Monday, October 31, 2005

Boo!

Happy Halloween! Last night was Trick or Treat in my town. I went with my girl, my nephew and my sister and brother in law. It was the first time I'd been out to trick or treat in many, many years.
Some random observations:
1) People give out lots more candy per kid than they used to. They don't give out one fun-size Snickers or a couple rolls of Smarties. They give out a handful of the little Snickers bars or little bags with about half a dozen types of candy in them.
2) It's more fun when the people answering the door are dressed up too.
3) Sometimes scary is too scary. There was one house in the neighborhood that scared the kids and my sister so much that they refused to go in. They had a big pickup truck with yellow flashing lights on top parked in such a way that it looked like it was pinning a man to a tree. He writhed a little bit sometimes just so you could know he was real and not a pretend person. The same yard was full of scary looking things and there were a few zombie-type people silently roaming the yard. I thought it was brilliant, like performance art. The only one who agreed it was awesome was my brother in law.
4) When you're on a dark deserted street and hear the music from Halloween playing faintly a few streets away, it's pretty creepy even if you're a grownup.
5) Older people seem to give the best and most copious quantities of candy.
6) Trick or treating at condo complexes is very efficient. So many homes in such a concentrated space.
7) Trick or treating is a good excuse for checking out people's homes. I love seeing how they decorate and what their houses look like.
8) Carved pumpkins with real candles are still the best Halloween decorations.
9) I saw a shooting star while we were out. That was pretty cool.
10) People can still give out homemade treats (popcorn balls) around here and you know it's okay and not evil and poisoned.
11) Even though the officially designated time for trick or treating was from 5 to 8 in our town, two hours was plenty. The kids were beat and when we weighed my girl's bag o' treats, already minus some treats, it weighed 5.5 pounds!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy cow! 5 lbs of candy?!

It's funny how things vary from one place to another. When I was checking the boys' loot, I discovered they got maybe two pieces of chocolate each.. the rest were tootsie rolls, lollipops and gummy things. Boo! (And I don't mean that in a ghostly way)

We did my complex.. which proved tricky. It seemed half the place was empty. We had to take a mental note before entering each building.. "So we'll go to the second floor on the right and third floor left."

Just weird!
We did go to a very spooky house on the corner that no one in this town has ever dared go before (or so I hear). Come to find out, it was the sweetest cutest little elderly couple. They gave us tons of stuff. :)

Glad you had a Happy Halloween!

Webmiztris said...

I just LOVE that pining the person against a tree idea! and zombies! I wish people were that creative around here!

Pam said...

This is a great trick or treat neighborhood since it's a bunch of little ranch houses on quarter acre lots built in the 60s and early 70s. It's mostly families with young kids and older folks who are the original owners of the houses.
A couple streets before the really scary house was another house with a weird shark bus parked on the lawn and one of those big inflated football players (Patriots, of course). Those were just distractors though. The real trick was the guy in a gorilla suit down on all fours who scampered out of the dark to attack us. He was wearing white sneaker though. That was kind of dorky.
It made for a funny conversation though--
Me: Oh look! They have the shark bus on the lawn!
Sis: And one of those football guys. In a Patriot's uniform! How cute!
Me (noticing movement of a dark, low, large thing): What the hell is that thing!?!?!
Sis: AARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!
Me: It's a GORILLAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!