Less than a year ago, we bought a new house in a decidedly red rural area, which is a good distance from our former home that was in a blue suburb of Pittsburgh. The attorney who handled the closing, who also lives in the neighborhood, gave me one piece of advice, “On Halloween we only give out full-sized candy bars.” That was it. Nothing about garbage disposal, traffic, or zoning issues. Just that.
I found that tip so amusingly curious that it’s something I brought up over the past year to other neighbors as I’ve gotten to know them, and they all say the same thing. On Halloween night, we get a lot of kids on our street, and everyone gives them full-sized candy bars. That may be the attraction. We may be known for that.
Or, it could be a chicken-and-egg sort of thing. Because we get so many kids who go out of their way to come here from further away, we should reward them with top-shelf candy.
To be sure, I do think terrain makes a difference on Halloween.
Our old house was on the “high side” of the street. In other words, all of the houses opposite ours had level front yards, and it wasn’t much work for kids and their parents to navigate that side for trick-or-treating. Some of the costumes kids wear can make even the slightest grades difficult to cover. The driveway to our house (and all of the homes on our side) had a slight grade, but nothing serious, and I would always set up a table and chairs on the driveway a little forward on the level part so the kids didn’t have too much of an issue stopping by.
I’d also double up on the mini candy bars I’d give the kids for coming to our house. The candy of choice for me is usually chocolate – Hershey bars, Reese’s, M&M bags, or mini Snickers bars. That said, the last few years, if we got 20-25 kids at our house, that was a good year. By contrast, I’d say if we saw 20 kids at our house, the house across the street on more level terrain likely saw 30-35 at their house.
Sitting at my candy table, playing kid-friendly Halloween music, complete with our jack-o-lanterns all lit up, I’d watch as the costumed kids would totally skip our whole side of the street.
I sort of felt bad for the kids because their Halloween did not seem like the ones I remember when taking my own kids trick-or-treating, or the ones I had as a kid.
When it was my kids’ turn, we covered a lot of ground. I’d carry a backup sack so their candy buckets didn’t weigh them down, and we’d walk the whole neighborhood and not miss a house that had its lights on. They still talk about how much fun they had on those nights. And it wasn’t just the candy. It was the costume they wore, the neighbors they got to meet, and the buzz you could feel from all of the other kids who were out and about that night.
My memories of my childhood Halloweens are much the same.
The neighborhood where we live now is quite different. The homes are further apart. There is more land between them and much more ground to cover from house to house. While the streets themselves may look almost like a typical suburban neighborhood in a photograph, the truth is that it’s a small handful of streets surrounded by farm country. In the summer, when I’m in my backyard, I can sometimes hear a cow or two on a nearby farm mooing. We are surrounded by mostly farmland, so in order for those kids to have a true Halloween, their moms and dads have to take them somewhere where they don’t have to walk a half-mile from one home to the next. Yes, some towns have “trunk or treat” events, and ours does. But for a kid, nothing can replace the feeling of walking up to that door and saying, “Trick or treat!” and getting free candy. And so, I expect that tonight we will see far more than 25-35 kids at our house in their costumes.
After getting to know several of their families over the past year, I’m always encouraged by how things are done here. This is an area where neighbors want to know neighbors, and they support each other just because they are neighbors. The full-sized candy bar thing is more of an outgrowth of that, I think. I’ve seen this in large and small ways over the past year.
And while I don’t want to make Halloween itself political, not surprisingly, I have now seen and experienced a stark difference in the sense of community between a blue suburb and a red area.
Tonight, I will be at my candy station, music playing, jack-o-lanterns lit, stocked to the hilt with full-sized chocolate candy bars, and I’ve got enough to give a company of Marines a sugar high. I’ll do it because it’s expected, that’s for sure. But I’ll also do it out of gratitude. I really like my neighbors and their families, and I’m grateful for the kids who come in from good distances to visit our houses. And just for fun, any kid who shows his MAGA colors will earn a second candy bar.
So guess what kind I’ll be handing out? I’ll tell you in the comments. What kind will you be handing out?
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