We always dressed up and covered as much ground as week could in what seemed like several hours. Looking back, and knowing the size of the neighborhood we lived in, I'm probably overestimating how much time we were out, but it was substantial. However, in my memory, about 9 out of 10 houses were giving out candy, where it's maybe 3-4 out of ten in our neighborhood, so it could have been a long process.
My kids' experience isn't much different, except for one thing. When I was a kid, in a lower middle class neighborhood, we would go for hours and so many houses and fill up a pillow case or two, and get home and spread it out to isolate the 12-15 mini candy bars. We'd sort it every which way, and gloat over who got a snickers, and trade the mini candy bars carefully. The vast majority of houses were giving out a single piece of dubble bubble, a dum dum sucker, a wrapped carmel, a hard candy...one per child. You had to cover a LOT of houses to get a few milky ways or junior mints.
Now, I marvel at it jealously every year, my kid walks up to a house and the adult sticks their hand in a bowl of mini candy bars and dumps a handful or two into his bag. Literally, after two houses he's got the entire haul of good stuff that we'd spend hours on. As he's gotten older we would try to cover more and more ground, just sort of as a competitive thing where he'd want to see how much he could get, but he could quit after 30 minutes with enough chocolate to last until Christmas. And almost none of the garbage candy.
When I was a kid, it was super fun, but there was a purpose to our efforts. You had to hit a lot of houses and carry a couple pounds of trash candy to have anything worth eating.
This year was the first time in 18 years all our kids went to someone else's house. We just turned out the lights and watched a movie. I kind of missed seeing the costumes, but we don't get a steady enough stream to sit by the door, and getting up once every 20 minutes loses it's charm quickly enough.
My kids' experience isn't much different, except for one thing. When I was a kid, in a lower middle class neighborhood, we would go for hours and so many houses and fill up a pillow case or two, and get home and spread it out to isolate the 12-15 mini candy bars. We'd sort it every which way, and gloat over who got a snickers, and trade the mini candy bars carefully. The vast majority of houses were giving out a single piece of dubble bubble, a dum dum sucker, a wrapped carmel, a hard candy...one per child. You had to cover a LOT of houses to get a few milky ways or junior mints.
Now, I marvel at it jealously every year, my kid walks up to a house and the adult sticks their hand in a bowl of mini candy bars and dumps a handful or two into his bag. Literally, after two houses he's got the entire haul of good stuff that we'd spend hours on. As he's gotten older we would try to cover more and more ground, just sort of as a competitive thing where he'd want to see how much he could get, but he could quit after 30 minutes with enough chocolate to last until Christmas. And almost none of the garbage candy.
When I was a kid, it was super fun, but there was a purpose to our efforts. You had to hit a lot of houses and carry a couple pounds of trash candy to have anything worth eating.
This year was the first time in 18 years all our kids went to someone else's house. We just turned out the lights and watched a movie. I kind of missed seeing the costumes, but we don't get a steady enough stream to sit by the door, and getting up once every 20 minutes loses it's charm quickly enough.
