Since today is November 1, yesterday must have been Halloween. When we moved into this house, we were warned to have plenty of candy available on Halloween. The street on which we live is one of the traditional trick-or-treating avenues. This being Petersburg (which means it's usually wet), most of the kids get driven from one section of the street to another, where they pile out, knock on the four or five doors about, get their treats, then pile back in and drive a few more yards down.
We lit a few candles in the windows, and turned down the lights to give a bit of ambience. I didn't keep count, but my guess is that we probably had around 50-60 youngsters, from tots to teens, visit us last night. The city sets an official trick-or-treating period of 2 hours, from 6 to 8 p.m. During that time, homes that are giving treats out are to turn on the porch light. That is really convenient for everyone because it means that those who don't want to participate don't have to, and those that do know when to start and when to cut off.
Elise's mom called during that time and we were reminded of how different things were back in the Portland area. I recall that there wasn't much in the way of trick-or-treating by small children anymore. Most of them were taken to shopping malls to go around the different stores to collect their goodies. Those that came around to houses were typically those within the neighborhood. Older kids might come around, but they weren't really dressed up.
Here, Halloween is still similar to what I recall from my kid days. It still has an innocent fun and a community feeling to it. (The bars have parties for adults.) Our kids were down with nasty colds, so they stayed home last night.
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