Final installment, curious folk rituals of my people.

[rivka]

You know you're a city kid when your trick-or-treating route includes stops at the wine shop and the Afghan restaurant.

I expected the wine shop; last year we went in just to show Alex off because they knew her, and they hauled a big bag of candy out from behind the counter. The Afghan restaurant suprised me. The proprietor was standing on the sidewalk when we came by, and he insisted that we come in while he fetched a little bowl of candy from the bar. He kept urging Alex to take more and more.

This year the people who organized trick-or-treating in our neighborhood distributed a rough map of participating houses, which meant that we didn't have to go around in the huge, chaotic, overwhelming group of ALL THE NEIGHBORHOOD KIDS AND PARENTS TOGETHER. There were a few blocks, like ours, that had participation from multiple houses. We concentrated on those and mostly skipped the isolated houses unless they were on our route already. The nice thing about the scattershot participation you get in the city is that we had a nice long trick-or-treating experience and yet didn't come home with an overwhelming amount of candy.

It was also fun to have Halloween fall on a Friday night this year. There were a lot of people on the streets, including many adults in costume headed for parties at local bars. Alex got a bunch of positive attention from passersby, especially since she greeted everyone we passed with a cheerful "Happy Halloween!"

It was a lot of fun for me as well as for Alex. Except now my pregnancy-softened pubic bone is screaming "You walked how far?!" Ow.

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Looks to have been a whole lot of fun.

Out here in suburbia we got a lot more trick or treaters than we've seen in several years. I think the happy combination of Friday night and a party in a local field that ended right about sunset did the trick. It sure was nice to actually give away most of the spook food for once, rather than having it to eat for the next week.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a really great way to promote urban trick-or-treating, which in turn I think does a lot of good making urban kids and parents visible to each other and to their neighbours. I loved being part of the downtown trick-or-treat experience. I don't live in that kind of place right now, and that makes me a little bit sad tonight.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, I bet - I'll definitely miss this atmosphere if we ever move. The people in our neighborhood are so much happier to see trick-or-treaters, and make so much more fuss over each individual kid, than I remember from my small-town childhood. I'd get so much candy as a kid that I carried a pillowcase to hold it, but this feels nicer even though the haul is much less.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

But, but, what about the isolated neighbors? Don't they feel left out?

I had 23 tonight -- one tiny girl who whispered "mucho gusto" to me -- including a set of four where one said "Is that a real cat?" I was pretty sure it was, but I turned and looked. Spirit was crouched in front of the open door to the utility room so she could hide if she had to. I turned back and told them she was real and she was afraid of them. They stayed for a few seconds marveling over a real cat.

And when I saw one kid dressed as DEATH, I realized I should have worn my Minicon 40 t-shirt with the DEATH of Rats and the DEATH of Cheese on it.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

But, but, what about the isolated neighbors? Don't they feel left out?

I'm sure the bigger kids went to every house on the map. I was concerned about Alex getting tired - I can't carry her more than a few feet under ordinary circumstances now that I'm this pregnant, and it would've been even harder to carry her in her robot costume. And Michael had stayed home to give out candy.

It's so fun to see the trick-or-treaters, isn't it?

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's true. I forget how little she is, since she can do so much. It is fun to see the kids! There are a lot of Hispanics in our area, so I saw a lot of Latino princesses.