Agrhh Trick or Treaters just woke my DS up

dizziblonde

pinkclouds wrote: »

Just make sure there are no visible lights. I've grown up with the tradition that guisers only call on homes with a porch light on (or nearest equivalent - I use the hall light as I have no porch). We only had under a dozen guisers call on us tonight before I sent the kids to bed. Turned off the lights and no one has knocked since.

Not everyone has houses with layouts such that they can do this - and I fail to see why anyone should be expected to hide away in the rear of their house (as I know many DID have to do last night) for an entire evening. My house is laid out such that if I've got the stair light on (which I tend to have since I'm up and down running chores all evening) it's always visible from the outside and our lounge runs the length of the house so we have no room downstairs at the rear of the house to hide in as people seem to expect us to do (especially the presumptuous idiot on the Vent board ordering us all to do this for her kids' begging convenience).

Plus lots of our neighbours leave their porch lights on generally in the early evening as the street lighting's so dreadful in our road that it helps people not break their blooming neck over paving stones in the dark.

Whole thing needs to be made more of an active opt-in where kids only go to places showing decorations - becuase it's ridiculous when grown adults are hiding away in their kitchen for the evening for fear of what will happen if they don't hand out the money (for it was mainly teenagers begging money round here).

Oh and if there's no answer once - there won't be the subsequent six knocks either.

shellsuit

I didn't answer the door once last night. I felt bad, but we're brassic this week and I couldn't afford to get any treats in.

Plus the little man is 2, so doesn't yet understand the concept, but come next year I think we'll all dress up and have some fun!

Someone did hammer on the window which really annoyed me as it was gone 7pm and the little man was in bed, grrr!

ETA, someone knocked at 9pm too, which I thought was bang out of order, so I assumed it was teenagers.

adamantine

we spend 364 dyas a year telling kids not to talk to strangers or accept sweets off them yet on halloween we actively encourage our kids to do just that.

i went out with my 2 last year but just to friends, family and friends of friends. i would never ever take my kids to a total strangers house. they could be anyone and could have done anything to the sweets.

shellsuit

adamantine wrote: »

we spend 364 dyas a year telling kids not to talk to strangers or accept sweets off them yet on halloween we actively encourage our kids to do just that.

i went out with my 2 last year but just to friends, family and friends of friends. i would never ever take my kids to a total strangers house. they could be anyone and could have done anything to the sweets.

Someone I used to go to school with, posted a pic on facebook last night of crisps his little lad had got.

They were dated 2008! :eek::eek::eek:

balletshoes

Caroline_a wrote: »

However... whatever happened to 'Penny for the Guy'????

it seems to be the same routine here, its just the kids say "trick or treat" instead of "penny for the guy". I went guising with my sisters when we were kids, same routine, only go to neighbours/family/folk you know or decorated houses.

jellyhead

adamantine wrote: »

we spend 364 dyas a year telling kids not to talk to strangers or accept sweets off them yet on halloween we actively encourage our kids to do just that.

i went out with my 2 last year but just to friends, family and friends of friends. i would never ever take my kids to a total strangers house. they could be anyone and could have done anything to the sweets.

No, most of us don't. My kids never knock at strangers doors - we only knocked on 8 doors last night but we still had a lot of fun

The headmistress at my son's school held an assembly to warn the children not to go out without an adult and not to knock on stranger's doors, and to make sure that they don't bother anyone who has a sign up

jellyhead

Idiophreak wrote: »

Where we go trick or treating, people make a real effort to pimp their houses out well and obviously get a little competitive with their neighbours - we saw animatronic ghosts, front gardens converted to graveyards and a CSI style murder scene. There were also body parts and creepy crawlies a-plenty. There are loads of people out chatting in the streets, last year some students had organised some lucky dips, bobbing for apples etc and it was just a really good, festival atmosphere. The best thing? There were loads of kids running around, laughing and having a good time. Maybe I'm going soft in my old age...

That sounds fabulous, I wish I lived near you

There's a local village where they go overboard on christmas decorations and collect for charity, and it's a lovely trip out to walk around the village. It's mostly just pumpkins and poundland stuff where I live but the kids still enjoy it. Somebody stole our glowing spider from the doorstep

We go to Alton Towers scarefest too, and Shugborough Hall sometimes. I know people moan that it's american rubbish, begging etc. but there's something exciting about going out in the dark and getting slightly scared when your neighbour makes you jump with a rubber spider spider or whatever.

We went home and read some spooky stories too, it's just a lot of fun

Idiophreak

jellyhead wrote: »

No, most of us don't. My kids never knock at strangers doors - we only knocked on 8 doors last night but we still had a lot of fun

I guess it depends on what you mean by "strangers". In most cases on this board, I guess we're talking about trick or treating "neighbours" who are implicitly not "strangers" as you know where they live.

Of course, in most cases these days, people's "neighbours" are "strange" to them....but that's probably because they never knock on eachother's doors

jellyhead

I do know a lot of the people who live in our street, but there are lots of pensioners who don't want their door to be knocked, and they have their 'don't knock' signs on their window, with the lights off and the stair lights off, because they want people to think they are out ... so it's so dark that people don't see the sign.

I do a paper round in the local streets and you'd be surprised at how many people are upset if I deliver at 7pm because they think that's late and they don't want the hassle of coming to check who I am, then suspiciously unlocking their doors and coming outside to check that I have closed their garden gate.

The delivery company say it's not polite to deliver after 8, and children should not deliver after 7. There's no way I could deliver between 7 and 8 though because so many people are disturbed by any noise in their garden after 7. This is a council estate with more than half of the houses having a lone pensioner, I reckon.

So, I got the kids home from gymnastics at 6 then they changed their clothes and ate dinner so it was already 7pm by the time we'd gone to the 7 houses we did. That's okay, 7 is enough. A few treats last night and something to take for break time at school today is all they need. It's the fun of dressing up that we like, rather than a large hoard of sweets.

rachbc

Last night we had over 60 callers - we had to open the back up sweets! DH stayed in and handed out goodies whilst I went with DD (4) and her friend - we called on houses with pumpkins and decorations and met loads of people we knew. Lots of paretns dressed up to accompany little ones and loads of homeowners did too. I made DS 13 stay in as I think he is too old , he grumped and griped but he'll live! There was even on family doing mobile trick or treat giving out sweets as they went round as they weren't in to answer the door. There was a massive community spirit and a real festive atmosphere - perhaps we shoudl import a bit more of that from the Americans as plenty of people in this country seem grumpy and negative!