A Halloween Intervention

It started with a query on the neighborhood Facebook page from one of our new neighbors - how much candy should we get for Halloween?  The responses were quick and depressing.  Not much.  Hardly any trick-or-treaters.  Some years, we don't even see most of the kids who live on our street, much less anyone else.

(Just now I started to write that "I can understand how some adults may not enjoy Halloween," but that's not actually true-- I don't really understand it.  Halloween involves outdoors and getting out in your neighborhood in the evening and non-threatening interactions with children you don't know, as well as a chance to decorate your house and yard and wear costumes, so I can't understand why anyone wouldn't enjoy it, but maybe some people don't -- dentists, for example.)

The best place I ever lived as far as observing Halloween was Baltimore.  In the late 1980s, I lived in the Hampden neighborhood in Baltimore, and at least at that time, they really knew how to celebrate Halloween.  I lived in a house on Roland Avenue that year, and -- like our new neighbors on Wessyngton -- didn't quite know what to expect in terms of numbers of trick or treaters I should be prepared for.  But it seemed like almost all the houses had Halloween decorations up, so I thought it might be a Big Deal, and got what I thought would be a sufficient amount of candy.  Then I reconsidered and got some more, just to be safe.  On Halloween night, the visitors to my door were pretty much constant throughout the evening.  I have no idea how many trick or treaters came around that night, but it was a lot.  I remember I was concerned I was going to run out of candy. I didn't, but it was close.

If decorating is the measure, Halloween is more of an event in our neighborhood every year.  More and more houses in Morningside have elaborate decorations of the type that used to be reserved for Christmas, with lights and inflatables and life-sized plastic skeletons and tombstones in the front yard.  Here are a few more or less random ones from North Morningside.

Now, based on the Baltimore experience, I would expect that this increasing interest in decorating would translate into hoards of trick or treaters, but it just hasn't happened, or at least not on Wessyngton. 

There were more houses with Halloween decorations on Wessyngton, this year, and some of us put our houses on the Treat Map that was on Nextdoor, but it's not like it was candy corn from Highland to Cumberland.  

What to do? I thought maybe some Halloween lights on our street signs would help, with the thought that trick or treaters have to make a decision to turn onto Wessyngton from Highland or Cumberland, and the houses with lights and decorations up aren't necessarily so visible from those corners. So on Halloween afternoon I went to the Halloween store at the development at Piedmont and Sidney Marcus, to get some battery-powered lights to put up on our street sign at Wessyngton and Cumberland.  

Everyone else in the Atlanta metro area appeared to also have last minute Halloween shopping needs as well.  Even before I got into the store, there was a hint that it was going to be crowded, as everyone visible in the parking lot was converging on this one store.  When I arrived, the line for check out extended to the door and I decided I didn't want to buy anything there that badly, so went to the level below to Target where I found some battery-powered Halloween lights.  There were plenty of last minute shoppers there too, but it was a bigger store and they weren't so overwhelmed.  Once I got home, Iain and I put the lights up on the street sign and we hoped for the best.

We got some early trick or treaters -- mostly little kids who live on our street -- and they continued to trickle by throughout the evening.  Probably there were 20 or 25 who came by, more than I remember ever having.  Was it more houses with decorations, or the Treat Map, or the lights on the street sign?  I'm not sure, but probably all of the above.  And once it got dark, Tom built a fire in our new fire ring out on the drive way, and several of our neighbors stopped by. All in all, it was a very nice Halloween.

The next day, I went back to Target and got more lights (now 50% off), including another set of battery-powered lights for the street sign at the other end of Wessyngton.  

Next year, we'll do even better. I'll be sure to have plenty of firewood, as well.