Thoughts on Halloween

In article ,
David desJardins wrote:

Robyn Kozierok writes:
My take is that I enjoy being part of the fun for kids (including
teens) who still get into the whole Halloween thing and still enjoy
the dressing up part.

What if they dress up as part of an economic transaction, but they don't
actually enjoy it? How would you measure their enjoyment?

I think there are a lot of kids, even younger ones (i.e., younger than
teens) who see dressing up in costume primarily as an economic bargain
in exchange for treats, rather than something they do because they enjoy
it. And/or something they do because of peer/cultural pressure. I'm
not sure how you would verify or test this, though. Perhaps I'm just
projecting my own feelings onto other people.



Maybe you are. At least for my seven-year-old and her friends, the
costume is the whole point, and the candy is a nice side-effect. I know
it's not the primary motivation because an astonishing amount of it is
still hanging around a couple of months later, and even more of it
probably would be if I didn't steal it. And they don't seem
particularly focused on quantity. I offered my daughter a choice of
bags for collecting her loot and she picked the smallest one because she
didn't want it to get too heavy.

In article ,
Elizabeth Gardner wrote:

Maybe you are. At least for my seven-year-old and her friends, the
costume is the whole point, and the candy is a nice side-effect. I know
it's not the primary motivation because an astonishing amount of it is
still hanging around a couple of months later, and even more of it
probably would be if I didn't steal it. And they don't seem
particularly focused on quantity. I offered my daughter a choice of
bags for collecting her loot and she picked the smallest one because she
didn't want it to get too heavy.


My 7- and 10-year-old are definitely into the candy, but they start getting
excited about planning their costumes sometimes months in advance. I know
I always enjoyed the dressing up part as well, even into my young teens.
So maybe I'm just projecting my feelings/experiences as well.

Obviously, I can't judge why someone dressed up. But I can assume that
a teen who shows up without a costume doesn't still enjoy the dressing
up part of the event (if they ever did) and are only out for the candy.
If they can cover for their candy-only desires by playing along and
dressing up, then I'll never know.

--Robyn

In article ,
Robyn Kozierok wrote:

My 7- and 10-year-old are definitely into the candy, but they start getting
excited about planning their costumes sometimes months in advance. I know
I always enjoyed the dressing up part as well, even into my young teens.
So maybe I'm just projecting my feelings/experiences as well.


While for some teens it may be the free candy, I wouldn't discount the
urge to dress up. Students at my local university dress up and go
trick or treating, not for candy, but for food bank donations. It is
apparently quite a popular fundraiser - the students seem to love the
fact that they can go trick or treating again.

Carol Hulls

(Robyn Kozierok) wrote in message ...
In article ,
Elizabeth Gardner wrote:

Maybe you are. At least for my seven-year-old and her friends, the
costume is the whole point, and the candy is a nice side-effect. I know
it's not the primary motivation because an astonishing amount of it is
still hanging around a couple of months later, and even more of it
probably would be if I didn't steal it. And they don't seem
particularly focused on quantity. I offered my daughter a choice of
bags for collecting her loot and she picked the smallest one because she
didn't want it to get too heavy.


My 7- and 10-year-old are definitely into the candy, but they start getting
excited about planning their costumes sometimes months in advance. I know
I always enjoyed the dressing up part as well, even into my young teens.
So maybe I'm just projecting my feelings/experiences as well.

Obviously, I can't judge why someone dressed up. But I can assume that
a teen who shows up without a costume doesn't still enjoy the dressing
up part of the event (if they ever did) and are only out for the candy.
If they can cover for their candy-only desires by playing along and
dressing up, then I'll never know.

--Robyn


I didn't get to see any of the children that came by the house because
we took our son trick or treating. So, I didn't have the opportunity
to hear whether or not they said thank you. We made sure our son
thanked each and every person. The weird thing about taking him trick
or treating...he went to a few houses and then said he had enough. I
was quite shocked.

Carol Hulls writes:
While for some teens it may be the free candy, I wouldn't discount the
urge to dress up. Students at my local university dress up and go
trick or treating, not for candy, but for food bank donations. It is
apparently quite a popular fundraiser - the students seem to love the
fact that they can go trick or treating again.

Obviously, many people enjoy dressing up in costumes. I'm only
speculating that there are also quite a few who don't. My daughter
seems much more interested in costumes than my son is, for example. Of
course that's only one data point.

David desJardins

In article ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:

DD went out trick/treating with her friend who lives near
a slightly wealthier neighborhood than ours. She got a couple
full-sized candy bars (!!). The mind boggles.

A few people in the non wealthy neighboorhood where we trick or
treated also gave out full-sized candy bars. Turns out they work
for the candy companies or their parent companies or something.
I bet they get a thrill out of seeing all the kids' eyes bug out.

--Robyn

"Robyn Kozierok" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:

DD went out trick/treating with her friend who lives near
a slightly wealthier neighborhood than ours. She got a couple
full-sized candy bars (!!). The mind boggles.

A few people in the non wealthy neighboorhood where we trick or
treated also gave out full-sized candy bars. Turns out they work
for the candy companies or their parent companies or something.
I bet they get a thrill out of seeing all the kids' eyes bug out.

--Robyn

One of the guys in my neighborhood drives a truck for Frito Lay, and gave
out the snack sized bags of chips-very popular house!

In article , Robyn Kozierok says...

In article ,
Scott Lindstrom wrote:

DD went out trick/treating with her friend who lives near
a slightly wealthier neighborhood than ours. She got a couple
full-sized candy bars (!!). The mind boggles.

A few people in the non wealthy neighboorhood where we trick or
treated also gave out full-sized candy bars. Turns out they work
for the candy companies or their parent companies or something.
I bet they get a thrill out of seeing all the kids' eyes bug out.

--Robyn


Or they're offloading the full-size candy bars they had to buy to make their
kids' sales quota for whatever fundraisers they were doing through the year.

(Hey, I've done it!)

Banty

I live in an affluent town and some of the people give out old candy
canes!

I have a few thoughts one Halloween too. We lived in an urban Middle
Class neighborhood a couple years ago. Teens came to our door not in
costume too but it didn't bother me one bit, as long as they were
respectful. Adults trick or treating not in costume came to our door
too which I just thought was a bit sad (we were about 8 blocks away
from a government subsidised housing complex).

In this small town I live in Halloween is absolutely wonderful. The
town has it very organized. All the merchants downtown (about a 6
block area) give out candy. One area is unofficially designated for
teenagers to blow off steam. The first year I didn't know about it and
walked right through that zone and my 3 year old daughter got nailed
by a glob of shaving cream. It's not thta they did it on purpose, we
just got caught in the crossfire. This shaving cream fight (with about
50 teens taking part at times). A couple of policemen are nearby to
supervise. I don't really like the whole tradition, but hey, it is
better than having it happen randomly and unsupervised. The majority
of teenagers do dress up too.

I think part of the dressing up has to do with having a parent that
can afford to furnish costumes for all their kids. They are expensive
to make or to buy. I spent $30 to make my daughter the costume of her
choice. I used to buy her costumes before that and they were usually
about $20. I got my son a thrift shop costume because he is just a
baby. I can see though how hard it would be if I had about 3-4 kids of
the elementary and higher grades to furnish costumes for, especially
if money were tight.

As for manners, my daughter is 4 so she was finally into the trick or
treating house to house this year. She was too shy to say "thank you"
loud enough for the people handing out candy to hear. I had to prompt
her everytime because she would just put her head down and run back to
me. It is hard to go up to strangers. I mean didn't we tell them
taking candy from strangers is dangerous? As parents we just have to
stay close enough so the kids know that interaction is safe and keep
reinforcing the manners.


A few people in the non wealthy neighboorhood where we trick or
treated also gave out full-sized candy bars. Turns out they work
for the candy companies or their parent companies or something.
I bet they get a thrill out of seeing all the kids' eyes bug out.

--Robyn