Trick or Treating Tradition Fading Away

[The Wonkette]

(11-01-2016, 12:43 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: What I mean by Trick or Treating is actual, real Trick or Treating, where people walk down the street, knocking on doors of people who appear to be participating. When I was a kid the participation rate was well over 90%.

Last night we only got single digits of people at our place. We are in a suburb. It's a bit woodsy but it's not a standoffish McMansion place where people are discouraged from access to front doors. We live in a mix of individually built houses ranging from Edwardian to recent. Front doors are easy to get to and we do have street lights.

The reason we only got a handful of trick or treaters is instead of doing traditional trick or treating, the parents all got together in one place with their kids and had a closed party (well, not formally closed, but the idea was, all these people get together and do a sort of lame trick or treat only with each other). It was very tribal - "we are the 'parents-with-elementary-aged-kids' tribe. We won't knock on doors of members of other tribes."

I predict that at least in our corner of the Bay Area, some of the Homies will never know traditional Trick or Treating, and, the next generation of kids won't know it at all.

Trick or treating was very much alive in my neighborhood. We had hordes of children; tiny tots with their parents and groups of giggling 13-year-olds alone. We know we had at least 100 children (and almost as many adults). My fiancé and I joined our neighbors in bringing lawn chairs onto our front yards, having gops of candy, and drinking wine/pumpkin ale while the kids flocked to our little corner.

I participate in a neighborhood Facebook group. One resident actually kept track and ended up with 220 children! I don't think we had THAT many, but it could have been as high as 150.

They started coming as soon as the clock struck 6:00 pm. By 8:00 pm, it had petered out. My neighbors were still partying, but my fiancé and I were both getting chilly, plus Dancing with the Stars was on. I head that few kids came out between 8:00 and 8:30.