So the thing about the lady giving cruel notes in lieu of candy has gone pretty viral, and I have seen a decouple posts about it on here, so I assume most of you know about it...
Apparently, last night my nephew and several other friends' children in my hometown's neighborhood received chocolate-flavored LAXATIVES in their trick-or-treat bags! Seriously? Who DOES that? Luckily, my brother checks all candy before allowing his children to eat any, so his kids didn't eat any... But I imagine that there were quite a few unfortunate kids who DID eat them.
Also, a friend of mine living in yet another state posted on Facebook that someone had given out bags of candy that had dead cockroaches and maggots in them! Disgusting!
This really upsets me. Growing up I LOVED being able to trick-or-treat door to door. This year was out first year taking my daughter trick or treating, instead of just hitting up the local block party... I think it's GREAT that communities organize trunk-or-treats, and other safe alternatives to going door to door, but I find the need for them to be quite sad.
So, for the question... Was your trick-or-treat experience this year good? Personally, mine was great... The neighborhood we went to is the local destination for door to door, and the residents were very much in the spirit. I would like to hear SOME good stories to restore my faith in humanity a bit, since most of the people I know had such negative experiences... Or to know if things are really getting so bad in general.
These things happened to people I know personally, not just random things I read online... Also, we trick or treat in a different neighborhood, because no one stays home in our town. We have a giant block party that draws thousands of people; so one neighborhood decided to have a place where kids could stil do traditional trick or treating... Although they took it to the next level by having very extravagant decorations, entertainment, etc. at each house. It was great! :)
Stop paying attention to internet garbage, pretty much everyone's Halloween was just fine, and happy!
I hope all of these parents reported these incidents to the police! None of these are legal behaviors. The public needs to be aware and these perpetrators prosecuted.
What a shame that some people can be so cruel.
I am in a very old house (new to me)...so we were NOT sure what to expect in terms of # of trick or treat etc.
We had a very lovely experience here. The trick or treaters were respectful, and many asked to take pictures in front of this home...with our HUGE oak trees, falling leaves, and a few decorations.
At about 9 pm...things had slowed down. I needed to get daughter in bed...so we posted a sign, on our basket of treats, asking each to take 'one or two'. I checked back at 10 pm...and still had some treats left in the basket.
All in all, a very nice first Halloween in 'my' neck of the woods.
Hope this helps!
best
We had several cute kids come by. I stayed home to pass out candy; a couple of bigger kids came out, too, in awesome costumes. Kiddo came home with quite a bit of candy, but honestly, I think he enjoyed the decorations and walking with the neighbors even more.
Our neighborhood is mostly home-owners, middle class folk. We don't have the time, inclination or resources to waste money pranking!
I'm confused. "The neighborhood we went to..."? Do you not trick or treat in your own neighborhood?
We stay in out neighborhood. (Never understood going to anywhere else.)
Never have I had a bad Halloween experience in my life (49 years) nor has my son (10 years).
I've never met anyone in person that had had anything like that happen.
We dashed out while it was sprinkling rather than pouring rain. One house said, "Here, we won't even make you say trick or treat before we give you some candy." :) We drove to some close friends' homes rather than walk as we usually do, and they were ecstatic to see us; they thought the rain would prevent us from coming. Then we went to have dinner with friends and then trick or treat in their neighborhood. Neighbors enjoyed seeing the kids, maybe even more than usual given the weather. Perhaps not enough Kit Kats to satisfy DH, but all in all, a wonderful night.
I don't see any negative reports on CNN, and that site typically would have stories like that if available. I wonder if these are urban legends being repeated.
We had a lovely night with wonderful neighbors and friendly families. Our kids went to at least 25 houses and we had no problems at all. The decorations were amazing, the candy was plentiful and safe. The other kids were kind and polite. It was a good time. We enjoyed seeing all of our neighbors and got to see a few teachers from my kids' school. They were like celebrities to the kids. hehe.
Unless it happened to someone you actually know personally, and not some story that someone you know read about someone else, don't believe it. These stories are talked about every year. Very few are actually true.
I recently read a headline of "razor blade in candy" - that was the HEADLINE. The ARTICLE said that it turned out to be a broken kid's pencil sharpener.
The worst that happened to us was that Mother Nature turned on the faucet and it started to rain. Not heavily, but enough. And the kids (8 and under) started dragging after about an hour and by the time we got back to the house, they were all very tired.
No questionable candy found yet. No maggots. No notes. Someone posted on their door that they simply didn't celebrate. So we just moved on. I felt that was a MUCH better way to deal with it than being mean.
Every Halloween since I was a little girl ~back in the dark ages~ has always had it's razor blade in the apple scare. That's just the way it is.
Part of why Halloween is so fun is the risk. And that is why all responsible parents have their kids dump their candy bag and sort it before eating any of it.
Humans are a strange and sometimes evil species.
It's good to keep your armor on.
Eph 6:10-17
it's so sad-I grew up in an area where when you went to Florida for two weeks, you didn't even lock the front door!
there are messed up people everywhere.
I don't get how they got the laxatives in there...my kids don't eat any unwrapped candy. They know that their dad and I go through it first.
Our Halloween was okay. We only had a dozen kids...it's sad - we live at the end of a cul-de-sac and the people at the top of the street - don't celebrate - so it's dark...we'll get there...
you know...these stories are not new. I'm 51 & I remember BAD stories from my childhood. Right down to the hospitals xraying candy to check for razor blades.
Soooo, yes, it was a good Halloween. Living in mid MO, we had rain in the forecast. I had decided not to open my bags of candy until I could determine what to expect. I thought the local Trunk-r-Treats would be more popular.
Instead we had a bumper crop of trick-or-treaters! Ran out of candy & had to close down before 8pm! & according to the PTO's FB announcement, they had over 1000 kids attend the Trunk-r-Treat! Wow!
Great turnout all around....great costumes....& great kids!
We had a great time...our neighborhood is awesome...we had to go home after three streets because my kids had so much candy the cord on my son's pumpkin basket snapped from the weight.
Almost all houses gave out the good chocolate kinds of candy and multiple pieces...only had to pitch a few unsealed pieces...
It was really fun we went with four other groups of kids/parents from our school and someone in the group almost always knew the neighbor at each house.
Great fun and exhausting...can't wait to do it again next year!!
I give out pencils. I stopped giving out candy years ago.
We didn't have any of that here. I stayed home to hand out candy to some of the cutest trick or treaters! Loved all the kids' costumes and they were polite and looked like they were having fun despite the drizzle. My oldest (15) took her sister (12) and a friend around the neighborhood. They all were dressed up. My neighbor took my youngest (11) with a bunch of girls around our neighborhood and then to another part of town.
Last trick or treater came at 7:30pm, because the rain really started to fall. The girls came home soon after.
My kids sorted their own candy and threw away anything that was questionable. There were a few things, but just stuff that seemed to have been opened, but probably wasn't. Best to err on the side of caution. Still have plenty left over.
And I totally agree with AngieO.
Did your brother report that to the police? That would be a criminal act if true.
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/halloween/a/Is-Halloween...
I'll say the same thing I said in the other post complaining about what kids were getting in their bags....this is the "trick" part of "trick-or-treat."
For some folks, it's about the silly pranks they can play.
Here is a happy story for you...a couple neighborhoods down from ours there was one man this year who gave each child TWO full size Godiva chocolate bars. He laid them all out on a silver platter! I love it. I wonder how much he spent for halloween candy. He ended up getting a line for his house...everyone was very excited. :)
This was our 4th year trick-or-treating with our daughter in our neighborhood and everything went fine - nothing weird in her candy bag and growing up, my brother and I never got anything weird either (my parents always insisted on checking the candy before we got to eat any of it and we do the same thing).
It's too bad that there are some nuts that try to ruin the holiday for everyone else, especially innocent kids, so it pays to be careful, but overall, I think the incidents are pretty rare compared to how many people have no issues at all. Like someone else said, with the candy bags that contained maggots and dead roaches, I would wonder how old that candy actually was - sometimes you have mentally ill people giving out whatever and they don't mean to hurt anyone.
Growing up we had one old lady in one house who always made fudge and handed it out on a platter - it was not wrapped or anything. We felt like we had no choice but to take a chance and eat it on the spot - there was no way to carry it and it felt rude to refuse it. I suppose it could have been the perfect vehicle for something bad but nothing ever happened. I think she just never thought about how such a thing would be perceived.
awesome experience. In the past there have been a few interesting drops in our bags.
One was a sealed bag of nails, and another was a brand new lock and key set. It was obviously someone that was either out of candy or an elderly folk that was giving things away.
I always go with, and after about 3 or 4 house I dump buckets into a universal bag so I can see what is going on.
If there was anything unusual I would know roughly the area that they would have picked it up. I check all candies and bags. If I found anything remotely disgusting I will use it as a tool to teach my kids never to be like that and hate is a very useless weapon.
