When I first moved here there were a lot of children in the neighborhood. Every holiday was a big deal to the neighbors. We all decorated our houses and yards with lights and yard ornaments and people used wreaths and yard flags to decorate. Halloween was a big deal with a lot of small groups of kids and parents going house to house collecting candy. I loved seeing the different costumes and happy, expectant faces of the kids as they held out their Halloween bags and buckets for their treats.
I guess most of those kids have grown up and there are not a lot of new families moving into the area. I was a little disappointed to only have my doorbell rung six times with trick or treaters. There were two groups of very young children, with parents and strollers walking down the street. The rest were older kids, and to be honest, one group of teenagers seemed to be a little too old to be going out trick or treating this year. i hope they did it just for fun, maybe their last hurrah, and didn’t cause any mischief for anyone in the neighborhood. The older kids make me a little nervous about causing trouble when it gets late and people stop giving out candy for the night. I hope that the fact this is a school night will send those older kids home early with the rest of the kids and that there is no trouble with vandalism and other tricks tonight.