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I almost asked this question on Mike's "Goo Girl or Boo Boy" thread, but at the last minute realized that'd be hijacking. Forive the lapse in judgement, I've been sick...

Anyway, I have a question about Halloween practices where you live. It's mainly the States I'm interested in, unless this problem is more widespread than I'd imagined...

Here in Utah, the entire Halloween 'thing' has been comandeered by the 'well meaning and safety conscience' Mormons. Instead of supporting or participating the the 'walk around', they do this horrible thing called a "Trunk-or-Treat". This is where, instead of sending your kids walking around the unsafe neighborhood full of prostitutes and crack dealers, everyone drives to their local church, parks their cars and pops their trunks, which are full of candy. Then, all the kids in their costumes walk from one trunk to the next, and that's how they do their 'trick-or-treating'. In this way, you can wrap up the whole unpleasantness of participating in an evil, devil worshipping pagan holiday in about an hour and your kids still get free candy. It's my belief all holidays should be turbo-charged in this way. Imagine how much easier Christmas would be if everyone just took their kids to the toy store Christmas morning and handed them a $100.00 bill. None of that messy tradition garbage, and you could wrap the whole thing up in a couple hours. And for Thanksgiving? Turkey sandwiches at Subway!!

So here's my question -- has Halloween been trashed in this way where you live? Or do the kids still walk about after dark in costume and ring your bell?

I've never even heard of that. So yeah we're still traditional here... lol

Intrestring. Well, Hallowe'en is definately different here in Houston than it was in England. In England Hallowe'en is kind of a new concept that is just slowly starting to get bigger. Not many kids or parents really participate in it yet making me think it's more of a "North American" thing than "Global" thing. European's are big on Christmas though, but it's more of the "Hanzel and Gretal" type of Christmas (which blows away the North American style Christmas).

Here in Houston, all the kids came to the door, but there were definately "lazy" ones that took dad's taxi to each block. Oh, and from what the neighbours said kids get "shipped" in from other neighbourhoods (or these kids go to even more expensive neighbourhoods) to get even better candy. Also it seems here Hallowe'en is more commercialized as well, I've never seen people spend SO MUCH on Hallowe'en decor and there are massive mega-mart Hallowe'en stores that open up just for the holiday.... ah, nothing like super-sizing your holiday shopping experience to get the REAL meaning in eh?

Can't wait to see what X-Mas is really like here...

Mike

Mike, while getting taxis around is odd, I remember as a kid going and hitting up the "good" neighborhoods to get better candy. And I saw those Halloween store fronts down in ny state last year. Kinda makes me wonder how a company an stay afloat.

I agree that parents 'taxiing' their kids down the street is ridiculous, but yes, traveling to a 'classier' neighborhood to get better candy is a time-honored tradition. We take our kids to the neighborhood where Carrie's hair stylist lives, and to be fair, it's mostly because it's laid out well for safe trick-of-treating. It's a large warren of residential streets sorta 'one-off' from the main thoroughfare, so the traffic is light and slow.

Mike, I'd be proud to live in a 'preferred' neighborhood for trick-or-treating. That's a rare and unique sort of nobility here in the States. (-:

I've never heard of trunk-or-treating and unfortunately it sounds like it would lend itself to a focus purely on getting candy rather than the whole door-to-door experience.

I don't mind parents importing their kids to better neighbourhoods, the folks in the better neighbourhoods normally like to shell out anyways so it just makes it more fun for everyone.

Now seriously I don't understand the whole "let's decorate the crud out of our houses for a non-holiday holiday" here in the States. I guess I'm used to Halloween being more about homemade costumes and homemade decorations than commercialisation. Something tells me Christmas is going to be even more mind blowing around here.

Your head is going to pop when Christmas rolls around.

I do know a few people who really get into Halloween and do up their houses for their own amusement and to scare the carp out of the kids when they come trick-or-treating. Much fun is had by all.

sunshine229 wrote:I've never heard of trunk-or-treating and unfortunately it sounds like it would lend itself to a focus purely on getting candy rather than the whole door-to-door experience.

They did this by one of the family farms in Arkansas. The distance to a neighbor was roughly 30-45 minutes so it was the only way to experience trick or treat.

I'm kind of interested in the Hanzel and Gretal kind of christmas. Can you elaborate on that?

In our area they were so worried about kids being hit by cars that trick or treating was regulated to daylight hours. It may have worked the first time they tried it when Halloween fell on a weekend, but most people weren't home from work. I'm told it was horrible, so I went around doing reverse trick or treating to get rid of our candy supply. I first only started going to the neighbors I knew with kids but before I realized it there were quite a few people going condo to condo to give away candy. It was a bit surreal.