How did Halloween go where you are?

[mommyoffive]

Did you get lots of trick or treaters?

Did you see a lot of people following guidelines or was it like before covid?

What did your family do for Halloween?

 

[almondbutterandjelly]

Pretty good.  A lot fewer trick or treaters than normal, but we still got about 50.  The weather was beautiful outside.  We put the candy in bags on a table in our driveway and sat way back.  

LOTS of trunk or treats locally as an alternative.  Lots of people just not participating also.  

College Dd went to a Halloween party.  They carved pumpkins, mostly.  Lots of masking.

[Bambam]

We live in a small size neighborhood with big lots. Many, many people come here to trick or treat. Most of the neighbors set up tables at the end of their driveways and hand out treats. This tradition continued this year. One close neighbor also got a Halloween themed setup/board for you to put your face in to take a seasonal type picture (room for 2 people to participate.) The roads were packed from 6ish-just after 8. Lots of people driving, lots of people walking this year (unusual). At least two houses had very large parties during the afternoon too.  From the pictures I've seen, no masks and maybe some attempt at social distancing (until it is time for selfies!) We did not participate. 

[Guest]

We probably had about 60, where we usually have more than 200. Most people who participated did treat bags or something similar.  Usually we get spillovers from some big church events, but those mostly didn’t happen this year.

 

I would say about half the kids had masks that covered their mouths and nose, as did most of the parents. 
 

DD had cleaned out her collection of stuffed toys (mostly frogs, lizards and less realistic snakes-she’s keeping the ones that can be used for educational purposes) so we did a snake pit using an old wading pool, with the treat table in it. It nicely enforced a good distance between us and the kids. And, by the end of the night, all the stuffed friends found new homes (and several moms commented that they were doing the same thing when their kids were willing to clean out 🙂 )

Edited November 1, 2020 by dmmetler

[JustEm]

we had about 20 groups come to the house, which is probably half of what we normally get.  Tons of house participated and most did treat bags or left a bowl outside on the driveway.  The people who participated gave out more candy this year the normal.  Lots of full bars and filled to the brim candy bags.  I think they assumed less people would hand out candy so they wanted to make it good for the kids.  

[ScoutTN]

We stayed in, watched HP movies and had pumpkin pie.

There were a few families out, but far fewer than normal.

[lmrich]

About the same as last year. I did not decorate my front porch as normal since we had high winds and so much rain from Hurricane Zeta leading up to Halloween. But at least I have nothing to clean up, now. - except emptying the candy bowl!

[MEmama]

The house next door was the only one on the block with its lights on. I only saw 2 or 3 families out trick or treating, but they congregated and lingered next door since that was the only place to bother with. I’m pretty mad at them for encouraging such behavior. At one point I counted 11 people talking out front ( including the neighbors). 🤬 

I did see a few houses in the neighborhood with tables set up outside earlier in the day but I think almost everyone did the right thing and stayed in. 

[kokotg]

I vote for candy at the end of driveways every year, because that was SO EFFICIENT! We did our small neighborhood (which always does it that way; there's just a handful of kids so they all go around at the same time and everyone sits out in driveways and hands out candy) and our friend's neighborhood down the road and were done by 7 with a ridiculous amount of candy. Older kids did outdoor movie night with a couple of friends and we hung out around the fire pit with their parents until the seven year old was ready to crash. It was a surprisingly nice Halloween. 

[Lawyer&Mom]

We watched Hocus Pocus in the basement with all the light out.  But the few times I went up and took a peek, the street was *empty*.  Absolutely no one walking around.

[KrissiK]

Ours was different this year. Every year since the kids were toddlers we have gone to our church’s Fall Family Fun Night. They didn’t do it this year so we stayed home and had pizza, root beer floats and watched movies. We live in a big subdivision that has been well-know for excellent trick-or-treating. People come in from all over town and neighboring towns to trick-or-treat here. I don’t know what things were like on the south side of the subdivision, but we didn’t have one trick-or-treater all Night. I went out to get pizza around 6:00, and there should have been kids starting and the streets all over the subdivision were empty. So, that was kind of weird. Now I have a big bowl of candy to eat.

[Nanax6]

Hubby and I made 65 candy bags...they were gone in 15 minutes.   Lots and lots of kids in our neighborhood. 

[PinkTulip]

We set up a table at the edge of our narrow front walk, so it blocked anyone from coming to the door. Then I sat about 10 feet behind the table, and used kitchen tongs to set candy out on the table. The kids walked up to the table, took the candy I set out for them, and were on their way. I replaced the candy between groups. Everyone who came by wore COVID masks, and I was masked too all night. It was a fun night and I felt safe, and like I was keeping others safe, too. 

[Spryte]

We kicked off our Halloween with a mistake. We wanted to drop off some treats for our close family-friends before ToT started, but ran late.  Arrived at dusk.  What a mistake!  Hordes of unmasked people, just crowds and crowds gathered on our friends’ street.  We saw at least 100 people out.  Friends had a treat table, then fire pit to separate themselves, and of course our friends were masked but even so, it made me nervous. We left their goodies on the porch and ran!  Still, one crowd of unmasked people walked past as we got in our car.  Within inches of DD and DH.  My anxiety was sky high.  At least we were outside and we were masked! We opened our windows and aired out the car as we drove away.  

Our neighborhood was noticeably less crowded than normal.  We saw some clumps of people, but our cul de sac was completely dark.  

Other than that - our little Halloween party was brilliant!  We decorated the basement with streamers and pumpkin lights, and all sorts of Halloween decorations.  We kicked it off with spaghetti brains for dinner, and had monster eyeball cookies, and sugar cookie ghosts and bats, roasted pumpkin seeds, and pie. We listened to Monster Mash Radio (which wasn’t too bad), and had a flashlight hunt for “goblin eggs.”  We played mummy bowling and spider darts, and even the teen got in on it - I had some cool HP prizes stashed away to hand out.  The Switch Witch came to deliver safe candy and treats, and there were a few stuffies and a Dunder Mifflin t-shirt.  And the most excellent finale - we watched the new Happy Halloween Scooby movie with Bill Nye!  Big puffy heart Bill Nye here.

So - ours was a mixed bag of shock at all the people we saw, and a successful family party.

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Spryte

[Toocrazy!!]

Ours was pretty normal numbers. We had about 120. We sat the table at the end of the driveway, put full size candy bars out, sat back about 15 feet and said happy Halloween. It was fun to see the kids. I think it was a pretty safe way to celebrate. But, I’m in an area where most people seem to not care if they get it I think. So, for our area, I thought it went well. 

[wintermom]

Very low-key Halloween action in my suburb. Our city is a hot spot, so people were very careful. I went for a walk with my dog at 8pm and I passed no one. It was ghost town weird. More dark and quiet than a normal evening. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

I didn’t see as many trick or treaters, and those I did see weren’t masked. However, people were walking in small family groups and the few houses with lights on had candy bowls set outside.

Originally DH was taking the kids trick or treating, because I’m still quarantining pending a Covid test result that is taking forever.  However, at 5:15 he went on a fire call(he’s assistant chief at our volunteer department) and it turned into a several hour ordeal trying to get a driver out of a crashed vehicle(driver is okay, but it took 2 hours to get him out due to electric wires down and crashing overlooking a gorge).  So at 6:30 I had to very quickly come up with some other plans for my costumed and excited children.  I found a trunk or treat a church was doing that was drive around—you didn’t get out of the car, they passed candy through the passenger side window. So we did that, and I let them go to the few houses on our block with lights on since I could sit on the porch and watch.  All just had bowls of candy out. Then we came home and watched Transylvania 2 and ate popcorn.  The kids seemed happy, even if it didn’t go as planned.

 

We did set out a bowl of candy, and it was gone in 15 minutes. There weren’t that many trick or treaters, so someone stole all of it. My kids were upset and put a pox on them. 😂🤣  we’ve been reading a lot of 19th century books lately.

Edited November 1, 2020 by Mrs Tiggywinkle

[Loowit]

Ours was fairly normal numbers, about 100.  The main streets in our neighborhood had closer the 400.  Most of the parents were masked, but not all.  Very few of the kids were masked.  We used a zip line made from fishing line from our upstairs bedroom window to the street to hand out bags of treats.  Everyone really liked our setup.  Most houses were just doing normal door to door.

People started showing up earlier than normal, I think because parks and rec put on a trick or treat thing in the afternoon, so people just went from that to trick or treating in neighborhoods.  We had a sign up that we weren't starting until 5:30.  Everything was wrapped up earlier too though, we didn't get anyone past about 8:30.

Youngest had a bit of a hard time with it.  This would have been his last year to go out trick or treating, but none of us felt safe doing that.  I tried to cheer him up a bit with pizza and treats at home.

[Tap]

We had maybe a third of usual kids. We are in a quiet little neighborhood, but sometimes we get a car load or two from nearby neighborhoods. We usually have 50-70 I would guess. Last night we had 5 groups of maybe 4 each.

Glad it wasn't more! We have a new dog and she went berserk after each doorbell ring. She would bark for several minutes after each group and it was mentally exhausting for me (and I assume her too). All in all, with just 5 groups, she probably barked for about 20 minutes in one hour. I had given her melatonin, but it wasn't enough. I think next year, I will ask the vet for a prescription sedative for her. 

[sassenach]

Our church did this thing where all of the houses in one neighborhood (mine) were open to our church kids for TorT. This way the kids were promised a warm welcome and the parents could trust that the host families all followed safety precautions. Our neighborhood is always dead on halloween so what we ended up with was about 8 church families plus one random family. It was sweet to see our families all dressed up. It was all masked and sanitized. I put a glove on to pass out the candy. Usually one family does a party but that's obviously not happening this year. 

[katilac]

We get very few trick-or-treaters even in normal years - people tend to cluster to the neighborhoods where the streets get blocked off. 

Our area was hit by Hurricane Zeta on Wednesday, and some of the popular neighborhoods don't have power yet, I prepared for more kids than our usual few, but we got exactly two kids (who were together). I have special bags for a couple of the neighborhood kids, and I'll try to ditch the rest to other kids as I see them, because I do not need extra candy in my house. 

55 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

 

omigosh, the wee police officer! 😍

[SKL]

Hard to say, because we usually don't get many kids.  Usually the weather is cold, rainy, windy, and there are not many houses on our street that have their lights on, nor many kids living here.

We had a handful of kids.  But last year I think we only had 2 families bother to trudge up the hill, so I feel like it was about the same.

My kids found a neighborhood that had lots of candy, a few blocks away.  So it was successful for them.

[rebcoola]

We got maybe a dozen groups.  Several rolled up in cars which we have never had here before.  We had a table setup with goodie bags and books.  The kids didn't seem many other Trick or Treaters and made out like bandits as people wanted to get rid of the candy.  

[Kareni]

We had one, yes, ONE child trick or treating who came to our door. We'll be enjoying small candy bars for quite some time.... (Historically we've had been five and sixty come to our door.)

Regards,

Kareni

[athena1277]

Our neighborhood is normally not very exciting.  This year was an absolute dud.  We were the only house with candy on our street.  The next street over had 5.  My 4yo dd was the only one to go out.  😢. However, she did come home with plenty of candy.  With no other kids coming by, those 5 houses were very generous. 🍭🍬🍫

[catz]

Oh I was so heartened with all the socially distant adjustments made in our neighborhood.  We ran out of candy!  There were chutes, trees with bags hanging, tables out along the sidewalks, etc.  It was really nice and everyone was safe, most were masked even outside.  ❤️  I love you urban neighborhood!  

[Jean in Newcastle]

According to Nextdoor, there were families with chutes, ones with candy on sticks stuck out in the yard (but far enough away from the curb so that dogs woudn't pee on them), a socially distanced haunted garage etc.  And our little city had an outdoors Halloween party which was supposed to be safe, but I haven't seen pictures to see if it really was or not. 

[medawyn]

Our street only has 7 houses, and until this year all but us are retirees.  Needless to say, ToTing is not a big thing on our street ever.  BUT this year we have new neighbors with young kids, too, and she and I put small bowls of candy on everyone's porch.  It was a huge hit!  Our kids could go up and get candy, then stand in the driveway while and adult rang the doorbell.  The neighbors had a great time coming out to be thanked and to ooh and ahh over the costumes.  They didn't have to fuss with candy, it was easy to socially distance, our kids had just enough fun, and we were all home in plenty of time to eat too much sugar and see the full moon and go to bed.  I'm seriously considering doing it this way every year.  We only went to one other house on the street behind us because the woman who lives there caught me on my morning walk to let me know they would be leaving bags of candy on their driveway.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I want to say that we've never done Halloween but I am interested in what is being done in the community and I was super impressed with the creativity that people had this year. 

[Meriwether]

Fewer people handed out candy and Tot'ed. I still sewed costumes for the kids, plus a bonus kid, since it will be the last year my kids will do a big family theme. 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Meriwether

[YaelAldrich]

We don't celebrate ourselves (we're Orthodox Jews) but we always have candy for the TorTers. We live on a busy street so usually we get a good stream of people. This year a slower but still somewhat steady stream. But someone stole our box of candy we left on our porch. It was too cold to keep the door open to safely greet people through the glass door. We were bummed but we found another box and put out more candy. Love will win!