I Know It's Early But..........

[Dammit Janet]

We have a church here that does a carnival instead of having the kids trick or treat in the neighborhoods. They call it trunk or treat...lol. Its a large church and all the members line up their cars and trucks and sit there and hand out candy as the kids walk by. They also sell popcorn for like a quarter and canned drinks for a quarter. They have a train ride pulled by a huge John Deere. Then the carnival is held inside. Its great.

[susiestar]

You can mke a cool, and kind of gross, spider cake fairly easily. Bake a cake in a big bowl and a smaller bowl and get a box of Twinkies at the day old store. Put the cakes upside down next to each other on a big piece of plastic wrapped cardboard or board (whatever you have, I use a bread board). Cut 1/3 off the small side of the biggest bowl cake (put them largge side down on the board, small side up)and then hollow out the center of that cake. Make some red or green or blue jello. After the jello sets, stir it up and put it in the hollowed out cake and put the top back on. Arrange the twinkies as legs and then ice it all with black icing (ask at a grocery store bakery and usually for $2 you can get a ton of black icing which is far easier than trying to tint it yourself - black is a PITA to get even with paste food color, imo). Use candies to make the face on the spider - m&ms work well.

When you cut the body of the spider, the jello comes out and is gooey and many adults are grossed out and kids LOVE it. Or that has been my experience. Red Devil cake and blue or green jello gets a HUGE reaction from the moms for some reason.

I adore Halloween and have done some pretty wild things for parties along these lines. We won't even go into the 3 weeks I spend making pokemon costumes one year. Wiz was some pokemon with a turtle shell that shot water - I did draw the line at making his costume shoot water, but ONLY b/c it was cold that year.

BTW, this started early. When I was 4 my mom made a witch costume for me. She was NOT amused when she learned that Dad let me wear it to go Xmas shopping the week before Xmas. He and I were both confused as to why. it was a great costume. He even put the makeup on my face for the occasion (xmas shopping, not halloween. Mom did Halloween.)

I bought those fleece costumes every time I could find them, the ones old navy and Land's End used to sell, and my kids wore them all winter for jammies and sled riding and whatever.

[Hound dog]

Susie, over the years I tried hard to make Halloween fun for my kids. My mom refused to have anything to do with the holiday based on her own twisted religious philosophy when we were growing up. (somehow with grandchildren that magically changed??) I didn't even get to enjoy the costume parties at school, at least the dressing up part. I don't think I went crazy when my kids were little, but they did have fun the whole month......and I did decorate quite a bit for it. And the same mom who refused to let us do Halloween, kept busy trying to find the grands awesome costumes for the next year. Go figure. lol And what she couldn't find at yard sales, I often did, or we bought them.

My kids tend to make Halloween a big deal, along with xmas.

Back when the holiday was taking off in this country, kids didn't trick or treat. They attended Halloween parties in which adults also participated. These parties were a huge deal. Good safe fun. Now I hope the kids don't lose the special fun of getting to trick or treat, as that now is part of the classic tradition, (and I'm all for tradition) but I want them to experience the party atmosphere the way it used to be and enjoy that too.

Not to mention......things are really getting pretty down and out around here. There won't be very many porch lights on this year. People will not be able to afford it. Businesses are trying hard to pick up the slack and all of downtown open their doors on beggar's night and passed out candy.........which turned out more popular than the "safe" trick or treat held out at the college. I'd hate to see the door to door trick or treating die off all together. That would be a sad thing.

[susiestar]

Find a wealthy neighborhood and trick or treat there. that is what people do here. We have one neighborhood known for giving full size candy bars away each year.

[StepTo2]

Due to the fact that we live in a weird 3-street neigborhood bordered by 2 superbusy roads and woods, trick-or-treating has been just about pointless. For the last 2 years I've taken Jett to a small town about 40 minutes away, where the BFFs live, and their 5 kids and mine have a blast. (I went with them in 2009... Bio had Jett that year for Beggars Night.) This year I hope it's nice weather so I can take him and Bean up... I can always sit in the car with Bean if I need to!

[InsaneCdn]

Trick-or-treating is practically dead around here.
When I was a kid? having 200 kids at your door that night was considered a slow night. We just about needed traffic control on the sidewalks.
We quit even trying to give stuff out, two years ago... after only having 3 kids show up at the door.

[Hound dog]

Susie........well, our "rich" neighborhoods stopped handing out candy years ago. Most of their children are grown now and the parents don't want to mess with it anymore and we don't have a younger generation of "rich" people taking their place. Unemployment is just too high and too rampant.

Now for years there has been a "safe trick or treat" at the college. (why on earth someone thought this was needed in a small rural community is beyond me, it's absurd) Local businesses buy candy and set up booths on the field and the kids go around for candy. Pathetic IMO but I'm old fashioned.

One year I thought I'd take Nichole and Kayla (she was a baby) and see what the fuss was about...........a disaster. Traffic getting into the place was outrageous! Forty-five minute wait to just turn into the college, parking? forget it, classes were still being held. Each year it has deteriorated. Crowds kept going until the past two years........even though businesses were dropping out because it was such a PITA to do it there. PC took the boys last year because her MIL owns subway and sets up at it (so she can see the boys) .......and they didn't even stay, they happened to pass through town and discovered those businesses that had pulled out of the "safe" trick or treat were doing the same type of thing in front of their own shops downtown, a much more fun way to do it. Kids could easily branch off into neighborhoods from there if they wanted..........although finding a porch light on was scarce last year. So the boys trick or treated downtown instead.

I also noticed that where walmart, kmart, and the food stores would be basically nearly sold out of candy by the day of beggars night.......the past 2 yrs they had so much left to clearance after halloween they had issues getting rid of it.

PC noticed many kids were trick or treating without costumes as well, although no one remarked on it when they saw it.

[Dammit Janet]

Lisa that is just sad. We are a pretty poor and rural area with unemployment averaging at least over 10% and that is the stated rate. The real rate is much higher. We have several neighborhoods that still go all out for halloween. They make sure they have candy for the kids that come in from the county. They know its not just gonna be the few kids that live in their subdivision that will come but all the kids from out in the county where they cant walk from house to house.

[Hound dog]

I don't even want to think about the unemployment rate for this particular county and the surrounding ones. At least while I'm job hunting. It's just too depressing.

I'm already watching for notifications of various groups taking donations and asking for help getting items gathered for kids for xmas.

Here, we're right smack dab in the middle of the new Great Depression. It ain't pretty, for sure.

We have a new fb group. Porch gifting. If you see a neighbor in need or just have something decent you no longer have use for and think someone else might enjoy it........then you gift it to someone by leaving it on their porch.

[tiredmommy]

Here's a simple game: guess how many candy corn are in the jar. The prize is the candy corn!

You can also use paper lunch bags to make simple Halloween theme hand puppets and have a puppet costume contest.