Trick or Treat woes.

[Crime Scene Scarf]

We had some amazing kids, and some not so amazing.

I'm 20, and I dress up, and hide in my parent's front yard. I jump out at the kids, scream a bit, chase them a bit. They all love it, and we give out candy, so no harm done. We give out to anybody in a costume. A real costume. No, a cheap mask and your school uniform will not cut it. A cheap mask and some torn up bedsheets? Go for it!

I get the occasional kid who hits me/pushes me, and the fifteen year old boys showing off to their friends. I'm only five foot three, so I'm not tall, but really, just laugh, and get candy. Don't shove me, don't try to pull my cape off, don't cop a feel.

I still love Halloween, and trick or treaters of any age, as long as they make an effort.

[foxytales]

My youngest daughter is 17...she and her bestie are taking Bestie's little cousins Trick or Treating..they ALL dress for the occasion..doesn't have to cost a thing..just take imagination. My daughter put on a pair of red capri jeans, a red and white strapless blouse, tied her hair up in a red bandanna added stage makeup and her glasses (the type we old folks used to call BCGs) and calls herself a "pin -up girl"..she looks like one of the pinups from the 40s...all out of her CURRENT wardrobe..
She enjoys going out and seeing all the costumes and stuff, but she just loves to hear little kids laugh..if she comes home with candy, so be it--if not...Mama has her covered. (I got the good stuff in hopes we get a knock or two on the door)

[Mytical]

maskedpuppy I just have to say this *ahem* I love your avatar!!! There are some epic avatars on the site (and more then a few from Midnight 12)..and yours is one of them. *ahem*

Ok now that is out of my system, please return to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Kristev]

My mother made me the King of Hearts in 1988. She copied the art from a Hoyle playing card to get it right. I'd asked her if it were possible to be a playing card that year (autistic obsession with cards), and to my surprise, she took it as a challenge (to undertake, not to her authority).



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[joe20girl]

Isn't that what you always wear? :P

I have 2 costumes I sewed myself, one of which is maybe 15 years old and I have tons of stuff to wear if I want to go as a dancer (in rehearsal or class). One day I will have to figure out how to be a tornado. I just never have time. At any rate trick-or-treat is for kids and parties are for adults.

my son was a tornado for halloween this year, i just took an over sized shirt and stapled(i cant sew) black and silver tulle around it and safety pinned a stuffed cow to it.

[maskedpuppy]

maskedpuppy I just have to say this *ahem* I love your avatar!!! There are some epic avatars on the site (and more then a few from Midnight 12)..and yours is one of them. *ahem*

Ok now that is out of my system, please return to your regularly scheduled thread.

Aww, thank you! The artist who drew it can be found here:

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/yuuri/

WARNING; MUCH OF THE STUFF IN HER GALLERY IS NSFW!!!!! (not that you can see it without a site account, but still...)

[XCashier]

For years I made my son's costumes and he's been everything from a clown to a Musketeer (complete with steel sword) to a Hogwarts student from Ravenclaw (he didn't want to be Harry Potter LOL). All costumes I've made him myself, including the fine detailing...and let me tell you, painting a detailed Ravenclaw house crest was both a pain and a delight! Heck, the Ravenclaw outfit had people asking him where he bought the costume and then proceeding to gape at him when he said "My mom made it for me!"

Cool! I made my son's costume this year -- a pirate -- and got a lot of compliments about it.

(He's wearing Simplicity 3519, view B with D's sleeves, X-Small [nobody makes costume patterns in his size, it's either for little kids or adults, nothing in between ] with a T-shirt underneath, homemade pants, the boot covers from Simplicity 3644 and a homemade sash. The patterns run a little large, and I was trying for a pirate costume that could double for SCA/Ren Faire wear. Didn't get the vest made in time; will work on that in the coming months and hopefully have it done in time for Ren Faire season.)

[vikingchyk]

My mother made me the King of Hearts in 1988. She copied the art from a Hoyle playing card to get it right. I'd asked her if it were possible to be a playing card that year (autistic obsession with cards), and to my surprise, she took it as a challenge (to undertake, not to her authority).

That is terrific!!! Bonus mom points for her!

[Merriweather]

I went as a bag lady a few years back. Grabbed some of my grungiest clothing (one was a shirt from a rag-bag), some other stuff I have around that I don't actually wear.

Another year, I just tossed on my jammies, threw my robe over the top and wrapped a towel around my head. Grabbed a mug from the cupboard and went to work like that.

There's lots of cheap and easy ways to throw together something that would count as a "costume" without actually costing anything.

^-.-^

My mom always bought me the cheapie costume in a box, the only part of which even remotely resembling what it was supposed to be was the full face mask that you couldn't see out of (you oldies will remember those ).

My daughter usually sews from scratch a great costume for my granddaughter.

I took the middle approach - I never sewed a costume from scratch for my daughter, but didn't buy her ones either. We just got creative. Amongst other things -

full skirt, peasant blouse (in that year, luckily), scarf on her head, huge hoop earrings, and all the beads in my closet - gypsy

black leotards & tights, short red skirt, white gloves, face painted with whiskers, and a set of mouse ears from an earlier Disney trip - Minnie mouse

white leotards & tights, a huge white poncho (it was chilly), a big white ball of fluff stuck on her backside, some headband bunny ears left from Easter - the Easter bunny (she carried a handled basket instead of a treat bag, and yelled Happy Easter instead of trick or treat

a lab coat & stethoscope borrowed from a friend of mine who was a medical worker, one of her old teddy bears covered in guaze - a vetrinarian (that one was all her idea

everything was either already on hand, easy to borrow, or occasionally picked up at a thrift shop.


Oh, one really cute one from my granddaughter - last year (age 9) my daughter had made her an elaborate very exact Alice in Wonderland costume during the summer, as she had the lead in a local theatre workshop run. She of course wore that a lot during the two week run. Then, she wanted an Alice in Wonderland Tea Party for her birthday in September, so the costume got more wear then. By the time Halloween rolled around, my daughter was hoping she'd use it again so she wouldn't have to make something new, but granddaugher was getting rather tired of it by then. So she (granddaughter) decided to go as Alice for Halloween - only she asked to add some makeup, red rags, etc to go as zombie Alice

[downforit2008]

That's one of the reasons why my wife and I haven't been giving out candy lately. Bad enough when these "kids" who are taller than my wife (OK at 4'11" that's not saying much) come to our door, the least they could do is, as you said, pretend to wear a costume.

So for the last few years, our porch light has stayed off on Trick or Treat night. That didn't stop two idiots from coming to our door anyway. With the first one, I told the kids as nicely as I could that we didn't have any candy, then turned to the parents and added, "That's why we didn't have our light on."

Towards the end of the night, while I was downstairs on the computer, I heard the doorbell a second time. When I came upstairs a few minutes later, our houseguest told me it was more trick-or-treaters, and this time I just turned off the light in the living room without even answering the door.

In my neighborhood, even if I had a bowl of candy out to greet the trick-or-treaters and ALL OF MY LIGHTS ON, not a single child would arrive at all! Maybe parents think that our neighborhood is too "ghetto" or something, even though our neighborhood isn't as bad as others would expect it, but for YEARS, no one has come to my door at all. Two years ago, I said to hell with it, stopped buying candy and decorations(except buying candy for myself!), and treated Halloween night as just another night. No one ever comes to the door anyway, so it's win-win for me. And at the age of 26, I simply stopped giving a damn about giving out free candy to a bunch of kids, so even if kids DID come to my door in the future, I wouldn't answer the door either.

[Seshat]

Note to self:

If I ever get to go to the States around Halloween time, grab an Akubra and a http://www.drizabone.com.au/before I go. Stay with a hosting family who has children who trick-or-treat, or who know children who trick-or-treat.

Go as a jillaroo (Australian cowgirl), and find out what this trick-or-treat business is actually like.


(checks the prices on genuine Akubras and Drizabones. Chokes. Okay, yeah, they're rugged enough to be cheap on a per-wear basis if I actually WAS a jillaroo.....)

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I can't speak for the others, but we wouldn't have minded so much if they had actually put on some sort of costume.

Just not used to all these older kids doing it. I quit when I was 12, and my son quit when he was 11.

I do like putting on a costume and going to a party, though.

Last time I went trick-or-treating, I was 9 and even then I thought I was getting too old for it.

And add me to the list of folks who are very turned off by older kids not even bothering to wear a costume . . . we quit doing the candy thing several years ago b/c of that. That's all we'd see are the thuggish-acting teens, no smaller kids.

Not only do we keep our front porch light off, but also the lights in the living room and my brother will also keep his bedroom lights off (his room is in the front just off the living room) and the front door is shut and locked.

We also as a precaution turn off our spotlights at the corner of the house that keeps our driveway lit. I'll slip outside onto the back deck and, when I'm sitting down in one of the chairs, I'm not that visible due to the high railing around the deck.

Luckily nobody bothered us this year. I think I went outside a couple of times for a cigarette and I heard a couple of kids going up the road. Otherwise it was pretty peaceful.

[hotelslave]

Trick or Treating was postponed so instead of doing it on Monday it got postponed till Friday. In the neighborhood where I took niece and nephew they hand the adults beerif you say trick or treat instead of candy. I didn't drink while walking around but I did take the drinks home