My Rules of Trick-or Treating

As we walked the neighborhood with our two youngest on Saturday night (Sofia was at a friend's house) I reflected on Halloween and what I like about it and don't like about it.

First, I was bothered at how few houses in our neighborhood were giving out candy. Granted, we were one of them. We decided to walk the neighborhood as a family instead of someone staying back to hand out the goods. So for the first time in many years, we turned our porch lights off and locked up.

I must admit, I have a romanticized ideal of a Halloween-friendly neighborhood: almost every house would have their porch light on, and young children could happily walk from house to house, modeling their costumes and receiving a small treat. About every other house would have some kind of all-out decorations, the kind with strobe lights and fog machines. And children would travel in great flocks with clusters of parents following behind to supervise. When the youngest ones got tired, the family would head home and call it a night. That's my ideal.

My neighborhood is nice. The houses are beautiful and the neighborhood is clean and landscaped well. The houses are close enough to be perfect for trick-or-treating. Yet there were massive chunks of neighborhood with no lights on. What gives? There are many reasons why people choose not to participate, and some of them I witnessed Saturday night. I saw first-hand reminders of why the ideal Halloween night doesn't exist, and maybe never did.

Here's some of the behaviors that give trick-or-treating a bad name:

1. Kids that are too old. What age should one stop trick-or-treating? I personally think kids should follow a natural progression rather than an arbitrary cut-off. For example, when you're old enough to go to Halloween parties with friends, you're done trick-or-treating. That's generally around the beginning of high school. Once you're at that stage, it's fine to dress up and help your little brothers or sisters trick-or-treat, but no candy bag for you, teenager. There will always be plenty of candy from other sources. You can get your sugar fix without embarrassing yourself by trick-or-treating too old. Here's another rule of thumb: if your costume has the word "sexy" in it (sexy nurse, sexy milkmaid, sexy witch) you are too old to trick-or-treat!

Sexy nun? Yeah, you're cute, but don't ask me for candy.

Regardless, we always see a few kids who are obviously high school age (or, gulp, older) running around the neighborhood with bags of loot. And often they're hardly even dressed up. Which leads to my second point.

2. Lazy costuming. My mom never liked trick-or-treating because she saw it as begging. I disagree. I see it as a cultural activity that has evolved into a mutual give-and-take. The homes that choose to participate (signified by leaving the porch light on or having a few decorations) invite little ones to come by in costume. In return, the kids receive a treat. Though the phrase "trick or treat" connotes a negative consequence to not giving a treat, this has become moot over the years. Very few actually play a trick, mean or otherwise, if the house does not have a treat to offer. If the light is off, the house gets skipped. If the house runs out of candy, no harm, no foul. You move on to the next one. Some people forget the give-and-take part of the equation and think that walking around with a bag is sufficient. Or the costume is so lame or hastily scraped together that it's pathetic. Yet most candy-givers don't refuse to give candy to these un-costumed frauds because they fear retaliation. If anyone would tear up your shrubs or key your car because you refused to give them candy, it would be the 16 year old in the throwback Raiders jersey and the Scream mask. When people get fed up with this nonsense, they opt out.

3. The automotive escort. Unless you are handicapped and there is no one else to supervise your kids, get out of the damned car and walk the neighborhood with your kids. Saturday night, the biggest worry I had was if my exuberant children were going to run across a street not paying attention to the SUV slowly following it's trick-or-treaters. It's anti-social. It's lazy. And unfortunately, it's so American. From the country where people drive around a parking lot for 10 minutes to find a spot that's 50 feet closer to the store comes the practice of driving our kids house to house. To get free candy. Yes, it's gotten that bad. It was crazy how many cars there were in our neighborhood Saturday night. Not normal traffic, but people driving their kids to the houses with lights. Exceptions to the rule: strollers are fine, as are wagons for the very wee ones. But using a car or truck to facilitate a larger amount of candy at the expense of a little exercise is absurd. And what message does it teach our kids?

I thought I had a longer list, but it's really those 3 things that bug me about the current state of trick-or-treating in America. When I was a kid, the big rules were things like "carry a flashlight" and "don't eat things that aren't wrapped." But my rules are different: know when you're too old, have the decency to put a little bit of time and creativity into your costume, and walk, don't ride.

Three steps that would get us closer to the ideal Halloween night.