Bummed out

[Rick Potter]

I love Halloween. Not the Zombie type stuff, the little kids in costume trick or treating at the door.

Our house is on a street where there are not many kids, but there should be 30 or so that come by, but each year the numbers get smaller. To counter the trend we started giving out full size candy bars, hoping to become a 'destination'. Tried that for the last 5 years.

This year we got one group of 5 kids, and that was it. I suppose most of them went to the 'Harvest Parties' at local churches. I know our church had hundreds of kids there, but it's just not the same.

So, here I am, eating Snickers bars, sad and lonely.....and hyperglycemic, with 43 bars to go.

[Jim Koepke]

As any parent knows, kids grow up and forgo the lure of Halloween candy.

Our house is way off the beaten path. Even our neighbors do not come over. They drive into town to trick or treat with family friends.

We no longer buy Halloween candy. When we did we ended up eating it all by our lonesomes.

jtk

[Mel Fulks]

More bad news....we had so much candy and so few undead creatures that I almost OD on a bowl of candy. Now have a hunger for sour kraut

[Dave Anderson NH]

Our numbers have dropped each year too Rick and last night we had about 15. Our houses are far apart at 300-600 feet and the few kids that come by are dropped by car at the end of the driveway. Most kids go to the big celebration at the center of town about 4 miles away. My wife has insisted for years that we buy the full size candy bars. Most of the leftovers get taken to work and put in a bowl and boy do they disappear fast. An interesting note. About 3 Halloweens ago I opened the door to a young woman with a costumed infant in her arms and a toddler by her side. When I held out the basket of candy she commented that we were still giving out full sized candy bars. She remembered receiving them from us when she trick or treated years before. Yikes, second generation neighbors.

[mike holden]

Take heart, this is cyclical. When we first moved here, we had over 100 kids come to the door. That slowly dwindled till a low of 34 four years ago. Last night we had 72 show up.

[Matt Day]

I've seen the cyclical nature of neighborhoods myself over the past 5 years. When we moved into Our neighborhood of 40ish houses had about 7 houses with kids younger than college age, and very little trick or treating. Most kids would go to town for holloween and we had a handful of kids at our door. This year we have about 14 houses with young kids (including mine) and everyone stays in the 'hood, and we went though 10 bags of candy. And we have 2 houses for sale and likely another one soon, and I hope young families move in those houses.

[Stan Calow]

well it was a Monday night and a school night here. We saw about 100, down from a peak of 200 5 years ago. Mostly little kids with parents hovering. Gone are the mid-size kids, presumably to parties and organized events. On the other hand, no TP'd or egged houses in the neighborhood either. I ate most of the Hershey bars and Reeses last week anyway.

[paul cottingham]

50 plus kids last night. It was great, parents dressed up, the whole nine yards. A great night.

[Brett Luna]

We're in a similar boat to the OP. Our house is on an unlit, dead-end street in the sub-suburbs and the outside house lights are on motion detectors. In 12 years, we've seen maybe that many trick-or-treaters...maybe.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

We live in a typical blue collar neighborhood. Last night we had 4 trick-or-treaters.

It's dropped over the years primarily due to worries about safety. Now a lot of churches and malls have gatherings where parents feel safer about their children getting unaltered candies. It only takes a few crazies to ruin for everybody.

[Dave Anderson NH]

You're right Ken. I remember as a kid that everyone except the very youngest went out without parents. Parents still inspected the night's haul however.

In our town the big center of town event goes so far as to have a purple container at each house denoting candies guaranteed not to contain any peanut products or other varieties of nuts. It's a nice touch.

[Frederick Skelly]

We're in a similar boat to the OP. Our house is on an unlit, dead-end street in the sub-suburbs and the outside house lights are on motion detectors. In 12 years, we've seen maybe that many trick-or-treaters...maybe.

Ummmm???? There are SUBURBS in ALASKA? Seriously? Please forgive my total and utter ignorance Brett, but your whole, very enormous State has only 3/4 of a million people - why do you need suburbs?

[Chris Padilla]

Numbers have dwindled in our neighborhood as well. I think this was the first year my daughter, now 14 and a freshman in high school, did not go out with her friends to gather candy. She did dress up for school and did dress up to hand out candy at the door. I'm not sure we had more than 30 kids...was easily double that a few years ago.

I wonder if there is a correlation to the day of the week Halloween falls on? Fridays and Saturdays must be the best days of the week to have Halloween. Mondays? bleh....

Also, going back to standard time seems to keep getting pushed later and later in the year. The weather was a bit balmy here: cool and a tad moist but not that bad.

[Frederick Skelly]

I have fewer every year too. Less than 40 last night. I think the various Church festivals are pulling kids away from the door to door trick or treating.

[Shawn Pixley]

Zero trick or treaters at our house last night. We were the only house with anyone home down the block.

Previously it has varied from 12 to over 200. Difficult to plan for.