![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Notes on Halloween in the new neighborhood
Nov. 1st, 2014 10:50 am- Trick or treating starts early around here. Begins around 4 and then peters out by 8.
- Holy mackerel, the neighbors weren't kidding. Every family in the city must hit our neighborhood. (We're one of the few relatively affluent areas who are mostly single-owner or small brownstones instead of big apartment complexes.) We didn't start handing out candy until 5:30 and we killed 10 bags. We ended up with like three peppermint patties, four or five Twizzlers, and some random stuff that ARR had picked up when I finally called it.
- Kids don't ring doorbells in our neighborhood. The way it works is if you're handing out candy, you sit on the stoop with your bowl. It's a really convenient system, actually--no one without candy gets bothered, kids don't waste their time on places without candy, and the flow is so dense you're basically handing out continuously until suddenly there are no kids. You'd never leave your door, so why bother going inside at all? Also, it's really fun and community-feeling--everyone is sitting on their stoops chatting.
- Highlights: one group of friends had set up a table and were handing out candy to the kids and the guy's homemade wine to adults. It was pretty good. All of the merchants also hand out candy, so you can hit all the stores on the way home. The artisinal liquor store was handing out candy and beer. There was a street fair on one of the main drags, with facepainting and balloons and a DJ and hay bales with pumpkins strategically positioned every 15 feet for photo ops. Our next door neighbor went totally nuts, had a fog machine, and hid behind his bush wearing an elaborate mask with a knife through his head. He would emerge all zombie-like to hand out candy and grab people. Scared the crap out of a bunch of toddlers and several teenagers. He insists it's all his kids' doing, really. Uh huh. You keep telling yourself that, dude.
Basically, our neighborhood goes nuts for Halloween. Elaborate decorations and pumpkins everywhere, kids can totally clean up, and so everyone comes to us. It was awesome.
Pictures to follow.
- Holy mackerel, the neighbors weren't kidding. Every family in the city must hit our neighborhood. (We're one of the few relatively affluent areas who are mostly single-owner or small brownstones instead of big apartment complexes.) We didn't start handing out candy until 5:30 and we killed 10 bags. We ended up with like three peppermint patties, four or five Twizzlers, and some random stuff that ARR had picked up when I finally called it.
- Kids don't ring doorbells in our neighborhood. The way it works is if you're handing out candy, you sit on the stoop with your bowl. It's a really convenient system, actually--no one without candy gets bothered, kids don't waste their time on places without candy, and the flow is so dense you're basically handing out continuously until suddenly there are no kids. You'd never leave your door, so why bother going inside at all? Also, it's really fun and community-feeling--everyone is sitting on their stoops chatting.
- Highlights: one group of friends had set up a table and were handing out candy to the kids and the guy's homemade wine to adults. It was pretty good. All of the merchants also hand out candy, so you can hit all the stores on the way home. The artisinal liquor store was handing out candy and beer. There was a street fair on one of the main drags, with facepainting and balloons and a DJ and hay bales with pumpkins strategically positioned every 15 feet for photo ops. Our next door neighbor went totally nuts, had a fog machine, and hid behind his bush wearing an elaborate mask with a knife through his head. He would emerge all zombie-like to hand out candy and grab people. Scared the crap out of a bunch of toddlers and several teenagers. He insists it's all his kids' doing, really. Uh huh. You keep telling yourself that, dude.
Basically, our neighborhood goes nuts for Halloween. Elaborate decorations and pumpkins everywhere, kids can totally clean up, and so everyone comes to us. It was awesome.
Pictures to follow.
