Knock Knock - Trick or Treat! What do you do?

We always tend to buy some sweets just in case, as we tend to get a few kids knocking on the door. Although the number does seem to be declining from year to year.
 
Malevolence said:
Where do you live, some Dickension utopia? Around here carol singers are nowt but groups of swarthy looking youths who scream/shout the first line of a carol and then hold their hands out for cash.
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Switch your sarcasm detector to passive mode...
Besides, I always felt the Dickensian side was more dystopian, myself. Most places I lived, you only went carolling if you could sing and were into charity work. Everyone else would call such practices gay, and get on with going round nicking cars!

Blackjack Davy said:
Not in this part of it it isn't. Ireland perhaps and maybe scotland, but its an introduced custom everywhere else at least in its current form. It certainly wasn't a thing round here when i were a lad!
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It were a thing in Wolver'ampton when my dad were a lad, Norfolk when my grandfather was a boy, Yorkshire in the days before my dad in law went off to university, and definitely London/home countries when I was a kid....
Only difference nowadays is the level of commercialism and the selling of much more tat, but everything else has gone that way too. It's not exclusive to either Halloween or America.
 
We generally give the kids some small amount of coins ($3.50 aud) and a little bag of a mix of candies and a small chocolate bar each. Typically we make up 20 to be on the safe side but only end up having to give about a dozen.
 
I'll be giving them some of my japanese hojicha flavoured kit kats. Oh how they will be fooled into thinking they're getting ordinary kit kats and then go to eat them and they're tea flavoured!
 
ttaskmaster said:
Like, I know, right?
It's no different to those carollers knocking your door at Christmas, wishing you well and singing for a bit of cash in their charity box... or the bloody Salvation Army playing Christmas music in the high street, when we just want to get our shopping done...
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Yeah, no different at all. It's well known that charity is all a con and in fact all the money goes to the people with the boxes and of course all charity workers threaten harm to you if you don't pay them. So it's no different at all!

Yes, I am aware that the threats are usually empty and it's usually just play extortion. That doesn't make it a good framework for begging.
 
Angilion said:
Yeah, no different at all. It's well known that charity is all a con and in fact all the money goes to the people with the boxes and of course all charity workers threaten harm to you if you don't pay them. So it's no different at all!
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It could be argued that charities imply harm, by way of all the bad things that will happen if you don't give 'just £2/3/5 a month', which they suggest will be on your head.
But again, tweak your sarcasm detector...

Angilion said:
Yes, I am aware that the threats are usually empty and it's usually just play extortion. That doesn't make it a good framework for begging.
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But it does give the children a firm start in practices that will later benefit them if they get into the banking, insurance, or parking fine industries... to name but a few!
 
Just pulled on the drive from work to find a woman and 2 kids standing next to my door. Driveway empty. No lights on. Blinds open. Clearly nobody in.
 
Damn these kids tonight are annoying. Some just bang as loud as they can, some bang multiple times before moving on... I'll be happy when tonight ends.

On the rare occasion we did do this as kids, we only ever visited people we know and not every neighbour on the street.
 
noizeuk said:
I don't know if it's just me, maybe I am a bore... but when trick or treaters knock on the door, I treat them the same was as a Jehovas Witness. That is to say, I make sure I stay completely still, make sure no shadows cast on the blinds and live in fear that they might catch me being alive.. in my own house.


What do you do? Is it purely an American thing? Am I being awkward? Does having kids factor into the fun. Hell, as I have no kids, is it creepy to get involved?

I am tres conflicted.
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We have some sweets . Kids who come here are normally under 10 with parents I am ok with them. When I was at uni living in rough part of Manchester having teens knocking was a bit more nervy. My house mate was a maniac and when one scally threatened a trick he pulled a carving knife out on him.
My car got egged and flourbombed once for not opening the door

Worst thing was we had all the sweets but we're watching a movie and didn't hear the door
 
We're up to 37 (usually in pairs, 3 groups of 5+) and I'm at the end of the ready bags, and nearly at the end of some of the "just in case" components for the bags:)
If we get more than another couple I'm going to just hold out the really useful box and say take a handful:)

It's quite nice seeing the kids all dressed up, and I didn't recognise my neighbours kid at first as she was in a great witch outfit (I think it's the first year she's been old enough to do it properly), and the oldest might have been 10 or 12 at a guess.

My niece was around for a while earlier (she's in primary school), and had fun watching the front camera and handing out some of the sweets.

I'll take the lights down and bring the cauldron and skeleton inside in about 20-30 minutes (we've only had one kid in the last 30 minutes).
 
We've had a nice mix of the usual kids in costumes escorted by parents and a group of about 30 teenagers from God only knows where (don't tend to see many locally) being chased by the police pushing bins into the road.
 
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