Not participating in Halloween this year

[Anonymous]

I didn't celebrate Halloween with my DS until this year at age 3. He had a GREAT time last night but didn't miss out prior years when he was too young to appreciate it. Al my friends were dressing their kids up as infants and I just didn't get it beyond the photo-op. But I'm so excited to be able to fully celebrate it now and my son really gets it.

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to send out my total support. You sound like a Mom focused on your kids (gasp!) and not what other adults are focused on. An 18 mos old really can't take in Halloween, and my lord they certainly can't remember that they're in the same costume as last year. Just so ridiculous, it's almost disorienting. Stick to your guns. I get this same pressure from family. Las tnite, I put a $4 Elmo hat on my 8 month old and when pressed "Where's her costume? What is she?" I just replied "Elmo" and smiled. And she can wear the ski cap to the park all year, so I feel great. Now my 3 year old, that's another story...we have been building his Fireman costume for weeks now. He had a blast, carried a badge, etc. Last year I put big ears on him and called it a day. The holiday season has begun...stick to your own parenting approach!!!

[Anonymous]

We don't have a festive halloween neighborhood either and DD is still too little to "get" the concept of halloween or why she had to wear a fuzzy costume with an annoying hat that she kept pulling off.

So...we just went to the mall and hit up the stores for candy instead. It was safe, didn't interfere with dinner/cranky time, not scary/dark, and nicely decorated and fun.

It was something different, lots of colors and people to look at, we got some cute pictures.

-like OP, also a mom to an 18 mo. old

[Anonymous]

When my son was one we put him in the obligatory costume for his daycare parade. At 2 he wore a bat sweatshirt and helped me hand out candy. Last night, at 3, he went trick or treating for the first time. He was old enough to choose what he wanted to go as, knock on doors, yell "trick or treat" and had a truly terrific time. I'm glad we waited until he could look forward to it and truly "got it".

By the way, we are one of those sinister houses that had a pumpkin out and the lights on but no one home. Turns out when you are out trick or treating with your kids, you can't stay home and give out candy! We forgot to turn the light off before we left the house. 8)

[Anonymous]

.... which is why most families I know send one parent out with the kid, and the other stays at the house to hand out candy to all the other kids ....

[Anonymous]

So then one parent has to miss out on having the memories of going trick or treating with their child? We just came back a little early to hand out candy and my daughter had almost as much fun with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:.... which is why most families I know send one parent out with the kid, and the other stays at the house to hand out candy to all the other kids ....

I'm single. Last year I let my DC go trick or treating with our nieghbors. This year I put a big bowl of candy out with a sign that said "Take 2" so I could go trick or treating. When we got back, there was a one, unpackaged M&M in the bottom of the bowl.

[Anonymous]

We had a blast enjoying Halloween with our 14 months old. True she has no idea that she is wearing a costume, but our neighbor is so into halloween that we got sucked in. I'm so glad we did though. We get so many trick -o- treaters. Early in the evening we went to neighbors front yard where they gouled up their driveway and front yard, and invited anyone who will come to a costume party. My daughter just loved being around kids being silly ...and then around 6:30 or 6:45 we headed home so she can give out candies to kids visiting our house.

it turned out she enjoyed having people come to our front door equally as well. The absolute glitter in her eyes when she was running around with mini zebras, ninjas, princesses was just priceless. I hope to do it again next year. We spend around $20 on her costume and know we can't use it again. We will keep this one as a keepsake since it's her first Halloween(my husband's idea), but others we'll have in the future we plan to give way to friends with little kids and/or make our own costumes.

I didn't care for the holiday before but now with a little one it's so much fun!

[Anonymous]

Our DD is 4yo and we have never done trick-or-treating (apartment living, few children around the 'hood). She dressed up when she was 2yo for her playgroup "party" (as a pumpkin, which she still loves to squeeze into for dress-up time). We are overseas so I thought that I would get an easy pass on skipping Halloween. Lo and behold, I started getting asked by my non-American co-workers what we were doing for Halloween and were shocked when I said "nothing". As it turned out, her school had a party the day before Halloween but only let the parents know one day in advance, so no costume for her (though I told her that her new shirt made her a pink and brown tiger...she was happy enough with that (whew!)! She was still excited about the party and happily recounted who was dressed up as what.

If we had been in the US, I am not sure that we would have done trick-or-treating unless we knew the neighbors. Even as a kid, we never went to strangers' houses but back then we at least knew most families in the general neighborhood (3-block radius)...probably would not be the case these days...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our DD is 4yo and we have never done trick-or-treating (apartment living, few children around the 'hood). She dressed up when she was 2yo for her playgroup "party" (as a pumpkin, which she still loves to squeeze into for dress-up time). We are overseas so I thought that I would get an easy pass on skipping Halloween. Lo and behold, I started getting asked by my non-American co-workers what we were doing for Halloween and were shocked when I said "nothing". As it turned out, her school had a party the day before Halloween but only let the parents know one day in advance, so no costume for her (though I told her that her new shirt made her a pink and brown tiger...she was happy enough with that (whew!)! She was still excited about the party and happily recounted who was dressed up as what.

If we had been in the US, I am not sure that we would have done trick-or-treating unless we knew the neighbors. Even as a kid, we never went to strangers' houses but back then we at least knew most families in the general neighborhood (3-block radius)...probably would not be the case these days...

I don't know how long you have been living oversees but people here still are friendly to their neighbors. We know about a dozen of our neighbors. As we walked around the block with my daughter on Halloween, we didn't go more than a half a block without being stopped by one neighbor or the other.

Unless you lived in NYC apartment building, and even when we lived there we knew ppl on our floor. But in rare city dwellings do you not know your neighbors. Neighborhood could be not Halloween friendly or apathetic but it all depends on how you manage to carry on relationships with your neighbors. We have neighbors right across the street who no one knows. They have a small child and besides seeing her with her nanny we don't know anything about them. THey apparently choose to have that type of living situation. Which is fine.

My point is, we live in the same neighborhood and we know dozen neighbors and one across from her knows hardly anyone. Or rather, no one knows them. They might know someone we don't.