Hi Readers! This is my first Survey Monkey survey. Basically, I want to see how it works. If I get a ton of responses, I’ll upgrade to the “unlimited” version. But first…let’s just try this one. Bear with me. I may have to pose the same question again. – L.
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32 Comments
I don’t think my kids got any unwrapped candy. But I did want to share a little milestone.
Today Miss A was in trouble so I said she could not go trick-or-treating until she did xyz. Not knowing how long xyz would take, and having no other adult home, I invited Miss E (age 6) to go up and down the street herself. It was 6:30pm, dark and raining, but Miss E was willing, so off she went. I was so proud of her because there were hardly any people out and we don’t have street lights on our street, yet she was not too scared to go alone.
The other good thing about that was that she didn’t stay out long. So she didn’t bring home the ridiculous amount of candy they usually get, but more than enough to be satisfied.
Miss A eventually finished xyz and got to go to just a few close houses before we had to go to dinner for a friend’s birthday. Everyone was happy and experienced a little growth tonight. And I don’t have pounds of candy to dispose of. 🙂
Miss A asked if she and her sister could expect to trick-or-treat without a parent from now on. I said yes.
If we’d received any unwrapped candy, I would have answered 1=yes (and presumably 2=no). But of course, everyone is so brainwashed into thinking they’ll be suspected of trying to poison kids if they give out unwrapped treats, that all they got was the same tasteless, mass produced, cheapest bag at the store candy that they got last year.
Can’t answer since we didn’t get any.
Homemade caramel popcorn from our favourite neighbour who I am quite confident isn’t trying to poison our kids (or anyone). So yummy I had to sneak back to their door and knock again for more. Oink Oink!
Mine didn’t get any unwrapped or homemade treats. If they had I would have allowed younger daughter to eat them if she so desired, but older daughter has a severe peanut allergy to obviously that’s a no go.
I DID drive them over to a neighbourhood that’s better for trick or treating than ours is and dropped them off. Told them to have fun and call me when they’re done. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out where they were but they gave directions while continuing to walk and I drove until we crossed paths. It was awesome for all of us.
We only got one unwrapped piece of candy, but it was my son’s favourite: fudge! He talked about it all the way home and dumped the contents of his bag onto the floor of the living room so he could get it and eat it immediately. Last year he got a cupcake at one house.
I’m sure someone has already sent this to you, but I was pleased to see Snopes.com had reposted their debunking of the ‘poisoned candy’ myth yesterday:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp
We didn’t get any unwrapped candy (which is kinda gross and not particularly something I would want to eat myself) or homemade treats for the kids. The second house we stopped at gave out mulled wine to the adults which I enjoyed and still appear to be alive.
My daughter and 2 of her friends (10, 8 and 6) did go around our block by themselves for about a half an hour before we walked over to the big Halloween neighborhood with a larger group of people.
We have neighbors in their 70s who gave out a little bag of candy bars and UNWRAPPED cookies. At first, I didn’t know that the cookies were in the bag, so one fell on the floor. The dog got to it first (and my child was devastated). The child quickly gobbled up the other five cookies (Dad was devastated because he didn’t get any). EVERYONE IS ALIVE AND WELL and we love our sweet neighbors for sharing so generously! I’m sure we would have eaten them from strangers, too. THANKS FOR YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT!
I found no home made treats laced with marijuana…Damm!
Personally I would not waste time and money making unwrapped goodies, knowing that most parents and kids will throw them out.
I didn’t notice any unwrapped treats, although I did notice quite a few empty wrappers when they got back!
Alas, my own children are grown and gone and I don’t allow or disallow them anything. But I have a Halloween report. My total count was down a little from last year, but it was all very cheerful. As usual in these parts, the smaller children came with their (often costumed) parents, and the middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students came on their own.
I knopw one of your goals is to get parents to feel free to send their children out on their own, but I don’t mind seeing parents coming along with their kids, because in my neighborhood there’s an additional issue in that most of the children are first or second generation and their immigrant parents often feel nervous about their kids being abroad at all. Besides the usual stuff, the parents feel the unease of being in a place they don’t feel entirely welcome in. So when they come with their kids and we have a pleasant interaction over this little holiday, more is happening between us than candy (and playdough and stickers which I also give out to put some variety in the bag).
The older kids and young adults are uniformly pleasant and polite too, and positively stoked to find out I am giving them playdough! My last ones arrived at 10:15, when I was just about ready to bring in my candles.
We got cookies. I was NOT in love with them eating them because of all the dye and my son looked like Tim Curry from Rocky Horror after he ate his. But they were really excited about them.
This is the first year my 3-year old was allowed (or wanted) to trick-or-treat more than just our immediate neighbours. He received a few packages of unwrapped candy. One in particular had stickers printed with a picture of the family’s kids in costume! And those were the ones he decided to try!
We gave out big candy bars to trick-or-treaters but had a huge party and fed most of the kids in the neighborhood something unwrapped- apples from bobbing, homemade carmel, green sherbert punch.
While doing the doughnut eating contest(eat the doughnut hanging from the tree, no hands), our house was trick-or-treated early by a large group of teenage girl ninjas. They asked politely if they could participate in the doughnut eating, and we tied some more strings up (a little too high for some, but they WERE ninjas) and they ate doughnuts and didn’t choke or die.
They said thank you and continued on their way with icing all over their faces. Priceless.
I have to admit, I was quite surprised when my youngest came home with an obviously homemade popcorn ball. I considered our neighborhood and thought, “It’s fine.” She didn’t want it, actually, and gave it to her older sister. When she unwrapped it, a small piece of paper fell out of the Saran wrap that said, “Safe homemade treats” with the family name and address so if anything *was* wrong, we knew where to go.
Interesting way to handle it, I thought. And my oldest said it was really good, too. 🙂
I was actually shocked at one house that not only had a bowl of candy outside, for self-serve, but a tray of cider donuts! We all ate one, and brought some classmates of my son back to the “donut house” later on where the last one was obtained. They were sugary, good and we are all breathing fine!
My wife was more upset she missed out on one by not coming with us to the house, she took a different route with other kids.
No unwrapped treats for us, just unimaginative grocery store/dollar store stuff. Before parenthood we were treaters instead of treatees and always prepared our own loot bags with different items including a toy or stickers as well as some treats. Kids loved them and we always ran out early. Not sure what is more fun, giving them out or roaming the neighborhood with daughter.
The only candy/treat casualty was my own. Little Man got a cupcake from one of the neighbors (we’ve only briefly met – they have a son a couple months younger than mine) and he ate it and was fine. I, on the other hand, was busy chewing a Dot and all of a sudden, I felt a huge empty space in my mouth! One of my implants lost the tooth part. I honestly shouldn’t have been surprised as this has happened on at least two other occasions (one of those also involving Dots). Luckily, nothing broke and I have a dentist appointment on Saturday anyway. And really, that was my own stupid fault.
The amount of candy though…and we only went down our 1-block street and back. Good thing we like candy.
Didn’t get any homemade. If we had, she would have absolutely been allowed to eat it. And I’m sure she would still be breathing!
Didn’t get anything homemade but we did get a tennis ball from a big fluffy white dog. She collects them around the nearby tennis courts and likes to share them. 🙂
One of the houses in our neighorhood had set up a cotton candy machine in the front yard, and there was a line down the block. And most of the people in line looked to be parents, in costume, many holding beers. Last year one of my nieghboors was grilling hot dogs and handing them out. Also as soon as 7pm hit, it looked like the neighborhood was taken over by teens and tweens. So I guess holloween is still fun in my nighborhood.
My neighborhood had one house with a cotton candy machine, and a line down the block. We also had people handing out hot dogs. I mostly heard parents saying, “I need to check that to make sure it’s not poisoned,” chomp, chomp,” mfphKay, here you go.” That’s if they weren’t dressed up in costume and in line themselves.
We didn’t get any unwrapped candy, and since my eldest is only 3 I had to open most of it for him any way.
We had a great time and I was very pleased to see entire groups of kids running around the neighborhood alone. Most parents of younger kids would even stay on the sidewalk and let the kids walk up the doors by themselves! I can’t wait until next year when I can do that too – since my son is only 3 I had to go up with him since he couldn’t always reach the doorbells 🙂
We went to downtown ToT as a family and ended up with pizza, does that count?
(My husband knows the window attendant at the local walk-by pizza joint; she opened the service window to wish him Happy Halloween; he jokingly asked if he could ToT for pizza; and no kiddin’, she handed him a to-go box full of pizza! Technically, it was unwrapped.)
Okay, that’s it, next year I’m renting a cotton candy machine because I WANT TO BE THE COOLEST HOUSE EVER.
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I guess the fact that I did not check my kids’ candy would mean that if they had any unwrapped, they would have been allowed to eat it . . . .
An older couple down the street hands out bulk candy in zip lock bags every year. They are a lovely older couple, and my kids eat the candy every year, but I feel sad thinking that most parents are throwing their candy in the garbage.
We did not get any opened or homemade treats to test this out on. that should be your first question.
I don’t think I’d want my kids eating unwrapped candy, not because of the minute fear of intentional poison, but just the yuck factor of not knowing where it’s been or what it’s touched. Also, at least with my kids, half the fun is getting to rip off the wrapper!
i dont let them eat candy if it is made at home people are crazy