Happy Samhuinn!

[furtech]

I was house/cat-sitting last night and her place got over 70 trick-or-treaters! I wonder if the greater threat of terrorism has made trick-or-treating's dangers pale by comparison (with more kids going out again? This was no Fur Fright, but at least I felt involved in the night!

I used the opportunity to further train Rondo: he'd bark at the doorbell/knocks (some were too short to ring), so I would use the "happy voice 'who's that?'" and give him a treat (Kentucky Fried Chicken) and open the door. He would peek between my legs, but seemed otherwise happy and unconcerned (masks and blood and all). Never pass up opportunities to have impromptu training sessions!

I'm curious: to all reading this, can you answer these questions?

---How many trick-or-treaters did you get? (even approximate-- more/less than last year, etc)
---Were there any prevailing trends in costumes? (themes: mundane [firemen, army guys, etc.], pirates, monsters, etc.)

I think I did Elayne a disservice: I set the bar rather high for her next year. I gave out full-size candies (thanks to Costco!).

Comments

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Not a single trick-or-treater where I live, and I live in a suburban neighborhood. However, I live a couple of blocks from the mall and maybe the parents took their children there.

I also saw no one wearing a costume.

[tori04.livejournal.com]

We had about 60 trick-or-treaters, which is a bit less than last year.

There were a lot of pirates. Most kids were in cheapy, store bought costumes. Definitely more cute stuff than monster stuff.

[foofers.livejournal.com]

At my folks' house this year...maybe about 100 trick-or-treaters, seemed less than normal (150-200 might be more typical).

Costumes fell into two categories this year: pirates, and everything else.

[martes.livejournal.com]

Dwight said we got about 8 before I got home, but I don't know if that was 8 kids, or 8 parties of kids. After I got home there was only one party of 3 kids.

[frysco.livejournal.com]

There were a few T-o-T-ers to my house, but only to the front door (which is for my landlord upstairs). No-one can seem to find the door on the side of the house which is my 'front' door. :P

[mistahbojangles.livejournal.com]

We had maybe 20 to 40 kids (plus parents) coming by in groups. Most of the kids were younger than 10 years and most of the costumes were traditional witches, spooks, princesses etc. A number of parents going with their 5 year olds also had infants in their arms that were dressed up too, including one in a bumblebee outfit and another in a lion costume. Some memorable costumes were a Dragonball Z character (pretty good), a couple spiderman / wolverine / superman costumes with "muscles", but the best was a girl dressed as an Italian restaurant table complete with dinner plates, food, red and white checkerboard tablecloth, and huge Luigi-moustache.

[shoka.livejournal.com]

Zero trick-or-treaters (gate was closed).

I hardly saw any costumes at all. The only ones I noticed were on tiny kids at a church harvest festival I drove by on the way home. Clowns and ghosts seemed prevalent.

[kvogel.livejournal.com]

Maybe 18 kids of all ages. The older ones tended to not even try costumes, thought there was one in a (store bought) "South Park" costume. Some of the younger kids had parkas over costumes, as it was bitter cold and breezy. A lot less than last year.

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

We had two parties, 7 kids total. Slightly up from last year for the house. One of elementary age, one middle school. The middle schoolers were two "I have no clue, possibly ugly clowns" and Flavor Flav.
The little ones we had Minnie Mouse, some kind of comic/movie badass with fangs (maybe an xman), a vampire, and I'm blanking on what the fourth one was.

At the downtown "safe" trick or treat they had where kids go trick or treat at businesses during daylight, we only got two parties of little ones. Including the group of elementary kids desdribed above!

They were quite surprised to see us again. But it did mean they got twice as many scary books as everybody else. I have more kids books than I know what to do with at the store, so they get books along with the candy and raisens. it's surprise how many picked raisens over candy.

[penh.livejournal.com]

We were horribly disappointed in the crummy trick-or-treater turnout (or ToTT) this year. I got all dressed up as Witchy Violet to hand out candy, and we ended up getting maybe seven visits, for a total of less than 20 kids. We did get a few of the "too old to trick-or-treat but we want candy anyway" teens, but at they had made a genuine effort to make a costume (Mexican wrestler and ninja). On the plus side, there's plenty of candy left over for me, woo!

[skiefire.livejournal.com]

Im in the UK, where we aren't as mad for it as the US kids, but we still have plenty of things going on.

-Only about 10 separate visits, but each contained a group of at least 6 kids, some were even larger (and it being dark making it look like more)

-Costumes were rather bland. Plenty of binbags/witches and kids with swords. A few were neat though, with one girl in a great full body devil costume.

[lacy.livejournal.com]

Approximately 400 here. :) We heavily decorate at a friend's house, which very large groups tend to go through every year. Last year we also had at least a couple hundred, so perhaps word of mouth due to the display has made the number go up a bit.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

We get one trick or treater about every ten years. Even when I lived in the city, I *never* got them, even though I got candy for the first few years.. I finally realized it's because we had no street lights on my street 8|