Today is Halloween, and we are devoting ourselves to all things spooky at our house. Halloween parties, carving jack-o-lanterns, roasting pumpkin seeds and trick-or-treating are all on the roster.
Speaking of trick-or-treating, I recently learned that there are places that have official ‘trick-or-treating’ hours. For example, the fabulous Feminist Breeder told me that her town allows trick-or-treating only between the hours of 10am and noon today. I’ve heard of other places that have trick-or-treating times set up on weekends when Halloween happens to fall on a weekday. Both of these rules seem sort of wrong to me – trick-or-treating in my world happens on Halloween night.
Here in Metro Vancouver, the only place I’ve ever ‘done’ Halloween, there are no official Halloween rules. But there definitely are unofficial rules. Trick-or-treating generally runs from about 6-8pm. Most folks eat dinner and then head out, and the little kids tend to come before the big ones, since they go earlier and don’t visit as many houses. In order to signal that you have candy, you leave your porch light on and maybe set out decorations like your jack-o-lantern. And when it’s done you’d better bring that pumpkin in if you don’t want it smashed in the street.
What about you? How does Halloween happen where you live? Now that I know that there are geographical variations, my curiosity demands to know more!
While you think about the trick-or-treating rules, here are a few not-so-spooky seasonal photos to get you in that Halloween-y frame of mind:
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween!
The red cape looks great.
We don’t have official hours, but from last year’s experience, it doesn’t seem that too many people go crazy in this neighborhood. Fortunately, the boys are still so small that a short set of houses to visit will be just fine.
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Halloween has a tendency to make me a little curmudgeonly at this time of year. In Scotland kids go guising (as in disguised) in amazing costumes and have to perform for their treats. Here all they have to do is turn up, vaguely in costume, and hold their hands out! A huge disappointment.
but our townhome strata makes up for it! A lot of my neighbours decorate their houses (not something that happens in Scotland) and trick or treat hour takes on a real carnival atmosphere so I do finish the evening with a smile on my face!
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Having grown up in Metro Vancouver myself everything you said is how I did it. I do remember many of our neighbours asking us to sing or dance to get our treats, we didn’t just come grab and go like kids do now. We chatted about costumes, answered riddles etc…
Now that I live in the States the only difference is how decorated the houses are. Most here are more done up than houses back home.
Our Halloween here in CT is about the same as yours, trick-or-treating on Halloween night after dark until about 8.
My dad and brother are in Oklahoma for the big OSU football game tonight, and said that the kids went out on Thursday so that they can watch the high school football games on Friday and the OSU game tonight. We thought that was strange!
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In Ohio (at least where I’ve lived), there’s Halloween… and then there’s Beggar’s Night, which is usually a day or two before or after Halloween, designated by community, and THAT’S when all the kids are allowed to go trick-or-treating. It’s set up that way to be more convenient to the weekend, I think.
Our Halloween is pretty much the same here in the Toronto area as it is for you on the west coast. When it falls, as it did this year, on a weekend evening then the kids seem to be out longer. Our youngest (now
was out from 6:15 to 9:00 and had to come home once to dump some of his load.
Sigh.
I long for the days when the “Candy Fairy” came and took it all away and changed it into a deeply desired toy! Now he and his big brother (11 yrs.) have a yearning to keep it all. (Not that they eat even a third of it. It’s the idea of the haul of course.)
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We got about 3 trick or treaters our first year in our house. A busy street and steep driveways kind of kill the desire for candy I think
That, and there are really very few trick or treat age kids around here.
So we drive over to Nana & Papa’s neighborhood to trick or treat amd leave our house dark. Hey, it saves me having to buy candy for the kids! (I can just steal it from my kids LOL)
The thing that is new to me is the fireworks. Never remember those growing up in SK and certainly not in Ont. 2yo thought they were cool at first and then got freaked. And the unofficial rules seem to be to wait until most of the kids finish trick or treating. And most families seem to stop around 10. That of course doesn’t seem to apply to the old kids who keep them going until midnight or later.
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I loved the pictures and the last one was so cool. Trick or treating from 10 am to noon. That’s just not Halloween.
In Quebec, we have the same unofficial rules as you mentioned. Except that this year, it was so cold and windy that it started dying down at about 7:15.
Hope you enjoyed your Halloween.
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I was just reading another mom’s blog who missed the trick-r-treating in her local area because it was from 10 am to noon. She didn’t realize it until later in the day, so she drove 2 hours away to take her son to a place that had hours from 4 pm to 6 pm.
This year I had to miss the boys trick-r-treating because the hours conflicted with class. I can’t miss class (each class is actually 4 classes condensed so missing 1 would be like missing 2 weeks worth, and that’s bad.) So I only got to see pictures.
But they had lots of fun and that’s what counts.
Hi Amber,
In my area (outskirts of Toronto) most people in our neighborhood decorate our houses, we carve pumpkins and go out with the little ones as soon as it gets dark. We encourage the kids to say “trick or treat” and “thank you” but they aren’t usually asked to dance or perform for their treats. We usually have trick or treaters until around 9pm and we don’t take the pumpkins in at night – and they always survive! It was so nice having Halloween on a Saturday this year so I could spend the whole day with the kids getting ready (carving pumpkins and making a nice meal). I work full time which makes going on a weeknight pretty hectic! I like the idea of Beggers night just for that reason.
Here our downtown has trick or treating from 10-2 and then trick or treating at night. We went out at 5:30. I have seen kids come as early as 4:30 and as late as 8:30.
I do the nighttime trick or treating with my girls so I can better control how many houses they go to and where they go – of course we always go with them – they’re too little to go alone. I think going downtown can be a little nuts and much harder to control how many shops your kids are allowed to go. I limit the candy, thus limit the houses, but when your kids can see all these kids running all over town with ppillow cases stuffed full and you’re trying to tell them it’s time to go after 5 shops…sounds like mayhem to me. I like my system better right now.When they get older we’ll see.
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