It’s Halloween!
And it’s also holiday season because obviously Halloween has no strength as a barrier between “apple cider/pumpkin spice” and “HOLY CRAP HOLIDAY CHRISTMAS JINGLE TINSEL RAH RAH RAH.”
Every year, my neighbors sit around a fire pit on Halloween and greet the neighborhood kids so they don’t have to go up and down all our steps (and alarm my dogs who, for the record, think Halloween is absolutely the Worst).
We have themed wine glasses. We share the cost of the giant Costco bags of candy. We sit around for a few hours and drink, eat chocolate, and vent. It’s one of my favorite holidays. I’m even making a quilt for Halloween so I have enough for everyone if it’s really cold on Monday night.
The challenge here (for me, at least) is to Not Eat All the Candy before I hand it out to all the local kids who learn, for one night, what it’s like to be a postal carrier.
If we’ve procured a mixed bag of chocolate candy, I go for 100 Grand bars, but there aren’t usually very many in the assortments. There’s usually a freaking ton of Snickers (eh) and fewer KitKats (fine) and a few Almond Joy (No. Coconut tastes like candle wax!) but for me 100 Grand are the very best ones. I’m very happy to nosh on puffed rice and chocolate in any form, especially with caramel. Whatchamacallit, Take 5, Nestle Crunch: all good.
For one of my neighbors, Halloween is a big PFFT in terms of candy choices. She lives for Easter, because Cadbury creme eggs are her absolute favorite. So she eats hardly any candy at Halloween.
What about you? What’s your Halloween candy of choice? Do you have plans coming up, or things you’re workin on?
Hayadoin over there?
Your Halloween sounds absolutely delightful, Sarah, and I agree with you about 1000 Grand – and caramel in general.
We have kids in our neighborhood, but I never get trick-or-treaters, so every year I debate about buying candy, knowing I’ll be home alone with it. And it’s no use taking it in to work the next day, when other people are also trying to share what they didn’t give away.
I’ll take the Almond Joys. We don’t do Halloween. Low population density, no sidewalks, no streetlights in my my neighborhood. And this time of year, the bears are out dumpster diving every night. (I can just see the bears showing up at the door going Trick or Treat.) But some of our neighbors go all out on the decorations. There are some really cool laser light displays.
I’ve had a couple of Costco bags of cand in the basement since Sept but now I’m worried I won’t have enough… and it’s in the basement because out of sight out of mind and I won’t eat it. I will sit out front and spin and hand out candy if it’s not cold but it’s forecast to snow so… who knows. I live in a “kid costumes must fit over snowsuit” region, nothing like a fairy Princess with clunky snow-boots 🙂
Add me to your Anti-Coconut Club, Sarah. Coconut is, in a word, vile. (And I don’t care what people say about coconut milk ice cream – no matter what you put in it, it still tastes like coconut. Gross.)
I don’t participate in the Halloween of it all, but as a public librarian, I do buy a couple of bags to give out to the kids and teens at work.
I found that Hershey’s makes a Special Dark mini with rice crispies in it and I’m a fan. Just sign me up for dark chocolate in general, but especially if it is by itself in chocolately perfection.
Ugh, coconut! I’m with Linus. Why would you want to eat something that tastes like Coppertone SPF 2?
https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/1963/12/08
My favorites used to be Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups, Reece’s Pieces, 3 Musketeers, Milky Ways, and M&Ms. Extra bonus points for dark chocolate. Now, my tastes are so frou-frou, I get the fancy dark chocolate. I rarely buy candy because I so rarely get kids, but usually pick up some chocolate granola bars that I’ll eat even if no one shows, just in case.
I don’t eat candy, and I turn the lights off. We hardly get any kids in the neighborhood anyway; there’s an area of shops near(ish)by that’s a lot easier than walking the neighborhood. Such a relief! No way to spare them the stairs and there were always tiny kids sent up who could barely manage the last one, and while a lot of the little kids were cute some of the older ones were: loud, demanding, and really bad smelling. I don’t know why. I guess their parents can’t smell it anymore?
It’s fantastic no longer having to worry about banging at the door startling the animals and humans alike all evening, no longer wasting money on unhealthy and environmentally disastrous cheap crap/candy. No I can enjoy Halloween for the first time in years, b/c for me it DOES provide a wall, however thin, against the winter holiday creep. I have to walk *to* the Christmas section in stores, it’s not in my face, and the music isn’t carols yet. I see more Halloweeny ambiances on my youtube suggestions than the other thing…and even if the yard skeletons are ungly af, they’re not Santa.
I live on a street that is a Halloween Destination. I dunno how it got started, but great vanloads of people come in every year; they even close off portions of the road to vehicle traffic because it’s so thick with pedestrians. We sometimes participate and sometimes don’t. The last time we did it (pre-pandemic) we had about 1,000 people, and we’re on the quiet end of the street. Not doing in this year because I have to work, but the only solution is to invite lots of friends and tell them a large bag of candy is the price of admission to the party.
Y’all can send me your coconut candy, I live for it! What is it about coconut that inspires this love-hate relationship? Otherwise my favorites are the peppermint patties.
I accidentally introduced my 80 year old mother to 100 Grand bars a couple of years ago and she went crazy for them. The fact that you can only get the bags of mini bars at this time of year sends her into hoarding mode every year like a little fall squirrel. Luckily for her and her not so great teeth she won’t eat more than one a day. But it’s sort of hilarious to watch the annual ritual of her picking up one or two bags every time I take her out then try to smuggle them into the house and to her hiding spot without dad noticing.
*chews on coconut pecan brownie* I love texture. Gimme the coconut, all the crisped rice and rice wafers smothered in chocolate, THE TWIX. I have eaten so much objectively bad chocolate because it contained crispy/crunchy/chewy.
I’m too far in the boonies for trick or treaters, but I love the neighborhood candy hub idea. I haven’t lived in anything resembling a community for a long time, and stuff like that makes me (a supreme introvert) miss it.
I usually go for mixes with Milkyways in them, preferably Milkyway Dark, for the leftovers. Not my favorite candy, but definitely my favorite fun sized one.
Alas, I haven’t given out candy the last couple of years and won’t this year, because I fall into the high risk category. 🙁
Fancy chocolate only for me and my kid (now teen). Insert joke about high maintenance girls but also we have allergies and sensory issues to consider. Aero chocolate from the UK has been a big hit this year.
Halloween season is fun with the spooky/cute arts and crafts, but the actual day feels exhausting. It’s a lot of walking and people interaction. Wish we could all get a day off work/school to recover.
Here’s hoping you all get to enjoy some part of the holiday in the way that makes sense for you.
Back before the pandemic, there was some trick-or-treating in our neighborhood but it always took place before dark (South L.A., dense urban area, lots of fast-moving traffic) so I wasn’t at home for it – by the time I got home from work it was all over. Then that all stopped. No real expectation of resumption this year. Thus, Halloween for us is very much just another work night. Our big plan is to sit and watch Dancing with the Stars. 🙂
I love Take 5 bars, Twix, Paydays, and almond Snickers.
Our neighborhood used to get tons of trick or treaters, as did the neighborhood next to us–it’s easy to loop through one and then the other, and my kids would unload their treat bags in between loops. However, now that most of the kids in the neighborhoods are grown because we don’t get as many trick or treaters as we used to. Still a decent amount, but not a constant stream.
A couple of years ago I was buying bags of fun-size candy, did some math, and realized it’s cheaper to get boxes of full-size bars. This has made my house super popular, as more than one kid has yelled “they have the big candy bars again!” while at my house. I have also learned that kids don’t like Three Musketeers bars (neither does my husband–he wants me to hand those out first while he’s hiding the Twix). I also buy a box of small bags of chips and hand those out if I run out of candy bars. If I have candy or chips leftover my husband takes them in his lunch.
My next door neighbor and I have had the tradition for years that her kids come to my house first and then again on their way home–my kids used to do this at her house too.
I (unfortunately) live in a “destination” neighborhood, where we get carloads of kids 🙁 I’m pretty neutral on Halloween, neither a big fan nor a grinch, but I have to say that I get pretty tired of answering the door after the third hour . . . The last year we gave out candy we had over 300 kids come to the door. Not as bad as @harthad though! I should count my blessings 😉
When my husband was alive he was very big on Halloween. He would start to plan in the summer and would only start to put up the decorations on Halloween morning so none of the neighborhood kids would see the finished layout when they came by on the school bus and wouldn’t know what to expect. Gravestones, skeletons, caution tape, fog machine, motion-sensing talking pumpkin, the works. We would alternate each year, one of us would take the kids out door to door while the other would stay home and scare trick-or-treaters. We were officially the Scariest House In The Neighborhood. People would cross the street to AVOID our house. We have had kids dragged kicking and screaming to our door by their parents. We have had parents leave their kids on our porch and run away screaming. One little boy would not let his parents drive past our house for the rest of the year. We even scared the blase no-costume teenagers. It was a blast.
Now we live at the end of a dead-end street (ha) and all our neighbors are Hispanic so they’re having Dia de los Muertos parties instead of going door-to-door, so we usually go to a movie that night. (Special screening of Spirited Away this year!!) As for candy, give me anything dark chocolate, although I am really digging the new special edition KitKat flavors. Still not as good as the Japanese flavors, but they’re making an effort.
I could eat peppermint Pattie’s every single day. Mint and chocolate just works. For the kiddies , I get whatever Costco is selling .
It’s funny how coconut is either really loved or really hated. Kind of like cilantro.
HEY EVERYONE ELLIE’S HOUSE HAS FULL SIZE BARS!
@MelMc: the image of your mom hoarding 100 Grand bars and sneaking them past your dad is giving me such delight. Happy 100 Grand season to your mom!
We live in a rural area, so never have to think about trick-or-treaters. The last few years (since the pandemic, basically) we go hang out at a friend’s house. My teen and one of their teens play video games, or we all play board games. We have pizza and candy. I might bake a pie just because we grew all.the.pumpkins. I like either dark chocolate or mint patties. Yum!
I work evenings, so I can only hand out candy when Halloween falls on a weekend. That happened in 2020, and I didn’t think trick-or-treating would still happen in my neighborhood. So I was unprepared, though some of my neighbors had elaborately decorated candy chutes that were truly impressive. I like Kit-Kats, but I have a fairly indiscriminate sweet tooth. And this weekend I’m looking forward to taking a crypt tour of a nearby historic church, which, while not specifically a Halloween activity, feels seasonally appropriate.
@Sandra:
Do you by any chance live in Asheville? The bears eating Halloween candy sounds like our experience. Mom bought Halloween candy for the three of us, but we and visitors have been eating it. We usually don’t get trik or treaters, but I’m kind of wondering what happens if this is the year we do, and there’s no candy. Lol.
My parents Nd I have company coming this weekend, and we’ll be going to see a friend of hours at some kind of haunted house event which should be fun. In addition to that my family is doing our yearly trip to the Renaissance Festival in Charlotte, which will give us plenty of opportunities to dress up. We’re not going until the sixth which is pirate weekend, but since it involves costumes the same way Halloween does, I always fold them together.
Mom and I like coconut, although I like it better in cake than candy. Dad can’t stand it though. I think he had a bad experience with it. My sister, I’m not sure about her.
O, and y’all may know that my mom loves Halloween. My niece knowing this asked her to be the chaperone when she and her friends go trick or treating. My niece and her friends will be doing an Alice in Wonderland theme, while mom will dress up as Medusa which she does every year. She wants to scare kids, but the reactions are sometimes more fascinated than scared.
I have had my townhouse 24 years and have had exactly two trick or treaters. Two. Very depressing, but those two are the reason I make sure there’s a bag of Butterfingers in the house. Maybe #3 will show up this year. Butterfingers were they hand out candy at my house growing up and my big brother and I both carry on the tradition. Little brother has succumbed to his wife’s wiles and passes out Reese’s and Snickers.
And while I wait for my nonexistent trick or treaters, I will be making hot chocolate and watching Charlie Brown because that’s also a tradition.
My faves are 100 Grand, almond Snickers, and Reese’s PB cups. I don’t get many trick or treaters at my place, and I’d rather not answer the door, so I put out a bowl of candy with a sign to take 2 and call it good. Instead of being social all evening after working with the public all day, I hole up in a dark room with something spooky on the TV and ignore everything else.
Past few years I’ve had literally no trick or treaters and was forced–at gunpoint, I tell you–to finish the bags of candy I’d bought all by myself. Moved over the past year and think I might actually have some takers this year! My fav is funsize peanut butter cups, though Mounds/Almond Joy works for me–anything with chocolate, really.
I’ll be working on Halloween-day and am currently attempting to come up with a last-minute costume that will let me keep working comfortably and also still looks like what it’s supposed to be (since I wear personal protective equipment over my outfit)…it’s looking like “funny hat” is the way to go; maybe a cowboy or a pirate. This is clearly the most life-or-death decision anyone has ever faced.
There’s a book coming out from an author I follow on tumblr that I’m dying to tell the Bitchery about, but it’s not even published yet and the suspense is wringing me out like a washcloth. The book is Mrs. Victoria Buys a Brothel, an f/f western romance featuring middle aged heroines, positive depictions of sex work, female friendship, and revenge against abusive husbands. The author is Talhí Briones; her website is on mailchimp and I don’t know how to link it without it getting caught in the spam filter, but it’s mailchi.mp/da10015b7104/mrs-victoria-buys-a-brothel
Even though I live in a neighborhood with kids, there are only 6 homes in my cul de sac, and none with little kids, so no one comes to the door. I stopped buying candy for the neighborhood after buying a lot and being stuck with it several years in a row. The teens and the husband were happy.
I just buy a bag of Reese’s Cups for the husband, KitKats for the last kid at home, and a bag of Snickers for me.
I actually *love* Halloween and trick or treaters… but, because life is strange, my spouse and I separated a few months ago. So all the kids in the townhouse we shared will get no treats, since I moved into an urban one bedroom in Seattle and my spouse kinda doesn’t like kids…
That said I enjoy the day after Halloween and buying up the excess candy bags at Bartells! Hell yeah discount candy!
We typically get 35-85 trick-or-treaters each year. The pause button on the dvr keeps everyone happy, even with constant interruptions. We make sure to get big candy bars we like, so we can enjoy the leftovers throughout the year.
Testing spoiler tagging