When I was a kid there was an old lady who did an elaborate witch experience where she invited everyone inside for spooky apple cider. (The 90s were a simpler time…)
We build out the walkway to the door and make little scary scenes with sensory extras like hanging fishing line in the “bug” room and we use the swirly lights and drop panels to make it sorta scary. We also use a mix of people and props and swap them out throughout the evening so you never know which prop might move. We have a fun group of friends who help out and it is a fun night for us all. We also will have a no scare walk through for those who want to see but not be stressed out, and it’s usually adults that want that and not kids.
The fidget spinner halloween. I was just a short block down the street from one of the run down, huge victorian houses that was on ghostbusters. Those folks made a fortunate with admission charges to get a tour (yes I was seduced into paying $10 for a tour; kids were $5) - it was run down enough likely they needed the $30,000/yr or so they got in cash giving tours to fix it up; the “tricks” ghost busters did to make things look haunted were a riot (they got to keep some of that stuff) and on halloween they had outdoor stunts on their porch and in their yard for scaring kids coming to trick or treat so LOTS of kids (you could hear the kids screaming all the way where I lived).
Anyway they could pick one of those light up fidget spinners (I checked to make sure all of them lit up - some didn’t - as I didn’t want to disappoint kids) or the could pick candy. Only two kids picked candy. That left me a lot of candy left (yea!!! as I only bought what I liked).
You could see them in the middle of the street playing with fidget spinners and tons of kids came from the “haunted house” to mine rather than get in their parent’s cars to go to one of the well stocked side streets. This was a smaller town of about 18,000 and I was told to expect about 40 or so kids (good thing I didn’t know that until that night or I wouldn’t have had nearly enough fidet spinners). I had 100+ fidget spinners so all was good (bought some then got some in an fuku so decided to buy some more to round out trick or treat (also gave some away as prizes to winning teams in the classes I was teaching - amazing how college students coveted them even though this was a bit past the craze for them).
I live in an apartment building now so no trick or treaters. My halloween candy is bought at the half price sale the next day. And the best part is I get to eat it all myself! Some years when I lived in a house (not the fidget spinner house - that was just a one year job) there was none left for me to eat after all the kids came though.
I have done the costume number several times. I might do it again this year, but not at my house. I’ll go over to my virtual DIL’s apartment, where they expect all of the kids from the complex to come knocking.
I used to hand out candy as a Storm Trooper. Last year I let my daughter take over that job. This year will be a Mandalorian suit that I 3D printed. Still have some work to do on that
@gorgeousplanet No, but I could have. The suit is movie accurate. My buddy who helped me with my build has been involved with the 501st since it’s early days. Me, I pretty much stick to bookfairs
Used to answer in full court medievals, back in my SCA days. One year, when we had a black half Siamese cat, one of those with rat like tails, who liked to perch on shoulders, we answered the door with her perched on our shoulders
These days live in a gated apartment complex. Going to put a bowl out of some nice TJ’s treats for anyone who walks buy on the 31st.
I managed at two different places to get peeps to celebrate at work, and we had a blast. One place the first year one person refused for ‘religious reasons’, she stayed home that day. she heard about what all we did and had fun with us the next year.
Simple stuff, that didn’t interfere with work, costumes, traded treats, spooky pot lucks (pre covid). contests for spookiest food, good times,
I live on a cul-de-sac with 6 houses and the emptiness from the side yards of the houses from the slightly larger street. My first year, I can count on one hand the number of trick-or-treaters that came through. I didn’t even need to count in the subsequent years, since it was zero. So not much goes on.
Halloween is my favorite holiday and I never live in a place where kids are. I live in a huge neighborhood that has an elementary school in the back but I live on the opposite side, 3rd house from the end. No kids ever come down my street.
Halloween is always hit or miss at my house. My neighbor is on the naughty list for past offenses so they are under orders to keep their house dark and I’m on a sort of secluded street to begin with. I do fix up baggies of goodies and usually get anywhere from 10 to 20 kids. The baggies will contain stuff I like in case I’m stuck with it. Something not sweet like chips or crackers, fun size Reese’s, some type of fruity candy and some type of hard candy.
@ironcheftoni
We used to have someone across the street like that too and yet the girlfriend would leave her 4 kids unattended in the house with him all the time. It boggled my mind.
@callow@jouest I don’t think so, because we buy them in bulk, not one at a time. Usually, people collected them for years and then decided they didn’t want them anymore.
Once, many moons ago, we had a Halloween pinata. It was basically a plastic pumpkin cut in half and you would hit it until the tape holding it together came apart. The tape barely held together for an hour.
I buy really good candy from the dollar store and 5 below.
I number the candy with garage sale stickers
I have a couldron with dollar store eyeball pingpong balls that are also numbered
When the kids come, they draw a number and get the corresponding candy. No double dipping. No mad handfulls. Exciting game!
This year I’m adding a couple of 2x balls (obvious) and recycle balls that let kids decide once they see what they are going to get if they want to put their ball back and try again.
When I was a kid there was an old lady who did an elaborate witch experience where she invited everyone inside for spooky apple cider. (The 90s were a simpler time…)
Meh sold fidget spinners a few years ago and made us the “cool” house on the block. So now we keep trying to find fun stuff in bulk.
Last year was glow in the dark rubber duckies in Halloween costumes.
@Thumperchick yeah that qualifies for sure.
We build out the walkway to the door and make little scary scenes with sensory extras like hanging fishing line in the “bug” room and we use the swirly lights and drop panels to make it sorta scary. We also use a mix of people and props and swap them out throughout the evening so you never know which prop might move. We have a fun group of friends who help out and it is a fun night for us all. We also will have a no scare walk through for those who want to see but not be stressed out, and it’s usually adults that want that and not kids.
@ChompyGator cool house confirmed
@jouest Thank you, we look forward to it all year.
Not sure how “fun” my neighbors find it. But we dress our Pittie up and let her take candy to the littles around the neighborhood. Izzy loves it!
@Mikesnursenancy cool pittie counts
The fidget spinner halloween. I was just a short block down the street from one of the run down, huge victorian houses that was on ghostbusters. Those folks made a fortunate with admission charges to get a tour (yes I was seduced into paying $10 for a tour; kids were $5) - it was run down enough likely they needed the $30,000/yr or so they got in cash giving tours to fix it up; the “tricks” ghost busters did to make things look haunted were a riot (they got to keep some of that stuff) and on halloween they had outdoor stunts on their porch and in their yard for scaring kids coming to trick or treat so LOTS of kids (you could hear the kids screaming all the way where I lived).
Anyway they could pick one of those light up fidget spinners (I checked to make sure all of them lit up - some didn’t - as I didn’t want to disappoint kids) or the could pick candy. Only two kids picked candy. That left me a lot of candy left (yea!!! as I only bought what I liked).
You could see them in the middle of the street playing with fidget spinners and tons of kids came from the “haunted house” to mine rather than get in their parent’s cars to go to one of the well stocked side streets. This was a smaller town of about 18,000 and I was told to expect about 40 or so kids (good thing I didn’t know that until that night or I wouldn’t have had nearly enough fidet spinners). I had 100+ fidget spinners so all was good (bought some then got some in an fuku so decided to buy some more to round out trick or treat (also gave some away as prizes to winning teams in the classes I was teaching - amazing how college students coveted them even though this was a bit past the craze for them).
I live in an apartment building now so no trick or treaters. My halloween candy is bought at the half price sale the next day. And the best part is I get to eat it all myself! Some years when I lived in a house (not the fidget spinner house - that was just a one year job) there was none left for me to eat after all the kids came though.
@jouest you get to lose two halloween cool things. You skipped commenting on me and @Star2236.
I have done the costume number several times. I might do it again this year, but not at my house. I’ll go over to my virtual DIL’s apartment, where they expect all of the kids from the complex to come knocking.
@werehatrack is your virtual DIL a robot??
@jouest No, she’s my S.O.'s daughter. We’re not married although we function pretty much as that type of couple.
I used to hand out candy as a Storm Trooper. Last year I let my daughter take over that job. This year will be a Mandalorian suit that I 3D printed. Still have some work to do on that
@capnjb um. amazing.
@capnjb Are you part of the 501st Legion??
@gorgeousplanet No, but I could have. The suit is movie accurate. My buddy who helped me with my build has been involved with the 501st since it’s early days. Me, I pretty much stick to bookfairs
Used to answer in full court medievals, back in my SCA days. One year, when we had a black half Siamese cat, one of those with rat like tails, who liked to perch on shoulders, we answered the door with her perched on our shoulders
These days live in a gated apartment complex. Going to put a bowl out of some nice TJ’s treats for anyone who walks buy on the 31st.
I managed at two different places to get peeps to celebrate at work, and we had a blast. One place the first year one person refused for ‘religious reasons’, she stayed home that day. she heard about what all we did and had fun with us the next year.
Simple stuff, that didn’t interfere with work, costumes, traded treats, spooky pot lucks (pre covid). contests for spookiest food, good times,
@Cerridwyn coordinating the office Halloween stuff is heroic work
I live on a cul-de-sac with 6 houses and the emptiness from the side yards of the houses from the slightly larger street. My first year, I can count on one hand the number of trick-or-treaters that came through. I didn’t even need to count in the subsequent years, since it was zero. So not much goes on.
Also just not that many kids in my neighborhood.
Then there’s the current goat, @lonocat:
@narfcake TrackRs are the raisins of overstock trick or treat items
Halloween is my favorite holiday and I never live in a place where kids are. I live in a huge neighborhood that has an elementary school in the back but I live on the opposite side, 3rd house from the end. No kids ever come down my street.
@Star2236 I hear ya. If you want them, you don’t get them. If you don’t really want to deal with it you get mobbed,
That being said, I think all the scary press what was it 30 years ago or so led to things cutting back significantly in many areas
Halloween is always hit or miss at my house. My neighbor is on the naughty list for past offenses so they are under orders to keep their house dark and I’m on a sort of secluded street to begin with. I do fix up baggies of goodies and usually get anywhere from 10 to 20 kids. The baggies will contain stuff I like in case I’m stuck with it. Something not sweet like chips or crackers, fun size Reese’s, some type of fruity candy and some type of hard candy.
@ironcheftoni ok but what did the neighbors do??
@jouest I think the implication is that they are registered as an offender of a specific type.
@jouest @werehatrack yes, offender of the most offensive of offensive acts.
@ironcheftoni @jouest @werehatrack Yikes.
@ironcheftoni
We used to have someone across the street like that too and yet the girlfriend would leave her 4 kids unattended in the house with him all the time. It boggled my mind.
@Star2236 wow, that’s one way to lose custody
We go to garage sales and buy brand new Beanie Babies or McDonalds prizes and hand them out along with candy. The kids love it.
@VernaFed that’s pretty rad
@jouest @VernaFed Wonder if you’re buying back the ones you handed out in previous years.
@callow @jouest I don’t think so, because we buy them in bulk, not one at a time. Usually, people collected them for years and then decided they didn’t want them anymore.
@jouest @VernaFed That was us! Donated a huge trash bag full. Had tons of fun and happy meals collecting them.
Once, many moons ago, we had a Halloween pinata. It was basically a plastic pumpkin cut in half and you would hit it until the tape holding it together came apart. The tape barely held together for an hour.
@pakopako this should be a thing
I do a gameshow sort of thing.
When the kids come, they draw a number and get the corresponding candy. No double dipping. No mad handfulls. Exciting game!
This year I’m adding a couple of 2x balls (obvious) and recycle balls that let kids decide once they see what they are going to get if they want to put their ball back and try again.
@mechno well this is brilliant and fun
@mechno
That’s pretty cool
@mechno Love that idea!
Merry Christmas! (
)
Candy is so played out. Now it’s all about the Pokemon booster packs.
@ShotgunX remember when we used to get coins (not just the candy ones) during Halloween? (Back when five pennies were worth at least a piece of gum.)
@pakopako
