Halloween

[cat lover]

Are you and your family going trick or treating this year? Or are you having a party at home for your children or one for adults? If you don't celebrate Halloween what do you do on that night to keep your children busy and what about all those doorbell ringers?

[RobertaD]

Our town has a parade on Wednesday with the downtown businesses doing trick or treat at 5-6pm before hand which the kids have always dressed up to do and they are then in the parade. You get a big candy bar at the YMCA for being in the parade and they judge the costumes and give gift certificates for each catagory and a girl & boy bike to the top winners.

Then Trick or Treat is on Thursday 6-8pm which we don't participate in mostly because we've never really had the extra money to pass out and I don't feel right having the kids go to the neighbors when we are giving out so we just keep the outside lights off and the dogs in the house. There aren't to many in our area that do pass out as most are elderly on fixed incomes.

I have sent in goodies for the school "fall harvest" parties in the past and helped out in the classroom.

I do have corn stalks in the garden so if I can get them up without breaking I'll decorate the front of the house with them.

Roberta

[KSJEn6891]

I usually dress up and decorate the outside of the house and yard, leaving the front porch light on for the trick-treaters. My DH on the other hand does not like nor enjoys the Halloween holiday. Yes he use to dress up as a child. My mother once was told by her church it was Satan's day and we would be sinners if we celebrated the season (I later researched the church was half correct), so we went to a church social and enjoyed orange punch with pumpkin shaped cookies and read the bible.
As the years passed my sibling and I were allowed to choose for ourselves what we would do on Halloween as long as we didn't come home drunk. As I said I did research, and based on the research, I was willing to dress up for the occasion and assist in filling my "begging" bag with goodies and money from people I knew and trusted. I never went to homes w/o the porch light on, nor homes with "no soliciting" sings on the door / wall /window's, and never ever did I go to a home who I did not know lived there. In my teen years, I applied the same rules as my tween did, except now I incorporated it with H.S. classrooms and pep-rallies, and same rule in my early adult years.

[Tammy Atchley]

In the past when we do celebrate and run out of candy...We just turn out the porch light and watch a movie. If they do come to the door after that we just ignore it. Most people wont come to your door if you havent decorated and the light is out. We pretend out house is a theater and turn even the indoor lights out. its fun.

[ajrsmom]

My daughter's school always has a "Fall Festival" on Halloween weekend. The last two years the festival has fallen on the night of trick or treat and I think that it will happen again this year. It's sort of a pain in the rear because you're forced to make a choice of where to go. The school makes a good bit of money on the event - you buy tickets to play games to win candy. Since I'm on the PTO board and a grade parent, I pretty much have to be there to run one of the games or work at one of the food tables...etc so my dh will be in charge of the kiddos while we are there.

We do the same thing with the lights at our house - turn them out if we are not giving out candy. I even hang a sign on our door here at our apt. because older kids will ring the door bell at the end of the night.

[trainlady]

Mark and I are dressing up as pirates this year!

We have never had reason to dress up in the past but now that we have learned to square dance that has all changed!
We have our clubs Halloween dance and another clubs to go to as well so we will dress up twice! One is the 16th and one is the 23rd.
On Halloween itself our tradition is to go to mom and dads and have pumpkin burgers! We make hamburgers then cut "pumpkin faces" out of the cheese before putting it on the burgers to slightly melt!!!

I'll need to find some cute Halloween deserts or snacks to bring to the dances. Any suggestions?

Jen, what are you dressing up as this year?

hugs, train

[ajrsmom]

Once again we are preparing for my dd's fall festival at school. I'll be volunteering but I won't be working a game (Yay!) so I might actually have time to check things out this year.

Alexis is dressing up a Monster High School Rock Girl - are you scratching your head wondering what the heck that is? I certainly did. Here's a look. She's Frankie Stein, Frankenstein's daughter. ROFL!!!

My ds has decided that he's too old to dress up this year.

We will go trick or treating in the neighborhood, too!

[cau]

We celebrate the holiday, I love watching the little ones come to the door. Dgd is debating going out this year ,she is 14,I told her she must dress to go. S he & her friends and their little sisters and brothers go as a group.They must stay in the neighborhood

[ajrsmom]

I told my son that if he didn't dress up as something and go with his sister that he wouldn't be able to eat her candy - which I think was the plan.

He sort of feels out of place doing it because he's so tall now that people think that he is a lot older than 13 (well, 14 by the time Halloween is here - he's well over 5'8" now!). Still, I told him that he could do something as simple as wearing all black and using tape to make a "stick person" costume.

[cat lover]

My DH really misses all the kids at Halloween that always came to out house when we lived in the city. It was his favorite holiday! He would rush home before dark and put together his Halloween night decorations including scary music. We had grown ups that use to trick or treat with us when they were kids now bringing their kids! Of course now living in the woods in a very rural area no one can see the house nor does anyone trick or treat here. So no more decorating or anything!