From a Reddit post asking what millennials did (supposedly) that ruined Halloween.
Interesting about Japan. As for America, it might be that millennials think they need to escort their kids from door to door, but if they do that, who will be home to give out candy to the kids that come to their door? I think you need lots of 2-parent families. Leaving out a bowl of candy doesn't work, because there's no one to see the costumes (and it's not surprising that kids dump the whole bowl).
Other issues: "trunk or treat" format is replacing the door to door approach. And: "Was giving out Halloween candy in my neighborhood and not a single kid said the phrase 'trick or treat.' Literally not a single child."
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I learned last week that in Des Moines the kids go out on October 30th and it is called Beggars’ Night. And instead of saying “trick or treat” the kids say a joke or dance. Could this possibly be true?
i don't Understand? what's with all this talk about "kids"?
Halloween is a day for 20 something girls to dress "slutty" and get fucked (and fucked UP!)
(in other words, it's another saturday night)
Halloween in america has NOTHING to do with kids, and EVERYTHING to do with slutty 20 something girls acting (and BEING) slutty
We called it Cabbage night in Connecticut where I grew up. It was farm country...and pumpkins and cabbages would be smashed all over the roads. Later, it became Mischief night, or Devils night. Kids toilet paper trees and egg people cars and windows. I don't hear much about it today.
Yes Dave, this is one of the MANY things wrong with Des Moines.
peoples cars...not people cars
The Japanese equivalent to a strip of white paper with those colored sugar dots on it is a little bag of squid chips so make of that what you will.
Yes Wendy- I recall Mischief Night in Connecticut as well…not that I participated or anything…
Japan is a safe society. It isn’t safe in the US. We have limited enforcement of laws that incentivizes crimes. Serious crimes. A few nights ago a Massachusetts government ‘worker’ decided to get rapey and assaulted two women near my office, about the time people are showing up for work. Odds are he’ll be released and keep his ‘job’…
…but they have at least ten flavors of Kit Kats. Some of them are not squid flavor…okay one or two are not seafood flavored, but still…
"I think you need lots of 2-parent families."
I agree, but that's an argument separate from Halloween.
Parents started driving their kids to better neighborhoods to trick-or-treat, ones where every house on the block was decorated. It wasn't a safety issue, but a laziness issue. From there, trunk-or-treat evolved. My kids (late millennials) did get the chance to walk out their door and go house-to-house, but only when they were little.
We've lived in this neighborhood for about ten years, and I can remember one or two really big Halloweens pre-COVID. My money is on the "trunk or treat" phenomenon which seems to have grown over time. Going door to door is just too much work after that, especially if you're taking small children door to door.
Halloween ended in my neighborhood about 15 years ago. The houses are spread out, 100 yards, or so, apart. This requires parents to drive their kids from house to house. Also, there are fewer families with small kids, now. Those families live in newer neighborhoods, closer to schools and shopping. As the Reddit article states, Halloween for kids is now a destination event. Parent bring their kids to the area that has the best celebration or event.
gilbar said...
"Halloween is a day for 20 something girls to dress 'slutty'"
20 year old Rocco smiles and nods in approval. Although the "slutty X" Halloween costume was not a thing yet back in the late 80s.
My recollection is that in Detroit on Devil's Night they would burn down parts of the city. Authorities finally put an end to it.
But they can chant "River to the sea," and "Death to Jews!"
Thank you public schools.
Trunk or Treat is another sign of decaying social trust. If you don't feel 100% safe in your community there's no way you're sending your kid out to walk the streets
Back in my day the Cardinal Bar in Madison was the place to be for Hallowe'en. The internet tells me it still is.
We've been doing the Trunk or Treat thing for several years now, usually the weekend before Halloween. But, like the previous comment, virtually no kid says the Magic Words.
As a kid who grew up there, I can attest that all of those points are true.
I can vouch for Halloween being very popular in Japan as we were there over the holiday a few years ago.
Back here at home, I’d say about 50% of the kids that came to the door said ‘trick or treat’.
In my day, we didnt take the whole bowl.
Area Trunk or Treats, mostly organized by churches, now also serve hot dogs for hungry parents and kids. And not only are their fewer children going door to door (and far fewer homes participating). They're hitting the neighborhoods an hour or so later than they used to. In other words, after they've hit all the Trunk or Treats.
Yes. I noticed the "Trick or Treat" business too. They just say "Happy Halloween". I sense killjoys at work.
We have new firehouse in Scarborough, Maine. The firehouse is far from pedestrian traffic and the firemen weren't seeing any "trick or treaters". So they loaded goodies into their trucks and parked across the street from my house. The whole block was full of flashing lights and rumbling apparatus.
The kids had a blast.
As for me, I went out to thank the firemen for the show and pointed out it was nice to see all the flashing lights and reflect that it all had nothing to do with me, for a change. You see, I'm not as young as I once was. Usually the excitement is a prelude to an unwelcome change of scenery.
"Was giving out Halloween candy in my neighborhood and not a single kid said the phrase 'trick or treat.' Literally not a single child."
If I don't get a "Trick or Treat" from the kids I tell em, "Say the words or no candy." Nearly all of them said "Trick or Treat". Every one said "Thank you".
It was mostly dads taking the little humans around and most of them had some sort of alchaholic beverage.
An Indian colleague once told me his kids wished they had Halloween.
Halloween is alive and well (enough) in central PA, but much more regimented than when I was a kid: parents walking the kids around, stops at 7PM on the dot.
Rocco (and gilbar)… your leering lechery is noted and, gentlemen, hereby saluted!
On an incredibly warm, beautiful evening, we had almost no kids under six, and literally no tiny ones who obviously didn't know what was going on. A couple years of that and it'll be finished.
Here it depends on the weather. This year was cold with a drizzle of rain, not many kids showed up. Last year was clear and warm, lots of kids showed up. Judging by the candy levels, maybe five times as many last year.
Well..... our neighborhood does them because it's really spread out, long streets, no lights, country neighborhood with homes on big lots. Some years, we have trucks pulling utility trailers at an idle, with hay bales on them, for sitting. They do it because little kids can't walk that far. Which is not to say, we like 'trunk or treats' - I still like seeing the excitement of the tot's and their thrills at looking down at all that candy and being allowed to take more than one !!!!
When I was a kid, my folks used to set up tables in the garage and serve apple cider and donut holes, instead of candy. The kids loved the donut holes, and all the parents would stroll in for some cider and chat - a welcome break for them.
I think it ties into safety. When I was a kid in the 70s our parents let us go out unsupervised day and night Hell, my Mom would often kick us out of the house, and tell us to go enjoy the fresh air. No one thought twice about it, because we were safe and we could ride our bikes anywhere.
But I wasn't about to let my young daughter go out unsupervised. Not in the world of the 90s and 00s. Halloween in the 70s was just kids walking around. Grownups had better things to do. Or they handed out candy. Now, and for the last 30 years, all the kids have an adult escort.
This Halloween, we had 4 groups of kids, probably 11 total. That's it. No wonder everyone just goes to a party.
I guess I'm lucky enough still live in a neighborhood where Trick or Treat thrives. Lots a very well behaved, polite, kids, with great costumes. And they all said "Trick or Treat!". I personally enjoy it a lot and reward the trick or treaters with good candy.
Parents started driving their kids to better neighborhoods to trick-or-treat, ones where every house on the block was decorated.
The most extreme example of this that I’ve seen is on Mt. Vernon Street in Prescott, Arizona.
Arizona was divided during the Civil War, and was also the site of its westernmost battle. It wasn’t yet a state or even an organized territory, but the old Spanish outpost of Tucson was by far the largest city and became the capital of the Confederate part of the state. Lincoln decided there needed to be a separate Union capital, and so Prescott was founded by the Union Army and attracted many Union sympathizers who had fled the Confederate domination south of the Gila River. These men were predominantly Northerners from New York and New England, so they set out to make Prescott as deliberately “Northern” in culture and architecture as they could. Being at high elevation, they had access to plenty of timber, and did not have to adopt the adobe architectural style of southern Arizona. The merchants and doctors and other wealthy men among them built their grand mansions along Mount Vernon Street.
Fast forward 160 years, and those grand old houses still line leafy,
tidy Mt. Vernon Street. They are lovingly restored and carefully maintained, and sell for millions of dollars. It looks like a well-preserved old town in Westchester County or a prosperous suburb of Boston.
The residents go to great lengths to decorate for every major holiday season, and at Christmas the street hosts a dazzling display of lights that draws visitors from all over the state, especially on the weekend in early December when the Christmas lights are turned on before a crowd of thousands at the nearby county courthouse plaza.
Even when I was a kid in the 70’s, the competitively over-the-top Halloween decorations and quiet, safe environment were attracting families from the poorer parts of town, not to mention the homeowners’ generosity with the best sorts of candy. In the past twenty years or so, the City of Prescott has started closing the street late in the afternoon, when it becomes a half mile long Halloween block party, thronged with thousands of trick-or-treaters who may come all the way from Phoenix to participate. The Chamber of Comnerce or some other similar organization now supposedly subsidizes the lavish decorations and supplies the hundreds of pounds of candy that each homeowner will pass out that evening. It has killed trick-or-treating everywhere else in the city, but no one seems to miss it. Not a few costumed, inebriated adults take part too, and make their way from there down to the courthouse square for a raucous Halloween party in the historic saloons along Whiskey Row.
It’s all great fun, and for someone my age, it brings back fond memories of happier, simpler times.
Perhaps the key is to live in a development with a lot of young blue collar families. We gave out over eight bags of Trick or Treat candy — there’s just a half bag of submicroscopic Hershey’s bars left over. I’ll have to make the sacrifice and finish them off over the next week or so. (Someone has to be brave and step up.)
I don’t care so much whether they say “Trick or Treat” as long as they say “Thank you.” You can tell that this is a conservative, blue color neighborhood because all of them did.
As for America, it might be that millennials think they need to escort their kids from door to door, but if they do that, who will be home to give out candy to the kids that come to their door?
I do kind of wonder about that. I guess dad goes out with the kids and mom stays home and hands out candy. Or vice versa.
I think you need lots of 2-parent families.
Or maybe you need to get beyond the nuclear family and have an elderly parent or maiden aunt or crazy uncle or Venezuelan gang member stay home with the candy.
"Trick or treat!" was kind of a boomer thing. Then, when they grew up, boomers would do a trick or ask for a trick when kids came looking for candy, so that phrase had to be dropped.
We had no one show up for Halloween this year and the weather was great. Covid hysterics may have killed trick or treating.
We had over 100 costumed kids come to our neighborhood for candy and glowlights from us. One neighbor had a party for kids his kids know at school, an affair with screaming laughter from their back yard and lots of great costumes. There were church groups having events, schools having events, sports clubs having events for Halloween.
Our Jack-o-lantern glowed brightly this year.
Kids were already out trick or treating when I got home from work. I'm not ready to answer the door the minute I walk in. I want to change my clothes and relax some. I do not want to have to run downstairs to get the door in the middle of changing out of my work clothes.
When I was young, we went out after dinner time. Now parents want to get it finished before it gets dark.
In Belgium recently I noticed a surprising amount of 'Mercun-style Halloween decor and hoopla.
Globalization at work.
I turned 1 yesterday. I remember Halloween in a town of 25,000 in southeastern Washington State. Halloween was a big deal; two blocks from my house an elderly couple (probably 81 LOL) had their own special Halloween deal. You went into their living room and bobbed for apples in a wash basin full of apples and water. If you could grab an apple with your teeth, you could have it--that was your treat. If you couldn't--well your face got wet. Try that today and you'd have two 81 year olds in the hoosegow.
I recently moved to a small central Texas town from Long Beach, CA. In Long Beach (and Hawthorne where I grew up and previously lived) kids from more violent neighborhoods where bused in, usually by church groups, so they could safely Trick or Treat. Here they have arrived on farm/construction trailers pulled by pickups (what? You think they pull them with Prius or Teslas?). Last two years we had around 400 kids - this year 200. Had to take two bags of candy back to HEB. Have no idea for the drop off. Maybe they found a better neighborhood.
In my upstate New York [very small] village, Halloween is still huge. People go to extraordinary lengths to decorate — yards are full of skeletons and ghosts. It’s a very safe town so the kids all walk; the tiny ones are accompanied by parents — often dressed up, too.
And to a person, the children are reminded to say “Trick or treat” and “thank you”. Over the age of 12, they often forget, though. I had about 170 trick-or-treaters judging by how many pieces were left from 200. This in a village of 600.
@Lazarus, it seemed to me that when the kids were really small, preschool or early grades, it was Daddy who accompanied them. Older children might be accompanied by either parent. Middle school or older (very few of the latter) and they were alone.
We had about the same number of Trick or Treaters we had last year. One thing that was different was that I didn't see any kids who seemed really enthusiastic about their costumes. (Like in previous years) I got the feeling that if I asked them why they dressed up, they'd say that their mom made them dress up. Also, not as many houses were decorated in my area as in previous years and not as many houses were giving candy out. I don't think that we'll ever get back to pre-Covid Trick or Treat numbers here. Plus, WalMart still had tons of candy left the next day and the local Vons is sitting on about 100 pumpkins that they're giving out for free now.
"Parents started driving their kids to better neighborhoods to trick-or-treat, ones where every house on the block was decorated."
Harrison Boulevard in Boise is kind of like that. It's so popular now they close the street.
"Halloween on Boise’s iconic Harrison Boulevard. When you’re a kid on the hunt for full-size candy bars, there’s really nothing quite like it."
https://liteonline.com/halloween-on-harrison-2024/
When I lived in Phoenix, it was barrio(ish) nearby and lots of people brought their kids to my neighborhood. The trick-and-treaters I got were groups of small kids (most under 6 or 7), each with a couple of adults along to watch over them.
I don't know what these people are talking about. Trick-or-treating is huge in my town.
Seemed pretty normal
Lame, even for the little kids. ‘Trick or treat’ is a threat…
At my house we only had three groups of kids trick or treat this year. However the cross street outside my cul-de-sac doesn't have sidewalks or street lights. So, I think it's more a traffic safety issues that keeps the kids from hitting my neighborhood.
Tradition in St. Louis as well. But a dying one.
Every year, my mother made me dress as a saint to trick-or- treat. The Hallowed Eve of All Saints Day. She was a convert and converts can be pretty hardball.
On social media I've noticed a push to normalize (that's the Prog way of naming it) letting older kids (teenagers) trick or treat. Something about letting them "hang on to their childhood". I am one of the token conservatives in these groups and pushed back hard and received the usual opprobrium from the usual Lefty assholes.
Ain't no way I'm rewarding teenagers with candy. They can go get a job and buy their own.
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