) which sat on my shoulder briefly. One of my coworkers ran pictures of acorns which I glued to my shirt and hat.

Then there was a costume contest at noon which I participated in...a one time thing since I do not like having to walk across the lobby by myself with people all around the room watching as you walk to the judge's table. I got into tree pose with the squirrel on my shoulder and did the walk, got cheers and laughs, and had my photo taken by HR. No prize, but I hadn't even planned to do the contest when I went into work yesterday morning so it was not a disappointment. And the costume contest, which was for the whole company, was followed by a Halloween luncheon for our department, though I didn't stay as long as I could have because I had too much work to do.

I like the tree costume Diane. It sounds like a good one for work, unique and shows originality yet functional enough to actually work in. I wore a witch costume to work one year and the sleeves and long hair kept getting in the way!

Has your workplace had the week-long festivities for years or is it something new? From your post a couple of weeks ago it sounded like your morale was definitely low, are a lot of co-workers also getting fed up and burnt out? Did the past week help to boost morale?

I have never heard of community-controlled trick or treating. The lack of vandalism sounds like a plus. I don't usually see many signs of pranks around here, sometimes some smashed pumpkins. I remove the jack o lantern from the porch when we declare Halloween over. There will probably be a lot of candy wrappers on the sidewalk tomorrow but hopefully that's all.