Good Halloween experiences last night.

[Squatch]

So, my wife and I took our 2 1/2 year old son to a "Trunk-or-Treat" at a local Baptist church. Basically, the church invites volunteers to come in, decorate their cars, and hand out candy. Additionally, they set up a few of those huge blow-up kids' bouncy thingies, had a pumpkin patch for kids to pick a pumpkin and decorate it, and a small petting zoo (with alpacas!).

On one hand, I thought the idea of this was great. It showed great community connectivity as all (including non-Baptists such as yours truly) were invited to participate, gratis.

First, let me say that my son absolutely enjoyed the hell out of it, and my wife and I enjoyed the community/safety aspects of this. So, with that in mind, I thought the event was great.

What was strange was the underlying religous tone to the event. Now, before you say..."but it was at a Baptist church", let me say that I realize this event was at a Baptist church. :)

Don't mistake this as complaining, as I thought this event was a home run. It just seemed "off"...to be celebrating a Pagan holiday at an overtly devoted Baptist ministry. My son being given candy by a man dressed in a devil costume who is also handing out Bible literature on these types of holidays, for instance, was one of those dissonant aspects of the evening.

What was really depressing, however, was that when we returned to our neighborhood, all but one house had their porchlight on (indicating participation in trick-or-treating). Our community had either boarded up for the night or gone to centralized events like we did. My wife and I both lamented our missing days when house-to-house trick-or-treating was a benchmark of community and really made neighbors feel like neighbors.

Everybody's a stranger to everybody else nowadays.

In any case...it was a good evening. (Until, however, a group of latecomers started ringing our doorbell around 9:30).

[glowing]

1. Building community connections these days is really important.

[Az]

2. Let go of the paganacity of the day

Just enjoy it as a day to dress up odd, run around scaring people, and giving candy to them for the trouble of it all. The holiday... any holiday is what you make of it. No one can tell you what you are celebrating but yourself.

[madmom]

3. We celebrated our halloween at work Tuesday, where employees

dressed up and handed out candy to customers (I work at a major department store). One of our employees is gay he's not in the closet, every body knows and likes him. Well he dressed as a woman, and a damned good looking one too. A couple women (employees) got terribly upset because it was suppose to be a "family atmosphere" some one finally asked them if it was a straight guy dressed as a woman would you still be upset? They shut up then. Some people just can't get over themselves and have fun!

[SmokingJacket]

4. I think neighborhoods go through phases

House-to-house trick-or-treating is still big around here. It depends on the percentage of school-age kids around. I took my kids to our old neighbhood (we recently moved to the sticks) and it was just like when I was a kid... actually it was more fun: more kids, more decorations, better candy.

[BlueJazz]

5. I took my Rabbit out trick or treating.

Yeah...I know...I like doing "Off the wall stuff"

Anyway...He was pretty well received. I put a little hat on Him after cutting out holes for his big ears.

The neighbors got a kick out of it and he actually came home with a bag full of Carrots, Lettuce and other Vegetables.

I think he enjoyed all the attention. :)

[Arkansas Granny]

6. My son and daughter-in-law decorated the house and bought

candy in anticipation of the first Halloween in their own house. They had one group of 3 children come by in a neighborhood where a lot of children live. They were pretty disappointed.

[piedmont]

7. We got ONE family of trick-or-treaters-- and they were our next-door neighbors.

Halloween sucks in our neighborhood. I've heard other neighborhoods here do ok, though.

[Horse with no Name]

8. We had a wonderful time

First went to a local costume contest in our town. Placed 2nd place. Won $20.
Then we went to the larger town over and went to Braums and got hamburgers and ice cream. Then went trick or treating at a shopping center. Then they had some prize drawings where we didn't win anything, but was a lot of fun. Then hula hoop contests. Then another costume contest where we placed 1st place--she won some neat prizes donated by the merchants.
After that, we went to a very well lit neighborhood and trick or treated for an hour.
Was very fun. No razor blades, no drugs, no pedophiles attempted to steal the children.:)
Actually, I think if they publicized the "no lights on" thing more for pedophiles, more people would leave their lights on to keep from being branded a pedophile.:evilgrin: