Posted on 10/31/2009 3:54:02 PM PDT by sharkhawk
When did kids stop saying thank you for all the candy they're getting. I am running about 1 in 4 of the kids saying thank you, and I am not talking about the little ones either. Only about half are even saying trick or treat. I also saw some parents following the kids in their car, and I am on a small circle street. Are they just too lazy to walk with the kids?
Seems like earlier in the evening you get the kids dressed like kittens, bunnies, Bob the Builder, etc.....the evening progresses to Hannah Montana, and Harry Potter.........until you get the older kids with missing limbs or hatchets stuck in their skulls.
We live on a small farm, and the houses are not very close together. The parents hook up wagons to ATVs and drive the kids around in a caravan. Kind of like a hayride for junior panhandlers!
So far, every child has said “thank you.”
However, we also give out little plastic toys with the candy since those “fun size” candies are pretty lame...they really seem to like the toys. Especially the “stretchable rats.”
I just had a gang of zombies (parents and kids). They appreciated the marshmallow brains we’re giving out!
My 3-year-old is bouncing around shouting, “I ate my brain!”
“I just had one - a girl about 12 or 13 - she just talkd on her cellphone and held out her bag.”
I hope you didn’t give her anything.
I don’t get excited if they don’t say thanks or trick or treat. I just enjoy having them come by.
Brains are good for zombies, right? I never saw “Night of the Living Dead” but seems that’s what someone told me the movie was about. If so, good job..........I’m sure my brains are similar to marshmellows. :)
Ask their parents!
I don’t have any singing skeletons but Pirate Pete is laying in the flower garden missing an eyeball and his poor ol heart is blinking thru his ribs. We also do the cobwebs on the porch and some little boy asked me if they were for real. I told him yeah and then his big sister butted in and said they were fake. LOL
I’ve heard most of the kids either say thank you or just be too excited to remember to say it (the little ones). We live in a neighborhood with lots of young families and most people sit out in their front porches or yards to give out candy. About 20 houses had “honor bowls” and those still had candy left at 7:30 tonight. Nobody stole the whole bowl... Trick or treating ends at 8 here, by custom and by police safety recommendation.
In the different places I have lived, it seems the ones with a higher percentage of families who have been American for longer seem to overall know the “rules” of Halloween a lot better. New immigrants and newish immigrant-descended families just haven’t been socialized into properly, so if that’s the bulk of the neighborhood they just don’t know or don’t care what to do. In one neighborhood almost NONE of the people even said trick or treat, and GROWN MEN were trick or treating without even having costumes on. I would answer the door and they would wave their pillow cases at me with a scowl on their faces. It was so weird. And then you just have the bratty kids with absent parents.
My son is two, and I said “thank you” for him most of the time. He mostly whispered “trick or treat” and then yelled “ThankYouByeGoodNight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!” after he got his candy.
I think the earlier trick or treating hours came about so that kids are going when there’s more light. Less chance of being hit by a car that way.
We had very few trick-or-treaters tonight. But we did have a fully adult (the man had a 5 o’clock shadow and a large bald spot) couple come through. That was weird.
:)
I had about 125 kids. Most of them students, although I did see some kids I did not recognize.
Most said thank-you.
I did have one group that came twice, they were older people too, I dont even think they were teenagers.
Proud to say that the majority of parents were with the kiddies tonight and each reinforced the “Say thankyou” at the end of treat distribution.
There were those who followed the traditional route of walking from house to house. In the last few years parents have gotten together and hauled the kids on the back of a hay trucks pulled by tractors. Makes for lots of fun for the kids, a hay ride and trick or treat.
sw
Zombies’ eating brains is a pop-culture trope, but I don’t know the source. I haven’t seen “Night of the Living Dead,” either.
I gave up on Holloween about 20 years ago. None of the kids that came to my door said trick or treat, or thank you. Some of them didn’t even have costumes.
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