I’ve realized there are a lot of people with a lot of strong opinions about Halloween. And most of them (or at least the loud ones) believe that Trick or Treating should always be on October 31st, after dark, regardless of the weather. It could be a hurricane, tornado, ten feet of snow, and they expect children to put on their costumes and ring their bells. The thought of moving it to a Saturday when parents don’t have to work and cars don’t need to be on the road is the dumbest idea anyone has ever had.
Maybe because my Saturdays usually aren’t that busy, or maybe because I have an hour commute home and actually had to take time off of work to make sure I could be all the places I wanted to be on Halloween, but I would LOVE Saturday Trick or Treating. In fact, I’d love it from 3- 5:00 in the evenings if you’re asking.
Which is probably why I’m already making plans for next year around this new thing I’ve discovered. I’m pretty sure they didn’t exist when I was younger, or at least not where I lived, but Trunk or Treating is for me. It’s during the day, it’s all contained in one place, it’s easy, it’s fun. It’s way better than Halloween Trick or Treating.
We managed to get one in this year, but we weren’t really prepared and it took us a while to catch on. But next year? We’re doing this. We’re bringing friends. I’m already excited.
It’s not that we didn’t Trick or Treat this year, although for a while I debated skipping it. It had been raining for days, and the forecast wasn’t looking good. But at the last minute, everything seemed to clear up. Our Halloween parade was outside, and suddenly it seemed like Trick or Treating would be okay too. I wasn’t too crazy though, and I sent baby G home with Tom.
I realize that E went trick or treating when he was younger than baby G is now, but that year, Trick or Treating was on the weekend! (Rescheduled due to a storm - imagine that!). Still, I didn’t really feel like my arms could manage carrying him around all night, so I did a solo trip with E to visit our best friends.
Honestly they would have been fine with just playing with each other all night, but they eventually came around to the trick or treating. E wasn’t great at saying Trick or Treat or Thank You, but he did say “HO HO HO” a bunch. His friend was really good at knocking on doors, and he was great at grabbing the orange candy. Which works out great for me because we found out he doesn’t like Reece’s products, but I do!
It’s been fun watching him explore candy this year. We decided to let him go nuts and not really put any restrictions on it this year. Yes it’s early, but we decided to see what would happen. There wasn’t THAT much candy, especially after we took out everything that might be considered a choking hazard or overkill. (I’m sorry, he doesn’t need a full sized candy bar as much as I do haha). Most things he would take a bite of, or even just look at, and declare it “ucky.” Twix, Kit Kat, Reece’s.
We weren’t great at predicting what he would like. M&Ms were an easy favorite, but he also liked the Hershey’s Dark chocolate we didn’t think he’d like, but turned away from the Crunch bar. He passed on the Cheese Puffs and Rice Crispies, but liked the sour patch kids. As bad as we were at guessing, it was fun to watch.
As for baby G, he remained mostly confused around Halloween, but as always came along and seemed to have fun with whatever we did. We messed up with the parade though. Instead of just waiting until we saw him outside, we poked our heads in to say hi and see how everything was going. At which point he realized we were there, and not holding him, and melted. So Tom ended up carrying him through the parade, which is fine because this was E’s third year in the parade and first marching without one of us. (Well at least until he saw me, and then he made me march with him).
So overall I think it was a great day. E still asks to wear his costume, and G was only a little confused. And I’m already excited for next year!
