To think that trick or treating should be confined to your own street or friends/family

My DCs are ageing out of it all but I still enjoy putting up some decorations and seeing the kids in their costumes. And we live very near a house that's locally famous for its incredible decorations so get kids from far beyond our street. If you don't want to be involved don't decorate

Happens every year!

Just shows a lack of knowledge with a dash of xenophobia to me.

People around here have signed out. Same story. It became too much and not the local fun it was meant to be for local families.

Luckily our daughter has a party at her school so we don't get involved either this year.

because it's pretty shit if the local kids miss out if houses run out , because CF had rushed too early and depleted the stocks.

I buy for the local kids, for my kids friends, it's supposed to be simple fun.

I don't ID anyone and I give to anyone of course, but it's not designed for any random, and I wouldn't want my own kids to go where they don't belong, and take sweets that were not meant for them.

Many houses have stopped decorating because of the CF. They just put a pumpkin, still give, but decorating seemed to attract too many entitled parents.

They have no shame either, very proud to get "free stuff" from random houses, people are weird, they probably spend more on petrol than they save on sweets 😂

Yes you are right. But for elderly people it must be pretty intimating. Last year a neighbour left a bowl of sweets on her path. After 10 minutes they had disappeared. Her door cam showed the culprits to be lads of about 16. They can have parties at that age and have great fun.

I’m 57 and it wasn’t a thing when I was young. We had heard of it but it was only in America and too dangerous as people put razor blades in the sweets! It seemed to take off here in the 1980’s

I demand photo id with proof of age and address before they get a sweet at my house!

We usually get very few kids - or even none!🙁 now. But I always put a medium sized pumpkin in the window, lit up, and have sweets ready. Whatever happens, though, the pumpkin will be made into a Thai style soup tomorrow- onion, garlic, chilli, ginger and coconut milk - delish!

Trick or treating in the Gdcs’ area is Big with a capital B though - they absolutely love it, and the outside of the house is awash with bloody great spiders, etc.

I am in London and “good streets to go trick or treating” is definitely a thing. It’s not a problem but it does get a bit much. When my dd was younger she loved having kids coming to the door for sweets and we used to make quite a bit of effort with decorations.

We stopped now - not just because dd is older but because we would get huge groups of kids and parents banging on the door and pushing etc and it no longer felt like fun!

I think I have a different view because I work in a school and some of the 14/15 year olds, who tell me they are going trick or treating can be intimidating.

When my DCs were little, we used to take them trick or treating around the block - ie very local - and only knocked where we saw a pumpkin. However, not all children have such a privilege and have to go a little further afield to enjoy the same game. I do a pumpkin and get some Quality Street in for the kids now that mine are older. You cannot police who comes to your door so whoever knocks gets first dibs.

Pumpkin out, knock. Lights off and no response to first knock, go away. It used to be older teenagers round here, fortunately they’ve stopped the last few years.

its not that deep.

also I don’t teach my children not to take sweets off strangers all year round?

if a child is in trouble how would they ask for help if they’re so terrified of strangers? Makes no sense to me.

obviously you tell your kids not to go off with strangers and also check with family blablabla. I don’t think trick or treating one night of the year takes away from that.

We live on a very quiet street with few houses, mostly elderly people who don't do pumpkins or have sweets in. There are other streets in our town where a lot of people go all out with decorations and sweets. It gets busy but it's a fun place to go because there's a real buzz seeing other people's costumes as well as the house decorations etc. Just because my kids live in a,quiet street why should they miss out on the fun? Even if I went crazy decorating our own house there would still be no atmosphere on our street because it would be the only one so we go where it's fun.

I’ve only ever taken my kids out in the neighbourhoods we’ve lived in. I don’t like people asking where is the best street/neighbourhood to trick or treat, mainly because there’s always loads of kids out, crisscrossing the streets excitedly, it’s dark and adding more people and potentially loads more cars (only on street parking available round here) and it honestly seems like an accident waiting to happen.

I agree, we buy sweets for neighbours (in the widest meanings) and friends.

Parents who drive around to go to the "best places" are just entitled CF ruining it for everybody else, but nothing we can do!

It's so pathetic really, it's only a few sweets, how can anyone be so grabby, but they do anything when it's "free". 😂

Unfortantly some children knock on all doors. Including old people's

On an individual basis it makes no difference.

The problem is when your street gets known as "good" one to go to which creates an inordinate number of visitors, meaning roads get clogged, sweets run out in about 20 mins, and those who have put the effort in to making the street "good" are the ones whose families miss out.

There's a balance. If it's just a handful more, it's not a problem. With social media however it's rarely just a handful.

I buy as many sweets as I'm happy to give out. If our next door neighbour's kids haven't come when we're down to our last couple of treats I pull in the pumpkin and take the sweets around a little later when they get home.

I have three tiers of sweets - haribo, cadbury's and home made cupcakes and gingerbread bats. Haribo get given out first because I don't like them, Cadbury's next in the hopes there's some left over for me to pinch, and the homemade stuff is for the kids we know well who are used to a personalised treat each year.

@Chesticles · Today 12:57

I think the point is, if you buy in say a bag of 20 fun size haribo bags or something, to give to your neighbors kids, who you talk to through the fence etc. And by 6.30 all the sweets are gone to other kids that have come round what do you do? Stop answering the door? which means the neighbors kids are disappointed? Keep some back for the neighbors?

Well, 20 fun size bags of haribos isn't going to go far anywhere is it? It will only stretch to 20 children! I buy 2 tubs of Halloween sweets/goodies from Aldi, and Morrisons, (£4 to £5 each,) and a couple of packs too as a top-up. It does me for about 100 children. Only costs about £13 in total, and I always have some left... Not worth joining in if you're only covering 20 children!

And it's fairly common knowledge that trick or treaters don't knock on a door unless it has a lit pumpkin in the window. So if you're joining in and you DO run out, just blow out the candle in the pumpkin!

.

Yep, first come, first served basis here too! I don't mind doing it although I don't go all out for decorations apart from a pumpkin so kids know we are doing trick or treaters. I just turn the porch light off and bring the pumpkin in once they are all gone. Don't give out any full size chocolate bars either, just little Haribo packs. I don't have much money tbh but a couple of packs of Harbios have only set me back about £4 this year so I don't mind. I live in quite a deprived area and quite enjoy seeing children doing anything other than hanging around in gangs and getting into trouble!

Edit because I didn't reply to the actual question. I don't mind where they come from but my street has around 150 houses so I probably wouldn't know if they are from my street or not anyway!

What difference does it make if the children are from 'your' street or not?

people are so weird and strange about perfectly normal holiday celebrations.

but then again this is MN and most people have a panic attack if their phone rings.

Why not? What difference does it make? It's going to be 2 extra kids getting sweets and if you hadn't seen those posts, you'd jsut assume they were local kids.

The general rule is you only go to houses with Halloween decorations. If the curtains are closed and lights are low/off, you don't bother them. So if you're the sort of household that's happy for kids to come and trick or treat, then why would you have a stick up your arse about where they came from?