What are you giving out for Halloween? or are you?

[Kaydene]

It's because they're awesome.

[Savor Dam]

We had about two dozen trick-or-treaters. This is a bit more than average for our neighborhood. Still, there is a lot of leftover candy to hide from the boy, and for us to resist eating.

Wait, if we resist it and don't let the boy know where it is, what will become of it? Some questions are better left unasked...

[Menolly]

Wait, if we resist it and don't let the boy know where it is, what will become of it? Some questions are better left unasked...

[matrixman]

I've been cleaned out.

So interesting living in a small town. the streets are literally jammed with parents and young children. Some very cute costumes. The guy across the street has his house done up real scary. red lights, mist, bodies everywhere. He is sitting in a rocking chair with a clown outfit on and not moving. There is a giant bag of candy next to him and the kids have to walk up and take from the bag. He just starts rocking when they reach into the bag. They realize there is a live person in the chair and go screeching down the driveway.

its great!

Glad to hear the Halloween spirit is alive and well in your community! Over here, I suspect that most of the trick-or-treating was done in shopping malls.

Part of what makes a neighborhood a neighborhood is some degree of trust in your neighbors. It's part of the mistrust of "others" that's permeated a lot of American culture. I think trick-or-treating was an early casualty.

There's probably a lot of mistrust here, too. Guess that happens when the news runs stories of pedophiles and other crazies every other week, it seems. I'd be very sad if the door-to-door custom disappeared altogether.

Sorry that you and Kaydene didn't get any kids knocking on your door.

[aliantha]

Y'all get a lot of our cultural spillover, MM. I'm saddened but not surprised that Canada would pick up our bad stuff, too.

[matrixman]

I might be in danger of generalizing. Don't want to speak for the rest of Canada; all I can say for sure is that I've seen more and more reports of violent crime, home invasions, etc., in Winnipeg over the years. Thing is, it doesn't feel like a particularly violent or crime-ridden city. Not anymore than when my family arrived here. Maybe stats and news make things sound worse than they are. But if people stay inside out of fear of what they've seen on the news, then I guess it's a self-fulfilling thing.

Today, I heard from a colleague at work that she only had 4 trick-or-treaters show up, when she used to have a hundred. However, a friend of hers had 80 kids show up. So I'm glad there was some activity out there. Also, there are always some creative homeowners who make their abodes fun Halloween places to be. It's just that they're few and far between.

[stonemaybe]

No trick or treaters this year . It annoys me that newspapers here are slamming Halloween as an 'American import' and anti-christian which is blatantly nonsence as I was trick or treating (tho we didn't call it that) thirty years ago. And Halloween's been the biggest street party of the year in Derry as long as I can remember.

'good stuff' - The Etherington's in my street used to make toffee apples which were fantastic! Though they had they scariest dog in the neighbourhood that you had to bypass! Other than that, the plunder was generally nuts and apples.