Halloween..who is at your door?
 

Copied from my niece's FB page (she copied from a friend):

Tomorrow night, a lot of creatures will visit your door. Be open minded. The child who is grabbing more than one piece of candy might have poor fine motor skills. The child who takes forever to pick out one piece of candy might have motor planning issues. The child who does not say "trick or treat" or "thank you" might be painfully shy, non-verbal, or selectively mute. If you cannot understand their words, they may struggle with developmental apraxia of speech. They are thankful in their hearts and minds. The child who looks disappointed when he sees your bowl might have a life-threatening allergy. The child who isn't wearing a costume at all might have a sensory processing disorder or autism. Be kind, be patient, smile, pretend you understand. It's everyone's Halloween. Make a parent feel good by making a big deal of their special child.

This made me smile :).

We had Trick or Treating in Greek Town tonight and they were all so adorable!

This is awesome. *like* :)

I love this! I posted it on my facebook too.

I love this. I have not handed out candy in my neighborhood for a few years now. I love the neighborhood kids and they're great. I love seeing the little ones all dressed up! However, in our town teenagers (15 years old +) think they need to go trick or treating, too. If you can drive yourself to the house, you are too old to be participating! Also, I am tired of seeing carloads of people coming to our neighborhood because it's a nicer one. I am talking a couple hundred people here, not 5 or 6 cars. Some of the neighborhoods in our area are having neighborhood trick or treat nights/parties on a different night where just the neighborhood kids and their relatives or close friends attend. I wish we did that.

I am not totally a grinch. :-) I bought my students vampire teeth, temporary tattoos, and candy for tomorrow.

I love seeing the little ones dressed up, but I'm totally fine with high schoolers dressing up and trick and treating. I think we make kids grow up too fast and I think it's totally cool when they embrace being a kid. We also have car loads of kids who come to our subdivision from the "moderate" income housing apartments nearby. I'm cool with that. Trick or treating in an apartment complex takes something out of the experience. I bought enough candy for about 200 this year because I ran out last year.

I would be more supportive of it if I felt like it were an embracing of childhood like you're saying. Unfortunately, my experience is that the high schoolers who do it here are throwing a 'costume' together (I'm sorry, but sticking a pacifier in your mouth doesn't make a baby costume) and asking for free candy.

When I was in high school, there was a fairly large group of us - maybe 10 or so girls - who dressed up every year in some kind of theme and went door to door. We didn't ask for candy, though. We sang to the people instead (think Christmas caroling). We got candy from a few people, and that was nice, but the fun of it was getting dressed up with friends and putting on a show.

It doesn't bother me to see high schoolers trick-or-treating, even if the costume is a themed assembly of normal clothes (plaid shirt+brown boots = cowgirl) because it means they're choosing to have "good clean fun" instead of another high school halloween tradition, which is getting drunk at some kid's house party. I'm not saying "oh high schoolers shouldn't be drinking rah rah rah" because many of us did party in high school, but I think more adults need to be aware and supportive of the choice that the older trick-or-treaters are making by doing that instead of possibly getting into REAL mischief or TP-ing/egging someone's house.

Maybe I'm judging too harshly, but just because a high schooler is trick-or-treating doesn't mean they won't get into the kind of mischief you're describing later. The activities you've described usually occur way past trick-or-treating hours.

AGDLynn, thanks for sharing the FB post. I think it's spot-on.

Son is 15 and a high school freshman. He is also 6'5". He has always loved Halloween, both the candy part and the costume part. I remember last year as he worked on his costume (he has a penchant for choosing costumes from video games, graphic novels or other sources that the average person would never catch on to), he lamented that it would probably be his last year for trick-or-treating. Even if he wasn't technically too old, he reasoned, he would look too old because of his height.

This year he never questioned that he is too old. Even when my wife told him it would be okay, that other high schoolers in the neighborhood would trick-or-treat and that people in the neighborhood know him so they wouldn't think it odd to see him or be mislead by his height, he said "Nope. I'm too old."

I hope I can at least get him to hand out candy tonight.


Co-sign.

I remember a friend in high school begging me to go trick or treating with her when we were in the 10th grade, and I begged off. Much like believing in Santa, you age out of Halloween.

We used to live in a historical district and had zero trick-or-treaters. Now we live in a little nicer subdivision. We have more like 500 to 1,000 trick-or-treaters. I don't even know if some of the kids are neighbors because I never see them out - it's a drive-in-your-garage-and-close-the-door sort of place.

We have a blast giving out candy. I've got 10 HUGE bags this year and I don't think it's going to be enough. It's really cold, though, so I'm thinking a lot of the smaller kids won't come out.

I don't mind teen-agers who dress up - they usually wear pretty clever costumes and are polite. It's the ones who don't say a word and just pull out the bottom of their sweatshirt to receive their candy...then show back up in 20 minutes for another hit.

For them, I need the remote-controlled trapdoor in the sidewalk.:p

I live in an apartment and I've never seen any kids trick or treating at any of the complexes near me. My first year in this apartment, I bought quite a bit of candy, and nobody came by.

In our apartment complex, the office requires/gives out a common HALLOWEEN THEMED piece of paper for front doors of apartment-dwellers wishing to give treats.

I place a "Trick-or-Treaters This Way" arrow near the elevator doors pointing toward our apartment so they find us. A tiny pumpkin outside our door helps, too.

It doesn't hurt that our treats are small, holiday-decorated envelopes containing a new quarter; word gets around fast to each building and we get lots of kids each year.

Our trick or treat got postponed until Friday. Too wet and too cold, stupid bitch Sandy.