Until yesterday we had never been visited by Trick or Treaters. Never, ever. In our previous house we were simply too far off the beaten track for anyone to bother to come. (We didn't get Jehovah's Witnesses either.) And before we'd moved there, the practise was yet to be imported to these shores. Yes, just 13 years ago the idea simply didn't exist. We had apple bobbing and other Halloween activities - but Trick or Treating was an alien concept.
So last night we stocked up on sweets, prepared the high pressure hoses in case we had to fend off the more difficult brigade and waited.
In practice it was almost an anti-climax. We had six visits, all from very polite children under 11 in nice costumes with parents hovering on the pavement - just how Trick or Treat is supposed to be, rather than the teen destruction fest that it seems to be in some places.
I'm not saying it will always be like that. We might have been lucky. But for our first experience, it could have been a lot worse.
Image from Wikipedia
So last night we stocked up on sweets, prepared the high pressure hoses in case we had to fend off the more difficult brigade and waited.
In practice it was almost an anti-climax. We had six visits, all from very polite children under 11 in nice costumes with parents hovering on the pavement - just how Trick or Treat is supposed to be, rather than the teen destruction fest that it seems to be in some places.
I'm not saying it will always be like that. We might have been lucky. But for our first experience, it could have been a lot worse.
Image from Wikipedia
That is so cute. We haven't had any trick or treaters for years, although there are young children living in our lane. I don't know why they don't come out - it's all very low key around here. I've stopped stocking up on sweets, so I don't know what would happen if any did turn up!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what happened this year but, unlike last year, we had only two lots of visitors - Haribo anyone?
ReplyDeleteThe wave of trick or treating must have swept in from the North... my friends and I were going door to door dressed as witches and asking for sweets when I was about 7, so around 1984. Maybe because it was the only day of the year you'd get anything free out of a Yorkshireman!
ReplyDeleteWhat was also fascinating was the degree of decoration of houses. Most had nothing. A few had pumpkins or lanterns. And one or two had gone the whole hog - one house had two full size coffins and few gravestones and the odd ghoul outside (though I think they had a party on).
ReplyDeleteInteresting, Cath, that it was around in Yorkshire earlier - certainly in 1984 there was no sign of it where we lived. You might have a little party with apple bobbing and pumpkin carving, but there was no trick or treating. I think the first time I came across it was in (the movie) ET.