For years now, I’ve been watching most of the trick-or-treaters go to the house on one side of me, take one look at my house and walk right past it, and then go to the house on the other side.
I had no clue why. Maybe they were scared of my house or thought I’d give cheap candy (my house is a bit of a fixer-upper)? I completed my “curb appeal” projects; didn’t help.
Maybe they thought nobody was home? I not only have the porch light on, but also have the living room TV on, clearly visible through the (open!) front window, and it makes no difference.
Maybe they think I’m not participating (despite the clear signal of the porch light and jack-o’-lantern)? I put up a bunch of Halloween decorations this year, and it still didn’t help!
Well, I finally found out the reason, after hearing one kid scouting ahead yelling to tell his friends to skip my house: “there’s no bowl on the porch!”
…You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Yep, unlike my neighbors, who had apparently just left unattended bowls of candy on their porches, I was actually sitting there inside the house, with the bowl of candy, waiting for kids to knock or ring the doorbell before I opened the door and handed it out. You know, like how trick-or-treating is supposed to work.
This is ridiculous. Kids these days are skipping viable houses with candy because they can’t be bothered to actually knock on the damn door and say “trick or treat” to the person who answers? Residents are expected to be too lazy to answer the door, and just put out the candy without even receiving the traditional threat first? With no actual interaction with the neighbors for the kids to show off their costumes, what’s even the point‽
I finally stuck a sign on the door saying “yes, you have to knock or ring for candy!” and that helped, but even then, some kids are still skipping my house because they apparently can’t be bothered to read the sign.
Leave a bowl out with a sign that says “if the bowl is empty, please knock.” You don’t even have to fill the bowl with anything.
ONE bag of sprite per child
The last time I left a bowl on my porch, literally the first group that came took all the candy and threw the bowl into my lawn. It disincentivized from doing so again.
My guess is, the kids aren’t supposed to knock and interact with strangers anymore cause their parents are scared.
Some places, trick or treating has been replaced with a group of parents driving to a parking lot and their kids going from truck to truck.I just got back from taking one of my kids trick or treating with his friends. It was great. My wife and I got to walk and chat with the other parents while all of our kids knocked on doors and shouted “trick or treat!”. Lots of friendly, generous, nice people. And lots of shouted reminders from us for the kids to not walk on people’s front lawns, to say thank you, to be careful crossing the quiet roads. There were so many other kids out too. It was pretty crazy, but in a good way. About half of the houses were giving out candy in some way or other, with only about a quarter having an un-monitored bowl.
Then on the way home we drove past a church that was having a ‘trunk or treat’ in their parking lot. That just looked sad. There was no excitement for going up to the really cool houses that were decked out in amazing props and decorations. There was no need to hone analytical skills to determine which houses were giving out candy and which ones probably weren’t. Just going very short distances from one car to the next getting candy. My kid asked why they do that. I said it’s probably because they are a closed community who don’t really want to associate with ‘outsiders’. Give me the conventional experience over that all day every day!
It’s a holdover from Covid. It isn’t some glaring indictment of “kids these days”. The social contract changed with Covid and will take time to go back or maybe never does.
Yeah, in my area trunk or treat is the main reason for no trick or treaters these days. It’s a very urban area, so getting a lot of candy on foot would be easy, but walking around a parking lot is way quicker. It seems to be what most parents prefer also, so I think it’s here to stay.
I loathe trunk or treat. It’s not the same as trick or treating, it’s cheating. When I was young the only way I got a bunch of candy was to run all over the neighborhood, and then run to the other neighborhoods to squeeze in more. I was out and about, acting the fool, where chicanery abounds. I’d end up at home, exhausted at the end of the night.
Today’s kids walk around a parking lot. It’s just not the same.
When we were kids halloween was the best. As an adult, there was nothing more I looked forward to than handing out candy, seeing costumes, scaring some kids with all my decorations. But now it’s all sanitized and boiled down into the something as ludicrous as walking around a parking lot asking for handouts from cars. What, are they just prepping the nations children for a life of panhandling? Joking aside, it’s just not as fun for anyone involved. I don’t want to drive somewhere and decorate the fucking trunk of my car (especially when I decorated my house already?), and the kids don’t want to walk around a parking lot!
Trunk or treat is the worst solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
It takes a lot of the magic out of it. I’m sure a bit of this is rose-colored glasses, but it was a really neat experience as a kid. The entire neighborhood was out in the streets, people got to know their neighbors, and you felt like you were part of something. These days, it feels spooky due to how empty it is besides cars.
We went to one of the several trunk or treats in our town. I chose one of the less busy ones so my kid could understand what the massive downtown one would be like if she wanted to do that. We waited in line from trunk to trunk for a whole hour, got meh candy, got to get inside emergency vehicles (that was cool), got to see a lot of other people’s costumes (also really fun), but mostly it was waiting. Standing mostly still. And then the advertised time came for it to be over, even as people were still waiting in line, tables and cars all broke down and started leaving us in a sad, barren lot. We went trick or treating for the main event after all, and got excellent candy, saw all kinds of cool houses as we actively walked with a friend for as long as we wanted.
Not my favorite. I found a neighborhood that others tend to drive to, which I think is most other people’s ideas, so it ends up getting slammed. Which imo would be sort of fun to decorate for
“Trunk or treat” LMAO
Hey everyone, this person kidnaps children.
edit: What the fuck, people? I was just poking fun at their typo.
I have a tube-based distribution system from the second-floor window that I started using during COVID to keep my distance from those plague incubators that came calling, and just never stopped using it.
I live in a moderately cold climate, and Halloween evening nearly always drops to around -5℃ to 5℃. So it’s much nicer to just sit in a cushy armchair by the window with a warm blanket over my legs and drop candy through the tube. A surprising amount of adults, teens, and tweens are tickled pink by that system, although a lot of little kids need a surprising amount of direction to get their candy.
And yes, I always drop either two pieces or - for those in dark hoods and carrying scythes - full-sized snickers.
I think you’re looking at it wrong. It’s likely not that kids are too lazy to knock but that your neighbors are too lazy to answer the door. The kids see everyone on the street leaving bowls out and assume that if someone on the street doesn’t have a bowl, then they’re not doing Halloween like everyone else is.
That’s not it at all. Literally, my children told me, “I don’t want to go up, I just want to go to the houses with bowls”. But it’s not a lazy thing, it’s a social anxiety thing. We don’t chat with strangers, we don’t make small talk with people we don’t know, we don’t ask people things we can find out without asking people things. We’re socially awkward parents and we have socially awkward children.
Millennials, the ones who would much rather text than call on the phone their dearest friends and closest relatives, are 35-40 years old. They’re the ones with halloweening children and those kids are just ask averse to face to face interactions with neighborhood residents as we are.
We must be the good kind of awkward. My kid got an unreasonable amount of candy knocking on doors.
LOL put a ginormous bowl on your porch with a sign in it that says RING BELL FOR CANDY
Candy inside. Ring at your own risk. Muah ha. Ha. Ha.
I sit on the porch with the bowl, it’s nice to see them walking around. It’s easier for both parties, and I can dress up too.
I think it’s because fewer houses are doing it, mostly. But I don’t understand skipping very decorated houses, and honestly wouldn’t leave out a bowl of candy here.
The sitting on the porch thing is traditional here now (my mom sat inside but I’m over 50 now and since being old enough to be on the treating side have always sat out with the candy and that’s more usual as far as I can tell) Though my kids always did go up and try if a light was on outside.
Maybe they are also a little more sensible too, lol - a princess last night looked in the bowl and said, nah there’s nothing I like, happy Halloween. My kids would have taken some anyway and traded it around, but it is always too much by the time they are done.
Overall I agree, they should yell TRICK OR TREAT but am glad nobody is, like egging your house if you don’t have a treat for them.
Do you live in a sketchy area? That hasn’t been my experience at all. We had 90 kids in total knock on our door yesterday for trick or treat!
At my house we get north of 200 kids every year it’s decent outside. Sometimes over 250. We’re talking about a kid every minute for the 3.5 hours we do it.
I just set up a table outside, invite a few friends over, drink some beers and give kids candy as they show up. Fuck having to answer the door every minute for 3.5 hours.
My older neighbors complained that the kids don’t have to come up to the front door and are skipping their house because I sit outside. I felt a little guilty, but honestly sitting outside (it it’s cold I get a fire pit going, not tonight tho) is much nicer. One older couple followed my lead this year and agreed. So I’m over it now. Welcome to the new world.
I do the same, minus the fire pit and friends but add in a costume. I’ve been a drunk pirate lately. I used to jump scares, but I find this routine more fun because, apparently, everyone is on edge and creep scares are jsit as easy
Normally I wear a costume, but mine fell apart this year.
I’d sit outside with a table, candy, and a sign that says “You HAVE to say trick or treat, change my mind!”
Lol I’m definitely doing this next year
We’re also a sit outside house. Luckily October is pretty warm nowadays (wait…)
It is because all you had was those weird black and orange taffies. No-one can eat those.
Maybe meet them half way and sit on the porch and hand out candy? I used to go to my parent’s house to help them hand out candy and I noticed it took a bit of effort for the smaller kids climb the stairs. There’s no railing and knowing how dangerously slick their steps got if they were damp, i started sitting at the bottom to hand out candy.
It seems trick or treating isn’t as popular with the kids as it used to be. Ironically, it seems more popular than ever with adults. Some houses I’ve seen look like they must rent a storage unit to keep all the decorations they put up. We used to fill a set of dad’s old clothes with leaves, splap a plastic punkin on top for a head and call it a day
You gotta be outside chilling shooting the shit with neighbors at the end of your driveway these days. My door would fall off the hinges if I had to open it for every kid
Most of our neighborhood sits outside with the candy and to hang out and see everyone’s costumes. They make it very obvious they’re handing out candy so when it’s knock houses, we’re less likely to go
When people have moved to leaving candy out, perhaps kids thought that not having them out means you’re not participating. Also, when many houses have left them out, for efficiency, it makes sense to only go to those houses.
I’m glad to hear that the sign helped. Shows that some kids aren’t just about getting as much candy as possible but also having a bit of fun.
I put a bowl out once. The first kid that came emptied the whole lot into his bag and I had nothing left. So now I keep it inside and if they don’t knock it’s their loss and I get treats.
