Do you Halloween?

It has been too quiet around these parts lately.

So tell me, do you celebrate Halloween? Do you still dress up? Do you get trick-or-treaters at your house? If you live outside the US, is Halloween celebrated differently - or at all?

I eagerly await trick-or-treaters at my house, sometimes I'm dressed up, but the last few years we haven't had any - none - zilch. I think they are all doing the safe thing and going to the malls. But I miss them!

I do like to do the costume thing and go to a party...but usually on the Friday or Saturday before so I can be home for trick-or-treaters.

We gets plenty of trick-or treaters and love them all. Crave a pumpkin and do some other decorations, sometimes dress up.

I haven't had trick-or-treaters for years, five residences in a row in three different states. Here in Oregon, I got two kids the first year and three the next. They all came together, so really, bell only rang once each time. Makes me sad.

A lot of the kids do go to trick-or-treat "events" now, in many places, rather than house to house. Back around the turn of the century, I was helping out at one of those events in the business district of Kernersville, NC (population 17,000-ish). What really made me sad was so few kids knew to say "trick-or-treat"! They'd just come up to us, silent, holding out a bag. I asked one little girl, "What's the magic words?" She looked confused, then said, "Please?"

Halloween has been my favorite holiday for a long, long time, though I don't do much about it now. However, all year long, my kitchen is done in black and orange, with Halloween accents :-)

Here's an essay I wrote about it years ago: http://www.neopagan.net/HalloweenandMe.html
Forgive the formatting; it was my late husband's website, still in its state-of-the-art-for-1999 stage.

I have a lot of Halloween decorations, I'll be pulling some of them out of storage in the next day or so. Mostly I'll be decorating outside. I've got some wonderful HUGE spiders that I'll be dangling from tree limbs out by the front road.

I acquired a pile of 6 inch tall skeletons last year and they've been posed around the doll houses and sit chatting with the fairies in the garden. One of them dances with a broom. That's about the extent of my celebrating - oh - except for the seasonal candy corn consumption.

We used to get truckloads of kids brought into town for the evening, but I guess they all go to the mall now.

Best jack-o-lantern ever was two fruits fused together at the forehead. We carved one side scary, the other side fearful.

My husband loves candy corn...it doesn't do anything for me. Chocolate is my temptation.

Last year, my husband participated in the community Trunk or Treat, while I stayed home and waited for the T&Trs. Only had about 10. Not sure what to expect this year, but I guess I'll get at least one bag of candy just in case.

I live in a small village, where I taught school for 35 years. I'm retired now, but I live on main street and the kids and their parents all know me. I sometimes get as many as 50 or 60 kids...not bad for a town population of about 100. Of course a lot of ranch kids come to town, and kids from the other small towns in our consolidated school district.

I love it, and look forward to later in the night when the big kids - kind of embarrassed and sheepish - show up at my door for chocolate. They always know I'll feed them!

>8 MerryMary: I am so jealous and I love that you still get Trick or Treaters!