I'm the Halloween Grinch - do you follow the pumpkin rule?.

[Pancakeflipper]

I live on a small lovely street. Nice mix of ages.
The rule for Halloween on our street has been "pumpkin outside - knock here for sweets" . Allowing those not wanting spooky ghouls at their door to have a quietish evening.

Is this the rule near you?

In recent years our street is named on Facebook posts as the place to be.... (fucking stop it - we dont want everyone here) It's crazy on our street. Its no longer the local streets nearby - but driving miles for a fucking Chewit.

The pumpkin rule is ignored.
Guess its not a known rule..?

And that really pisses me off. There's lots of reasons why people don't want hoards of groups ringing their doorbell for the evening.

I salute my neighbour who diligently eats her Ferarocho chocolates, saves the wrappers, pops in cherry tomatoes and hands the box round.

I'm on my sixth big bag of sweets and I have loved every minute of it - kids have been funny and lovely - even the teenagers. I don't know if they are harassing the non-pumpkin households but they are charming me.

I have none of those reasons, I just don’t want to be bothered! However, I am not aggressively upset, that’s a bit of an OTT statement.

No pumpkin rule here but it's usually a lights on/ lights off rule. I wish I knew if it was observed cos I'm still dragged into it but hopefully when kids are older I'll take a break. We are in a busy popular spot and I don't want to be a grinch but the tourists annoy me. They arrive in car loads. I counted one year and gave up after 200, I feel it peaked about 2 years ago. The population is ageing a bit as there are a lot of new developments with young kids at the same time.

If you aren’t aggressively upset, then I’m clearly not talking about you! There are many people, including on MN, who vehemently despise trick or treating and want it banned, think it’s begging and intimidation etc. I’m not sure why you thought my comment was aimed at you directly; I have no idea who you are.

I’m in USA so I love Halloween and even tho my dc are grown I still participate. Lights on inside house and outside house and door open is typical of our neighborhood to indicate participation. I’m prepped for 100+ trick or treaters and looking forward to it.

i have learned from MN Halloween is a polarizing holiday with many despairing of any participation. T or T’s are driven to my neighborhood and always have been. If they have some semblance of a costume they get candy from me. I have never had anyone show up without some costume or steal candy.

im surprised your anecdote about your neighbor disguising tomatoes is getting some approval. It’s deceptive and ridiculous to save wrappers buy tomatoes wrap them and give them out when of course no one will ever eat them. What is wrong with just not participating? Why does an adult need to express their disagreement of the holiday by giving out tomatoes? She is happy to buy the tomatoes and wrap them and stand there giving them out knowing it’s a poor joke?

Sorry she’s weird. Buy candy and give it out or turn off your lights and don’t participate. Don't be ridiculous about it

My street has a WA group which co-ordinates things like Halloween, Carol singing. People who are happy to receive visits say so & others who have a pumpkin out may also get visits. Works well but we currently have several families with small children, which helps.

This wasn't a rule when I was a kid AFAIK but I wasn't allowed to go trick or treating, maybe my friends knocked my house cos they knew i lived there. We haven't had any for years and we don't decorate, i asked some parents about it when I used to work in retail, they said they only go around their own estate and only houses with pumpkins outside.

It's absolute bollocks. Never celebrated and never will

That white stuff that traps and kills wildlife is particularly offensive

I don't see why it takes the piss to go to a different area. If you don't know the kids anyway and they're in costume and it's dark who cares as long as some kids got some sweets.

If they're doing it as a source of nutrition or to supplement a limited diet due to poverty then frankly they can take double.

Where did I say I thought it was meant for me? I just thought it’s a bit of a sweeping OTT statement towards anyone who doesn’t want to be bothered by people knocking at their door all evening.

I don’t think a couple of Fredo bars is going to provide much in the way of nutrition.

please say the parking warden is dressed as the grim reaper 🤣

Came on specifically to see what people thought, I always thought if you don’t have a pumpkin out and/or decorations you leave those houses be, but someone did ring the doorbell (we ignored like true grinches!). So hopefully don’t get any more.

People do stick to the rule where I live. I live on a busy road, so when I've put pumpkins out we get some throughout the evening, but we don't get people driving to us like some roads do. I see people asking where to drive to on Facebook. Even people driving round doing a reccy the night before.
The only time my kids went elsewhere was if they'd been invited to a Halloween party there.

I think it's been busier this year because it's Saturday and parents have been able to go around with their kids. I know loads don't like it but I feel it's such a lovely thing - all the kids made an effort - I took the piss out of the teenagers. I felt it created a lovely warm community spirit when I was roaming around with my kids many years ago - so I'm happy to return the favour. It was my kids favourite night of the year! And it's part of my Irish heritage - so I'll happily support the joy that it brings.

This is an internationally known rule (I’m an immigrant) and has been for decades.

I’m always grumpy thinking about it, but then on the night it’s a lovely community thing. Some of our older neighbours go to great lengths and obviously are delighted to see all the kids having a nice time. These are people all around us who we never really see out and about. It is nice, but obviously needs to be optional and the pumpkin rule is there for that.

In the town where we used to live the Council and the police produced posters to display for those who did and did not want to take part. It seemed to work quite well and we were never troubled.

This!!

100%

There is something badly wrong with a person who would go to all that trouble to play a trick on small children.

My days of being the Halloween Grinch are gone, courtesy of moving to the middle of nowhere! Aside from the two children that live on the lane, we don't have people coming this far out for Trick or Treating. I checked that they were coming a while ago with their parents, so bought sweets in advance.

It was awful where I used to live; you'd get hoards of children that weren't off our road knocking on for hours. My family still get a lot of people knocking on every Halloween, regardless of the fact that the houses aren't decorated.

We have no interest in Halloween celebrations. Just another day to us. Curtains are shut and we're going to watch a feel good film shortly.

We used to participate when local children came. It was nice and it always finished at 10pm ish. We also followed the pumpkin rule too. A few years ago I stopped doing it because I had over a hundred kids older kids turn up (not all at once!) dropped off in cars?! The knocking went on until midnight! My eldest recognised some of them and said they live in the next area 2 miles out! Apparently someone shared a photo of their decorated house and welcomed trick or treaters on the local face book page, which got the attention of many! We stopped doing it in our street! When I went for a long walk last night, I only saw 3 decorated houses. Glad I stopped as I now spend the money on treats for the family while watching a film!

I’ve got a dog who is terrified by costumes ( god knows why ) but I’ve got a pumpkin 🎃, put a note on door saying dog is scared but please help yourself to sweets , I love listening to the little ones via my ring doorbell , sat on my bum with a glass of wine 🍷 , but in answer to your question yes I wouldn’t knock on a house with no decs/ pumpkin

I didn’t learn of this rule until last year. As a result I have put a pumpkin out this year as I like seeing the kids having a fun evening. Only 1 knock so far.

Nice one. It's nonsense

We love Halloween and go all out so have probably seen a couple of hundred kids so far but there are plenty of houses on the road who haven’t put a pumpkin out and that’s fine everyone gets to choose. We look forward to it for months and stock up on loads of sweets to make sure we can meet demand.