Travelling to other areas for trick or treating

[MidnightPatrol]

I’d always assumed that everyone just trick or treated on their own / surrounding streets.

But our town’s parents group (mainly nursery and primary school chat) has people suggesting travelling to a handful of specific streets…

This does explain why there were quite so many trick or treaters last year (at least 100 - we eventually tuned the lights off and brought the pumpkins inside by about 7pm).

I thought it was just the local kids pottering round, not that their parents had driven them here.

Is this normal? Seems like CF behaviour to me!

I hate how "trick or treat" has taken over from our traditional halloween. When I was a child we would have to tell a joke, sing a song or entertain in some way before getting a reward usually fruit or nuts of some sort. Also most kids don't even attempt to "dress up" and just demand money or chocolate and seem upset when they don't get what they want.
There is one thing that is better though, pumpkins are a lot easier to carve than turnips.

when we were in a small village, we were THE Halloween house. we carved about ten pumpkins (made spicy pumpkin and bacon soup, and pumpkin and cranberry muffins, which we also shared out to the parents coming round. they really appreciated a cup of the soup when weather was bad)
for the smalls, I made up goodie bags with lots of sweets, choccie, glowsticks, tacky little bits and pieces like fake bugs and so on.
over time, people at the schools heard about it from our local children, and we got a lot of people who would drive over after doing their local area, and those kids got goodie bags too. and dogs would get dog treats. parents got non goodie bagged sweets and an offer of soup and muffins.
it's all about sharing the fun and the love.
and the fact people would drive over from nearby villages to see our house was fantastic. it made us even happier about how much of a big thing we put on about it.

I mean, how nice to know, the kids had gone to school and told their friends about this house in their village, and they were excited enough about what they were told to convince their parents to drive over and drop them off at the gate to be part of it.

how old ARE you? it was a thing in the 80s, when I was little.

if he still enjoys it, he's not too old. he'd get treats from us, no questions asked.

it's sad just how young children are encouraged to grow out of things these days. even the adults and the dogs get treats from us. if you're out, enjoying Halloween, you get treats.

I thought it’s quite normal to travel. There are streets that go all out on decorations and threats and are well known for that - many people go out of their way to go to those.

My mother had 70 trick or treaters. There's no way 70 children live in walking distance of her. She loves it though, so she wasn't complaining. She had to close up early to go out to dinner, or there would have been quite a few more.

One of the dj's on a local radio station said to text and email him with the best displays and where to go for the best candy. He then posted it on Facebook. I was glad my street wasn't listed as I often get 100-125 kids. I'm fairly close to 2 elementary schools and one high school
The bigger kids have had some great homemade costumes this year.

leftover sweets? oh what a hardship! :P

we were out looking after my mums dog most of today, so we didn't get a chance to decorate. even when we don't manage it, we usually get some, as the locals know we always have plenty of sweets and love Halloween, even if it's not obvious from outside on some years.
I think we got back a bit too late and missed them this year, so tomorrow I'm going to the decorated houses and giving them some sweets, then we'll eat the rest ourselves.

back when we lived in the village, before we moved out, we'd all decorate, and quite early, I'd take nephews and neices trick or treating, before heading back to ours to finish hosting. my mum would stay at home and hand out to any early ones we missed. but most people saved our house for the finale of the evening, because we REALLY went for it.

all my life (in my mid 40s) I've loved how a lot of people have always been delighted by our house all done up, and some were even almost too scared to knock. but they'd do it, because they knew we weren't actually going to do anything bad, AND that we gave out generous goodie bags. but I always love when you can hear them almost trying to dare each other to be the one to knock

oh, that's good. I was worried about how sad that would be for the nine year olds.

maybe Charles will be dressed as a tampon 😂

that's funny, because when I lived in a small, rural, no pavements, no streetlights village, people would drive from other places to come to our house, because the local children told their friends how great our house (and treats) were.

I've never seen anyone doing Halloween in my 50+ life. Not once. My area must be full of miserable gits. It sounds like fun but it's no point if nobody is trick or treating. Imagine how depressing to buy sweets and get no kids knocking. I live in a big town not rurally but it might be because it's a rough low wage area, not sure.

Our area is ok at Halloween but there are lots of elderly neighbours who don’t want to participate (fair enough).

Our dc were always happy staying local when they were younger but one year one of ds’s friends (he’s an only child) asked if our 2 could go with him.

He was invited up to ours but his mum wanted them to go where they live (about a 10 minute drive away).

I didn’t think about it in advance but there were way more houses taking part and they came home with way more sweets than usual!

I did feel guilty, especially as the bucket of sweets that I’d left out was empty when we got home so I can see both sides.

We travel because we're rural and our kids go to a friend's for Halloween party followed by guising in their estate. But the families in that estate also have kids who go to our school, because our school has several rural villages, and we know a lot of them. Those who don't know us are always just as lovely to my children as the others are. We only go to decorated houses in the streets where friends live. In Scotland the children have to be do something like a poem or joke to be given a sweet and it's hilarious listening to the kids getting the punchlines wrong or making it up on the spot. They love it. I never did Halloween growing up so it's new to me. It's so much fun

Whilst I've had kids doing it we've always just done our estate but if someone from a different area invited us to go with them I would.

When I was doing it I would go with my friends from a different village.

I wouldn't rock up somewhere random by myself (and the kids) unless I had no houses near me but I have no desire to drag the experience out longer than necessary.

I don't see it as a huge deal either way, you either participate or you don't, if you don't have enough sweets then it doesn't matter, bring the pumpkin in, switch the lights off and call it a night.

I would definitely take my kids elsewhere if our local area wasn’t trick or treating friendly. I think the stories of some people/streets being inundated to the point where it becomes a problem are pretty rare, and most likely exaggerated (as most things on MN are).

I think it's fine. I don't begrudge kids shipping in to our area for trick or treating. The houses a decorated up to the eyeballs and the roads are safe. They're more than welcome, I'm only handing out sweets.

Ww've ramped up the crossing country lines mafias: first it was drug dealers, now it's extortion with menaces disguised as fun

Saw a van last year, pull up let out 3 kids they ran around the street swept up all the sweets jumped back in the van, later saw same van about 1/2 a mile away doing same, greedy isnt even the right word!

It happened in our area in the last few years, so instead of getting maybe 40 or so children round, it was well over 100. As a result we stopped playing and judging from last night so have quite a few families. My kids are older now and although I'm happy to hand out sweets to the littlies in the neighbourhood, it just felt like people taking the piss.

I guess though as more families round our way pull out, we'll be a less attractive target and in a year or two things will right themselves again.

I live on a road people travel to, so we make more effort and buy more sweets. We're delighted to have more kids from other areas, it adds to the fun and chaos. If people don't want to participate then they just don't put out decorations, it's easy.

You can spot recent arrivals to the area, as they run out of sweets before 6pm! They learn for later years... buying in for hundreds of kids at 5p-20p per item costs around £50 in sweets for a big variety if you're reasonably strict about one sweet only.

That's not my experience at all. We had made up 100 bags (that were gone in an hour) and every child who came to the door was dressed up and all except one said a joke or something. The one who didn't said "I'm not doing jokes this year" 🤣

Our street is definitely the one they all come to, my drive genuinely had about 40 people (including parents) stood on it at one point last night. I screenshot my ring doorbell to send my DH as I was gobsmacked. We definitely get people driving here. We have a massive haunted house at the top of our road who go all out. The kids get to do a walk through from front to back door and the family including the granny are all dressed up, it's actually amazing the effort they go to.
People drive all over from the whole town to come to it.

The local neighbourhood committee also decorate the park a few doors down from me with lights all round and decorations, they all dress up and have a cauldron filled with sweets. It's a brilliant area for the kids to come, I don't mind where they are from.

I made up 100 bags and it cost me £62, the last two years I'd just give out a few each and think I will go back to that next year as it ran out too quickly this year. Every year I say I'm going to stop but then I still do it.

Why are you "making up bags"? You just hold out a bowl and they grab one treat of their choice. We've never even seen bags round here!

EVERYONE makes up bags here, pics of some of Ds's as an example.