Trick or Treating in the time of Covid
9We had a light year this year. Probably a hundred kids. Usually our neighborhood is absolutely packed.
I thought we weren’t doing Halloween. My wife thought otherwise so I made a six-foot chute in record time. Left to go to Home Depot at 2pm, done about 5:45pm. Many kids did not get it at all and came marching past it. After trick or treating was over my wife said we were keeping it for next year. I didn’t take any pictures of the finished product but here’s an aerial shot, I was playing with my new drone:
My roommate from college fared worse. They put the candy bowl out on the porch unmanned. This happened:
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Just as I said to myself, “I’m surprised they didn’t take the whole bowl”… They took the bowl.
The candy chute needs a physical barrier. Kids don’t understand social distancing from what I’ve seen.
My friends house only got a few. It was easy for me to distance because most people are afraid of me.
My friend was supposed to wear a mask and gloves to hand out candy and he didn’t do either. So I was super disappointed about that.
@RiotDemon that’s what got me, the older one taking off with the bowl. If you set out an unmanned bowl, it’s guaranteed to get emptied pretty quickly. But they usually don’t take the bowl lol.
The fails on the chute were not roping off around it and the fact that it was backlit so after dark the front was not obvious what was going on. And the size of the jack o lantern on the front was what was cut from one piece of foam board. If it has to be used again next year, the front will be bigger, lit up, and the area will be blockaded. But I didn’t think this was bad for a couple hours total work.
My mother in law stayed back and seemed to stay masked up. My wife said that every time a kid came up instead of doing the slide she got out the hand sanitizer.
None here. But we didn’t have any last year, either.
At least this year we didn’t waste money on stuff we didn’t need to be eating ourselves.
@lisaviolet I didn’t know we were doing anything until my mother in law brought over big bags of candy and I said what’s this for? I thought we were turning off the lights and staying in lol.
Correction. My wife says she gave out 200 rings, plus candy so it was over 200 kids. She had lots of flashing led light up rings as the primary treat this year. It was still a lot slower than years past.
We had a good time. Not sure how to post a pic from the phone, but we set up one of those canopy tents (just the frame) and covered it in lights and cobwebs. I stuck a table out in front and had stuff on the table. I stood about 10-15’ back from the table and refilled as needed. No fidget spinners this year (they were a huge hit last year), but i found lighted sharks teeth and lighted spinning globes (you know the kind you get at amusement parks). These were both from a Seaworld close out I found online and the kids loved them. Was really cool after dark. Even had some kids come back and ‘play dumb’ (like they hadn’t stopped by before) to get the other one.
@kykazaa Turn your phone to landscape and the icon will show (mountain and moon).
@Kidsandliz thanks!
I thought it would be quiet and bought 30 big candy bars and put out a bowl of wind up dinosaurs and fidget spinners. We were down to 2 bags of M&Ms at 7. I heard a big group laughing just after that- and most of my fidget spinners disappeared. I should have told them to take 2. Two dinos and one spinner left when I turned out the lights.
I decided to put out my crappy new Irk speaker instead of my Braven XXL just in case someone got carried away. I love Halloween music.
Pic from my post above…
Pic doesn’t do it justice, but the cobwebs kept us socially distant.
@kykazaa LOVE THAT!!!
@kykazaa that looks great!
We usually get a lot more, I ended up giving out twice the candy to the ones that did come out. And one of the neighbor kids stopped by my porch while I was outside earlier to say thanks for the load of candy I gave his mom
I handed out the candy because I didn’t come up with a system. But was masked, and sanitized then put on gloves then handed out the candy. Everybody behaved themselves – there was one group with no masks at all, but the parents stayed back and just the kids came up. This neighborhood has a wild mix of different kinds of people and people who are on drugs and people who are not on drugs (which is probably the case everywhere, but here it’s just very obvious). I always worry about the kids with the parents who walk up and down the street in a frenzy cussing out their dealer on the phone 
We gave out 73 fidget spinners, followed by a 75 piece bag of candy. We were cleared out by 8pm.
(The bowl was left unattended outside, so I’m hoping that people didn’t take more than 1/ea.)
@Thumperchick see video at top of thread.
The video was great. For a couple seconds you think about how great that person is to clean up the spilled candy for the next kids…and at least they could’ve worn costumes!
We only had about 2 dozen kids. 50% masked, most able to figure out the delivery tube (I agree about the lighting), and one kid that tried to just go in the house. When we tested the tube some candy got stuck so we ended up overcompensating - made for some fun experiences. We wore masks and used a scoop to transfer to the tube.
I’ve never lived in a house where I get trick or treaters. Houses I live in are always on streets that are on the outside part of the neighborhood or the house I grew up in didn’t have houses across the street.
Well I put out a pumpkin with lollipops sticking out on it as hair.
I found out blue tootsie roll pops are the most popular color.
@CaptAmehrican What flavor is blue?
@CaptAmehrican @sammydog01 it’s sweeter than square and rounder than yellow.
@sammydog01 fake raspberry
@CaptAmehrican I wonder if it’s the flavor or the blue tongue that’s the draw.
I bought 46lbs of candy. We moved to one of the neighborhoods in town where all the kids go.
Ended the night with 45 lbs of candy.
Biggest problem is my wife thinks it’s all hers now.
I forgot to hand out those damn eyeshadows.
Rainy and miserable, I only got about 25. It was too warm for my costume, so I just masked up whenever I got a knock.
As far as kids getting the whole social distancing thing, they would ring the bell and then stand in front of the outer door and I would have to shout, “Swinging door!”
Also, since when do they not even say “Trick or treat!” anymore?
I should have tossed in some fidget spinners, too. Still have a bunch. Maybe also broken electronic gadgets that I don’t want.