Hey, I posted 2 halloween pictures today only, I'm loving it :P

People take their kids to these "Trunk or Treats" school and Churches host, cause they are paranoid about going door to door.

WHY!!?

Do they really think that 1 in 10 houses is home to some kind of child murderer who's been waiting for fresh meat?

AUGH.

Yea we haven't really had trick or treaters since 9/11. People in NJ and NY have had it the worst. With Sandy and a freak blizzard the year before. There was literally no power for a lot of people.

Welp...

That clinches it.

The terrorists have WON.

They fucking killed Halloween.

Damn shame! After all of the bombs and all the wars, 'murrica still couldn't save Halloween.

I know! It's almost as if throwing missles and bullets DOESN'T solve all of America's problems!

Yeah and then you get stories like the guy that opened up on trick or treaters with an assault rifle.

Who with the what now? When did this happen?

I don't think it matters at this point. You could literally make up any horrible story involving guns or explosives, and people would believe it now.

Sounds pretty made up to me. I'm fairly certain if it happened it would have been everywhere and it would have been this huge, unmissable thing.

bought a bunch of candy. no one came :( when I was kid I use to love this holiday

This holiday has made me really sad to see so few kids about and towns in general moving the date up so it falls on a weekend. It isn't Halloween anymore. There's just no effort ever put into it other than the mild seasonal decor that goes up to remind you it's Halloween. I remember years ago when I was little the neighborhoods would go all out. Even the houses out in the sticks would have some awesome decor and stuff to look at. It was like Christmas, only more creepy and all that.

honestly I think if they have moved the date of the holiday, it might as well lose everything special about it. I mean that move basically makes it not a holiday anymore... Like what if they made Xmas on the 29th instead of the 25th?


Also it doesn't help that everyone is so paranoid that you can't give a compliment without someone thinking there is some malice intent behind the compliment.... I mean what if I really just like how they have their hair?

I'd love to see which candies you bought ^^
but same thing happende to me too

All the kids here go to the malls to trick of treat, we got a total of 4 kids this year

A lot of towns move their trick-or-treat days to weekends, but it could also be the weather. Or it could also be the constant onslaught of Christmas shit already. (I'm not a Scrooge, but I reserve all my Christmas spirit for December!)

I'm not in a good neighborhood to give away candy.
The last time we gave out candy here, gangstas from the hood demanded money and ripped down our decorations.

I live in Nevada. We're a stand your ground state too.

Well, you did better than me. Bought two bags of candy and had.....not....one.....kid!

<:(

We had A LOT of kids this year. Almost went through both of our Costco sized bags of candy! We always gets lots of kids, and this year was no different.

We didn't see any kids at all, and we got all sorts of candy and stuff here too...

Kids could be getting older so most are too old to go T or Ting this year.

never too old to trick and treat.... though mainly if you are on the older side of the age range you tend to be doing more tricks

This is what happened in my neighborhood. I was the youngest of my family, and by the time I was a teenager, we had maybe one or two families in the neighborhood trick or treating.

I wondered why there were no trick or treaters until after a few years it hit me. I was one of the youngest kids I knew in the neighborhood. Very few people moved, and by the time I thought of this, I was 16. It's not like my family would be ready to move for another 4 years anyway. It's not like many of the families in the area had moved. The neighborhood was practically growing up with my friends and I. I mean, it's not like people in an area just pump out kids constantly to refresh the ones growing up. After a while there's a rest period, the next generation comes along, and it's their kids. I wonder if now it's refreshed and there's lots of little kiddies running around again. I wouldn't know, as I've moved far away.

This happened to me. Though this year we've had a bunch of new families move in, all with little chillins. No kids this year though 'cause it fucking poured down rain.

I had a ton, but it's Thursday, a school night.

I remember doing Trick or Treating on school nights. It was the only time of the year your parents let you stay up past midnight. Totally worth the slog through school the next day, and teachers understood that every single kid stayed out waaaaaay past their bed time, so they were easy on us.

don't forget the tummy aches lol

School night, kids getting older, going to the mall instead.

I remember when I was young there were tons of kids. But then the number just slowly dwindled.

No kids here. Haven't been for about 10 years. The entire neighborhood has stopped caring.

Sorry to be the oddball out, but we had a pretty good haul of kids coming to our door. though we are in the neighborhood next to an elementary school.

Didn't even feel like Halloween for me today. Just another blah day. I only saw like 3 kids total. And that was with one parent.

I dunno. I think a small part of the reason is the overly-religious nuts that think it's a Satanic holiday. (No joke, we had people on sidewalks, going on about "Halloween is Satanic, Jesus saves lives!")

Now, before I get someone bitching me out, I don't mean ALL religious people are to blame. Just the ones that carry this too far. One of my best friends is very religious, and she doesn't even think Halloween is Satanic. She knows its origins.

But that, coupled with modernity and malls and other social gatherings (and, a wide misconception that people are 'too mature' to go trick-or-treating...)

It's just depressing. >.<

One of the very few kids who came to my door had an "old man" mask. All wrinkled with a white mustache and balding head, etc.

So I said...

"Aren't you a bit old for this?" ;)

It rained in where I live (in Maryland), that kind of killed it here.

Like Sinister mentioned, malls and other places have been holding bigger events in recent years. Our Outlet mall was jam packed with tons and tons of families and children the night before Halloween, when they held their event. Lotta people do it, door to door just seems to have lost a lot of steam.

officially dead over here :I

Well, I live in an area where Halloween was cancelled the past two years in a row due to Sandy, then that other freak snowstorm the year before that. That might've hurt some kids... maybe.

But me personally, I live on a busy street and only TWO groups of really little kids from a couple houses down came by tonight. We're used to no trick or treaters at mi casa.

wouldn't say the holiday has died but it has totally changed from my childhood.

Yeah. It's not "Halloween." It's now simply "Candy Day."

indeed :/ makes me sad to see all these kids who could be trick or treating and are not. I had to stop when i was young because I'm bigger guy and would get some nasty comments from adults who answered the doors. One of the few holidays I wish I got to celebrate more as a child.

well most of the older kids that go trick or treating tend to be doing more tricking than anything else.

hehe I stopped trick or treating at the age of like 11 I was just a big kid it wasn't like i was old or anything.

Well I was a big kid too, but honestly I loved dressing up during Halloween. I loved Halloween <3

I just decided that instead of trick or treating for candy I did it for a charity that I would give the money too

Sent the nephew out in his homemade, Force-enhanced, Stormtrooper outfit, all lit up with LEDs and ready to take the universe's candy by storm... or fall victim to a rabid five year old in a teddy bear costume. He managed to a handful of houses before the bottom fell out of the sky. We didn't want to leave it like that so we did a search for whatever local thing happened to be going down. Everything we came across happened days ago.

I don't know if that was because of the weather or if there was some sort of unspoken agreement to get all the festivies out of the way, last weekend.

At any rate, hardly any other kids outside. We got maybe 4-5 hits and they were awfully spread out. I dunno, maybe the holiday has changed, though I like to think this was more of a weather-based fluke. At the very least we got in a Supernatural marathon, followed by MST3K's take on Soultaker.

I'm fucking 18 and I went trick and treating >_> most housed where dead even rich one maybe because it rained but still man.. -whines-

*nods* Halloween has changed from when I was young.

Where I live, we've had trick-or-treaters maybe three times...in twenty-one YEARS.

Not big at all where we live, despite there being TONS of kids. >.<

Oh no! Well over here there were too many damn kids. It made me wish I participated this year. So many kids to scare! XD

Our neighborhood was pretty busy this halloween, we had large groups of people from about 6-7, with it tapering off at about 7:15.

I heard some kids

but I just wanted to skip because it was just horrible last year, kids going through lawn barriers.... what rotten kids.

with obama running the goavorment people r try to work harder to pay there bills and the kids r starting to get lazier and lazier now a days

Ah, the typical Conservative Republican response to anything. Blame Obama when 98% of the problems can be laid right at their doorstep. It's obvious to anyone in the GOP that the kids are practicing to be on welfare and that their parents earn so little money they really don't deserve to keep any of it, which is why they keep trying to pass laws to take more of it away while giving breaks to those who really "earn" their money by sitting on their ass all day closing down businesses and industries.

All I am say ever sence Obama got in office shit has gotten worst I say bring back Ronald Reagan or JFK at lest they tryed to fix the government and not make things worse or as worse

And what fantasy world are you living in?

The 20's and the 50's

I have heard a few things here and there. I do know the Fire Department in our area does this haunted house thing every year, and my brother told me that one neighborhood not too far from where I live is bustling. Other than that and seeing pictures of my relatives dressed up, not much else. I'm not too surprised though. There's not that many street lights in my area, and one neighborhood I've seen, I would highly recommend not going at night. I got a couple of bags of candy myself, which probably still be quite full even after Christmas. XD

It could be that it's a school night, and some parents don't want their children all hyped up on sugar and not being able to rest up for tomorrow. There's also the possibility of parents being cautious too. I do remember it was pretty active way back then, even though I can hardly remember how often I've Trick or Treated, which wasn't much at all. Didn't take too long for my parents to pull the "You're too old to dress up" line somewhere close to around my teens. Yeah, school teachers, cosplayers, and my niece say otherwise. XP

they postponed till saturday where i am

I worked, and got my ass chewed off for not being fucking magic and being able to teleport around the nation instantly

I'm also diabetic, so fcuk any holiday that revolves around crap I can no longer have >.<

the Trunk or Treat things have really killed the holiday, parents look at it as "why walk all over when I can get the kids their candy in ten minutes in the church parking lot"

Our local library (yes, LIBRARY, that's the kind of area we live in) had a costume contest, plenty of people showed up for it.

Oddly enough, nobody we knew was having a Halloween party, so me, my mom, and a good buddy of mine ended up going to the arcade in a bowling alley, had a great time.

I was the only one dressed up, though. :(

Sad thing, there were few kids here as well. Turns out we were one of the few with lights on. Herd that there was a house with a sign saying jesus is all your need o-o

You know, you're gonna go into diabetic shock if you keep eating that stuff. :|

But but if It don't'eat them who will?

Halloween sucked this year..I sadly live out on the highway..and there's not one kid there.
Last year was awesome..I dressed up as micheal Meyers and ran around giving out candy at a friends house...then I break danced.

A lot of cities here in Indiana pushed Halloween stuff back to tomorrow and Saturday because of the weather, but Indiana usually has good trick-or-treating crowds. Especially the Bloomington/Indiana University area.

Yeah it's pretty dead hear too. But the past couple halloween's weather patterns seem to be super-shit @_@
Last year almost froze my bat off and this year it's been raining shitty all day. Needs to be good conditions and more decorations! >:I no one pays attention unless they get a day off work for it...

They are too busy celebrating Halloween by blowing shit up in Grand Theft Auto 5.. lol

Just depends on where you live. In one area where my family lives here in West Virginia they got rid of all their candy in under an hour and had to get more. Possibly hundreds of trick or treaters.

In another area where my family lives 10 miles away about 7 kids showed up.

Yeah, I don't know man. I live in the ghetto so I wasn't expecting kids, but my family living in a PRETTY WELL OFF WHITE NEIGHBORHOOD only had about 10 kids come buy. This is like soccer-mom family hey we-have-a-pool-in-our-backyard type neighborhood...like, what?

When I was a kid, it was like the zombie midget apocalypse on Halloween...

I don't even celebrate it and I rarely see much Halloween festivities.

From what I can tell, it's a combination of things that has killed Halloween. Parking-lot/Church/Mall Trick or treating, along with people saying Halloween is Satanic, and also parents afraid of their children's well being.

I work at a mall. Most of the parents take their kids trick or treating there because many stores dress in costume and offer candy. It's safer, since there's security, and it's all indoors with no creepy people answering. My street was pretty much empty this year.

I miss the good ol' days.
IMO, Parents stole it from the youth with their religious nonsense.

We had more kids come by than you did.

I blame the internet

Sad to see a holiday go like that. Kids today are unfortunately too glued to their social status and their ipods,phones,facebooks ,to spend time going out and having fun like a real kid should. Sure we had technology back then, but Halloween was a big fun adventure. I guess also the costumes are very cheaply made and expensive today?

Also with the de-individualization of people today, I remember reading about one parent complained about Halloween and just because her daughter didn't celebrate it, the rest of her class couldn't either. This is what happens today,you can't do anything without someone complaining about it and saying that you need to conform to what THEY think is best for everyone else and will use the legal system to pass it

That is why Halloween is dead my friends...along with our society right now..XC

Yeah, it's kind of depressing.

My neighborhood used to be TEAMING with kids and families on Halloween. Now it's almost like a ghost town on this night, no pun intended. It's hard to say if it's this generation having a lack of interest in it, or as you said, parents just being derpily overprotective/paranoid. Either way, it blows, because Halloween has ALWAYS been my favorite holiday, even if I don't really go out and dress up like I used to. =1

I probably got like 60-70 kids this year, no lie.

Most were mexican though.

I only had 4groups show up at the door. It was dead this year, kinda depressing

They are all likely on facebook whining about something lol

I noticed the number of decorations on houses have gone down. A big complaint from house owners is that candy is getting way too expensive. People bring up horror stories of monsters putting poison and razors in the candy they hand out. Kids seem a hell of a lot older these days then when I was little. There's a lot more restrictions on holidays (Christmas in schools already has taken a big hit around here, not surprised if Halloween is next up... too many people freaking out about offending someone cause something may be considered violent/sexist/politically incorrect/racist/against some religion somewhere).

I saw a lot of University students dressed up yesterday and today but little to no kids. There was also torrential rain here in London from the morning to... still ongoing right now. So yea, changing world and crappy weather all working against Halloween this year.

Candy is expensive?.......... Well that's a load. From what I've seen, candy's never been cheaper, what with all the high fructose corn syrup. :(

Yeah, it is. The big bags at the local big box store now costs upwards of $16. It used to cost around $4. Same thing with pop (sodas.) A 2-liter bottle of Pepsi used to cost $0.75. Now it's like $2.29, or 1.99 at the "low-cost" store. (and if you buy it with a pizza at the local pizza shop it's $2.50!)

I think they just moved those kids to Poland ... probably without telling them. Got more kids than you ringing my doorbell and they were surprised that people don't give them candy

I usually get a few dozen kids around here, but this Hallowe'en we are enjoying all these wonderful icy-cold high winds...at night.
So yeah. I got maybe a dozen little haunters grand total.

I had a lot of trick or treaters this year, the year and before, and so on in the entirety I lived in this small town. I don't really think Halloween is in any real jeopardy.

It seems to vary a bit. Around here, there are hardly any kids trick-or-treating (I blame cowardly helicopter parents), and hardly anyone decorates for Halloween. But on the other hand, the few who do go all-out, local events like haunted houses and corn mazes seem to be numerous and popular, and the college kids all party at Pearl Street in costume, and have house parties. If you were to look just at the number of trick-or-treaters or the number of houses designed to attract them, you'd think Halloween was on its last legs, but every other aspect of the holiday says otherwise.

Though the loss of the Naked Pumpkin Run was a big blow. People would run around nude except for a jack-o-lantern on their head. It was a tradition for years before the cops decided to crack down one year and threatened to charge anyone doing it as a sex offender. Because running around naked with a pumpkin on your head is totally the same as being a child molester or a rapist, am I right?

You got 20 kids?! I got 3. They were all related.

Over time, Things Change. Not always for the better.

it's sad but true, this holiday has gone to crap over the years. I blame people crying religion and taking everything out of context

I got one more kid than last year, which brings it up to three

This is for all the people who think Halloween is not a real holiday.

Ahem...

FUCK YOU

People don't respect Halloween anymore. They treat it like its some throw away holiday or no reason for anything. If you deny Halloween you deny everything that makes being a kid fun; Dressing up, acting a fool, and demanding candy. I am 30 years old, and I fucking went Trick-Or-Treating in a full costume I made myself because I'm sick of people not respecting the holiday and I'm also sick of kids not wearing costumes and expecting candy. You can call me a fool for doing it but I'm a fool who had fun and has a pillow case full of candy so enjoy your high-horse while I enjoy my Skittles and Crunch Bars.

HA!

more candy for meh then ^^

Halloween is cyclical anyways. It really depends on the local environment, though the post 9/11 world has had a clear chilling effect. My neighborhood when I moved into my current location (been here over a decade now) was very much an empty nest neighborhood, a lot of people whose children were past trick-or-treating age at the youngest up to the elderly. More and more people move out every year into smaller homes (and the elderly folks pass) and they've been replaced with young, growing families. Trick-or-Treat has really picked up here over the past couple years as the local demographics become more accomodating to it.

I have noticed over my lifetime that Halloween has been continuously undermined. The causes of concerns and fears are just excuses. Jack-o-lanterns have gone from gruesome to baby-faced, and costumes from ghouls to pumpkins. I have ugly opinions as to who is doing this and why, but most of the fun things all of the Holidays seem to have been scoured away.

Ironically Halloween as started getting popular in my country, and some people are like "Is an USA celebration, not ours!" but all kids are like "yay!". And the anime fandom does a zombie walk
(which incidentally cincided with the gay pride parade but that' s another funny story)

*taps that thing you asked about the other day* :T

Any progress on that?

I' m opening new commisions this monday, should have a decent estimate along the week
Precisely am editing a journal about it

we herd about 15 gunshots, police sirens and still had about 90 ids 030 we ran out of candy and had to hand out noodles

I would bet that the "wave" of kids in your neighbourhood have gotten too old for trick or treating. It's probably not their fault either, I know a few places that are rather hostile to anyone that looks over the age of 14 and won't give them candy. Back in my day kids used to come out in DROVES, now most of them have grown up. It just happens.

20 kids is 5 times what I saw. I had a whopping FOUR children show up. I have a mountain of chocolate left over and I'm already fat enough ;~;

I want to put some of the blame onto Christmas. I mean there are actually some houses around here that had their Christmas decorations up a week before even Halloween came around and stores are already beginning to stockpile on Christmas gear. Every time I pass by anything Christmas-related all I can think to myself is, "Can you at LEAST wait until the snow falls first?"

The massive consumerism of Christmas is engulfing every other holiday that comes before it, and I'll bet Thanksgiving will be next.

They changed the time for trick or treating. It used to go from 5-9 PM. Now it only goes from 5-7 PM, so it's over before it even really gets dark.

Also, this year, it was 40 degrees and raining with heavy wind, so that didn't help either.

I'm really disappointed with how Halloween is turning out. It seems to be a sad shell of itself from what I remember growing up. I grew up outside of Detroit, where we had "Devils' Night" on October 30th. It was the night where we would run around pranking: ding-dong-ditch, toilet papering trees, soaping windshields were all on the books. The farther into Detroit proper you went and the worse the neighborhood, the worse Devils' Night gets: Arson, Vandalism, etc.
But we still had enthusiasm for Halloween and trick-or-treating. Lots of kids running around. Hell, there was the one Irish family on the street where the adults went from house to house for "Trick-or-beer." Hell, I even got married on Halloween and had a giant costume party instead of the normal wedding.

But now, I don't know what it is. I moved across country and where I live now doesn't seem to get into it. Which seems counter intuitive for being the "most haunted city in america." It seems that it's a patchwork of neighborhoods that get into it, and others that couldn't care less. Where I currently live seems to fall into the latter as we had a grand total of 6 kids come by. I have no idea what to do with all the left over candy since we don't really eat a lot of it.

Personally, I blame overprotective parents, fear mongering media, and crazy christian nutters for the decline in what was once an awesome holiday.

Halloween cannot die, it is too awesome. Was quiet here but it was a windy and rainy night. More candy for myself I guess.

There is so many things people are putting up against the holiday, it's sad. I recall going out at dusk and coming back at 11pm with BAGS of candy. People also used to give out home made treats, like rice crispies treats and candy apples and such... and MONEY! Every Halloween we would dump out easily $10 in change we got as treats.

Now everyone things the home made stuff all has razor blades or is poisoned. They think kids alone are going to be raped or go missing... and parents of course have no time to go around with their kids, as the very concept of hands on parenting has more or less gone out the window. Kids go trick or treating in broad daylight. Don't scare them... they'll be scarred for life! They can't have too much sugar; it'll ruin their diets and teeth. Can't have kids running around acting like monsters and doing spooky things... those things have no application in the "real world".

People have become so religiously restricted and politically correct that a holiday such as Halloween just doesn't make sense to them anymore. Now... a holiday that involves a huge, fat man flying through the air giving people presents... I'm *already* seeing X-mas (I *refuse* to call it "Christmas anymore) decorations up in places. I wanted to throw myself bodily through some of the windows.

it depends on where you live. for the past three years, the only kids that came to my house on Halloween are my neice and nephew. and in some places, Halloween is finished altogether

Another year of no kids here. 5 years in a row. We shut it down this year.

We had more kids than last year, it helps that our house was more decorated this time, as well as the neighbors.

I think it's become another occasion for parents to dress up their kids and parade them around. Too much parental involvement kills things like this.