In your opinion, what's the age limit for Trick r Treating?
My sister is 23 and still dresses up and goes out knocking doors for candy… and I find it weird but I let her do her. It got me thinking, at what age do you think someone should stop Trick r Treating at? Just curious.
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
C.S. Lewis
Good on your sister for not losing track of what makes her happy. Not doing things just because they are “childish” is the most childish trait an adult can display.
Because quotes get cut wherever they benefit the person repeating them. You were shown the quote from people who don’t enjoy life and want others to suffer the same way.
The key to buying Halloween candy is to buy the things you would want to eat yourself. We freeze the leftovers and slowly eat them. Still working on last years!
I make an exception for parents watching their young kids. I have no problem rewarding good, responsible parents.
Plus, we give out juice boxes. Sometimes, when parents see their kids walking away with juice boxes, they’ll ask for one themselves. Walking around the neighborhood with kids is thirsty work! I’ll happily give juice to parents!
I hate the idea that older kids shouldn't do it. Like I remember getting shit when I decided to be kid-like again at 15 after not having done it when I was 13 and 14.
Houses told me I was too old. And looking back now, as a parent of teens, and I wish they and their friends were just going out trick r treating. I will definitely encourage any kid I see. And at my age anyone under 26 is a kid, easily. I'd much rather kids do something communal and fun than just go out drinking. I'm sure that by the next Halloween when I was 16 I was probably doing something less good than asking for free candy.
If we want people to be communal, have fun, and be safe then we shouldn't give them shit when they do that. So I don't care if the old dude down the streets dons a skeleton costume and grabs a pillow case. If he has a costume, he gets candy. And anyone who tells me different will get called out for being a killjoy.
What I definitely have is an attitude limit; I loathe it when sullen teenagers knock the door, mutter “trckotrt”, no dress up except someone has drawn a tear on their face and then grabs five portions of candy and just dashes out.
Like, you can be fucking 40 for all I care, but you squeal “triiick of treaaaat”, then I say “wow, aren’t your costumes great” and offer the bowl up. You then grab one large or a couple of small things, say thank you and walk off excitedly.
The requirement for me is that you look like you’re enjoying it. Otherwise, why am I opening the door to strangers and offering them sweets?
As you age, trick or treat should be more like wasseling, where we wander the local hood, check in the people we should see more often, share candy back and forth and agree that Mr Stewart in #10 is a bit of a dick.
It should keep a more social aspect with less candy as we mature as social adults. Parents should take older kids to mature them a bit.
I’ve watched from their driveway and they usually have a look of debate on their faces as to if they want to give her candy or not. They usually just give her a piece though.
Okay, rant time. If you don’t like rants, skip this comment.
Listen motherfuckers, Halloween isn’t about candy. The fact that the candy has become the point is a fucking problem.
We’ve lost the social cohesion, the sense of community, and even the superstitions that made Halloween such a popular holiday.
And that fucking sucks.
Nobody really believes we’re scaring off bad spirits any more, but we could at least celebrate the weird, the scary, and just spend one night a year dressing up for fun.
Fuck the candy. The only reason we have to give out candy is because assholes fucked up being able to give out home made treats. Man, did any of y’all have the fucking awesomeness of getting candy coated apples, or home made fudge, or wax paper wrapped cookies? Or anything but the sugar bombs in a bag you buy? But no, some assholes had to fuck around and break the ability to trust the social contract of Halloween.
Shit, I’m the only asshole in my entire town baking and making things today. Why? Because I’m the only idiot willing to put up a sign on my door “home made treats available on request by adults”. Which means I’m the only house on the fucking street that has cars pulling up with kids in them, accompanied by adults. Parents don’t let kids walk the streets on Halloween any more because humans are fucking horrible and can’t be trusted not to mess with kids. So that means nobody even fucking bothers to hand out anything, they all go to fucking trunk and treat shit, which ends up being about the fucking candy instead of having fun because a bunch of people in parking lots isn’t a community.
Fuck. Fuck the assholes that ruined Halloween and turned it into a day for fucking candy.
There’s actually a huge amount of trick or treaters here but the thing is they all go to like the very best neighborhoods that go all out and no one wants to go to mid tier neighborhood with only a few houses that are doing things anymore.
Then we need a PR campaign to motivate adults to break out of the spiral of fear they’ve fallen into.
Make Halloween a left or a right wing thing. Frame it in terms that celebrating Halloween follows and honors the values of each political tribe, and not celebrating it violates those core values.
I haven’t even had a trick or treater come to my door in probably like 6 years. The 2 or 3 years before that, I was getting no more than 3 visits per year. This is the first year I’ve just straight up not even bought candy. Halloween is gone. I thought that after covid got under control, maybe there’d be a resurgence since it’s an activity that kids can do together with their friends outside of home, meeting other kids and shit, and that was all very much taken for granted until people were stuck inside for two years. But nope. 24/7 news convinced parents that there are drugs and poison and razor blades in their treats, and the houses their kids visit will be inhabited by pedophiles and scary [insert dogwhistle]s, and some lunatic will either commit a mass shooting or drive over as many people as possible. No fun allowed.
We let the terrorists win. The domestic terrorists, specifically. We’re afraid of what might happen, and nobody is doing anything to quell those fears, so we just hand over a little more liberty and freedom for the sake of supposed safety and security. What a boring dystopia.
I love Halloween. Every other holiday I have to cook, clean, plan. So much work. Halloween? Creativity and candy and kids. Fun, without all the baggage. American Halloween I honestly love.
ETA: we get trick or treaters here, from little kids to teens. Not a suburb or a rich neighborhood. First one today pulled up in a truck and I was about to be judgy, hate the car house to house thing, dad got out, opened the door for his blind daughter who was in a wonder woman costume, helped her up our front steps so she could trick or treat. I love Halloween.
No age limit in this household. I’d say “just show up with a bag,” but I just gave treats so some 4yo with no bag. If an adult asked? They’d get them.
I just want to be kind. I wasn’t allowed to trick or treat as a kid. I did as a teen, and you know what? Nobody cared how old our group was. We got candy like the rest of them. God bless those neighbors.
I stopped trick-or-treating at 11 or so when I became self-conscious and had some depression/introvert stuff happen. Sometimes I’m sad that I stopped so early in my childhood. I just want people to know that I love them and want them to be happy and have fun.
I don’t give a fuck how old you are. Are you having fun and want some candy?!
I think your Senior year of high school oughta be the cutoff, but I don’t have any issues with college students trick or treating, so I think 23 or so would be my candy refusal threshold. This actually reminds me of a story I read a long time ago:
It’s Halloween and there’s a knock on the door, nothing out of the ordinary, and the person got up and went to the door. When they opened it, they found another door and doorframe up against their door, which read “Please knock for candy”, they knocked and were offered candy by some college students who were carrying an entire door and frame around for this bit. I believe it ended with the homeowner refusing candy and giving the college students candy.
So yeah, I need to add an exception to my Halloween code of ethics: An awesome costume / gag can make up for any age.
I stopped at 14. At 23 it’s definitely weird, but whatever. I think it’s unfortunate that our culture shames adults for partaking in controlled mischief aspects of holidays and other such fun holiday traditions.
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