[Update] Halloween Neighbor "Candy Pass" [update post 92]

[MorgnsGrl]

Oh for heaven’s sake, give out candy or don’t give out candy.  There is no need to complicate the whole thing by creating tiered levels of candy giving.  How ridiculous.

100% this.

The idea is logistically ridiculous. And one bit of better candy does not matter much in the whole Halloween candy haul.

As a parent, I would roll my eyes and just avoid the house entirely. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

Exactly. What would you do if your kid's friend from another neighborhood went trick or treating with your kid? "Oh, sorry, Johnny, you only get a dum-dum because you don't live here. Billy gets a full sized Hershey's bar." UGH. And what happens when a non-neighborhood kid sees a neighborhood kid getting the "good" candy and asks why he can't have one? It all seems like a nightmare to me.

[Thipu1]

This is one of those ideas that sound great at the time but is more trouble than it's worth. 

Either neighbor is a a control freak or has way too much time on his hands. 

[Sharnita]

"As soon as the DNA results come back, you'll get that Kit-Kat."

[SlitherHiss]

Oh for heaven’s sake, give out candy or don’t give out candy.  There is no need to complicate the whole thing by creating tiered levels of candy giving.  How ridiculous.

100% this.

The idea is logistically ridiculous. And one bit of better candy does not matter much in the whole Halloween candy haul.

As a parent, I would roll my eyes and just avoid the house entirely. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable.

Exactly. What would you do if your kid's friend from another neighborhood went trick or treating with your kid? "Oh, sorry, Johnny, you only get a dum-dum because you don't live here. Billy gets a full sized Hershey's bar." UGH. And what happens when a non-neighborhood kid sees a neighborhood kid getting the "good" candy and asks why he can't have one? It all seems like a nightmare to me.

This. It's just an all-around terrible idea.

[rose red]

I had no idea the Grinch also stole Halloween.

[GlitterIsMyDrug]

I was a kid who went to other neighborhoods to trick or treat. I know. The shame. The horror. I grew up in apartments, no one handed out candy really. So I'd head off to one of my friends' houses, in the nice neighborhoods, and go begging for candy door to door. It was tons of fun, I don't have siblings so I got to go around with my friends and then we'd go back to their house, get our candy checked (razor blades and such), and then start swapping until we had just what we liked.

As an adult I love to hand out candy. I love seeing the kids costumes, and even meeting people who live around us. Of course we live in a townhouse community so we don't get a lot of ToTing so we've gone to friends houses to pass out candy before. I do give more candy for more creative costumes (zombie fairy princess got a huge handful last year, huge), and saying please/thank you/trick or treat (as long as old enough to do so) can also result in more candy (even a vague attempt, or polite smile if child is shy/developmentally challenged results in more candy).

I do say just as soon as we become wealthy we'll start passing out full sized candy bars. And I don't care which neighborhood you're from.

As for the guest list...that sounds excruciatingly complicated. Does the kid give you there name day of? What if someone who isn't in the neighborhood still gets on the guest list? I mean the signs are posted in public places. Do the parents have to show proof of residency?

Oh, we do make one distinction. When little little ones come to the door, like not even 2, we give them these little coloring books over candy (usually the parents are just bringing them by to show off their cuteness or with an older sibling). And there is one girl in community that has several food issues, so while her parents take her around, she doesn't get to enjoy the majority of her candy (she brings it to her parents' work and hands it out to the people who work there), so she gets a coloring book too (and some candy, her parents have said she loves handing out to their co-workers).

[rose red]

TorT may be a "safe" environment, but I don't want to teach my kid to give our their name to a stranger promising candy when it's not Halloween.  I'm sure most kids are smart, but you never know.  What are they going to think after you give permission to blurt out your name to an entire neighborhood and get rewarded for it?

[alkira6]

Dang - that strikes me as kind of, well, special.  We get a lot of TOTs and we do what we do every year- Buy a crapload of candy, give it out until it's gone, then turn off the lights and watch a movie.

[lakey]

I pass out treats at my elderly dad's house. His home is near a cross street where people in cars stop to drop off whole SUV's full of kids. Honestly, it doesn't bother me. Just as it doesn't bother me when teen-agers trick or treat. With the teen-agers I feel that there are a lot worse things they could be doing than trying to get some free candy. The kids who are dropped off? If they live in a rural area, what are they supposed to do, go to 5 houses?

I think that a woman who would go to this amount of trouble to limit the premium treats to neighborhood kids must lead a really sad life. A flier, people signing up beforehand, keeping a checklist? It's once a year, just have fun with it. I'd rather focus on the toddlers in their cute costumes than try to decide who is worthy and who isn't.

If it's a financial issue, buy cheaper candy. In thirty something years I've never had a child make a rude remark because the candy wasn't good enough. And I sometimes put together little treat bags with a few different things in them. When I start running low I end up giving out a small sucker or a piece of bubblegum so I don't have to turn kids away. I've never heard a complaint.

[shhh its me]

I'm trying to decide if its actually rude or just bizarre.   I'm leaning towards rude.....I think inventing a serious amount of red tape and what will obviously cause a bottle neck at their home for you and only you that goes against a multi generational tradition if a little rude. Also how publicly will they be giving out different candy as in the PP example.
 
I think many parents will be put off by a stranger in the neighborhood asking for their children's names to put on a list.

My community now doesn't do trick or treating there is a party for the kids though. When I lived where there was TOT I had an eternal standard for how much candy I gave out.  Polite kids , best customs , little kids with not much candy , immigrates with babies and a look of slightly perplexed excitement and joy always got a little more.  BUT I dint give more in a way that was other TOTs saw , everyone at the door at the same time got about the same amount.

[MyFamily]

I pass out treats at my elderly dad's house. His home is near a cross street where people in cars stop to drop off whole SUV's full of kids. Honestly, it doesn't bother me. Just as it doesn't bother me when teen-agers trick or treat. With the teen-agers I feel that there are a lot worse things they could be doing than trying to get some free candy. The kids who are dropped off? If they live in a rural area, what are they supposed to do, go to 5 houses?

I think that a woman who would go to this amount of trouble to limit the premium treats to neighborhood kids must lead a really sad life. A flier, people signing up beforehand, keeping a checklist? It's once a year, just have fun with it. I'd rather focus on the toddlers in their cute costumes than try to decide who is worthy and who isn't.

If it's a financial issue, buy cheaper candy. In thirty something years I've never had a child make a rude remark because the candy wasn't good enough. And I sometimes put together little treat bags with a few different things in them. When I start running low I end up giving out a small sucker or a piece of bubblegum so I don't have to turn kids away. I've never heard a complaint.

Funny, I was imagining this was a man doing this - probably a big boss at a company who recently retired and dang-nabbit, we spend how much on candy and most of it goes to people who don't even live in our neighborhood?  I know what I'll do - I will create a policy that will help streamline and make it better - who cares about all the potential pitfalls and problems this is causing, I'm the boss and I know how to streamline things.

[NyaChan]

I'm just imagining the tears and/or tantrums that are going to result when very excited children with sugar in their systems realize that they aren't one of the chosen.  Not nice to publicly differentiate this way IMO - if you want to only treat your neighborhood, have a Halloween Party with an invite list.

[lowspark]

Back when I was a kid trick-or-treating (back in the 60s!), there used to be truckloads of kids getting dropped off in my neighborhood to make the rounds. This is nothing new. Ya gotta go where the candy is. That's the whole point.

I used to know someone who was really into Halloween. She decorated (probably still does) her house to the teeth. She started preparing weeks in advance, stuffing packets with candy (each packet had maybe four different candy items) to hand out. She (with help from her family) made hundreds. People would come from all over to trick or treat at her house -- it was sort of famous in the area.

She was all about the fun of the holiday and the thrill the kids got from all her decorations and the candy. Instead of turning away kids who didn't live in her neighborhood, she actually courted them.

We're like alkira6. I buy a boatload of candy, hand it all out, then turn out the lights. Funny thing is, since we bought this house 15 years ago, our customer count has fluctuated but the last few years we seem to have been on an upswing. Every year I buy more candy and every year it seems to get busier. Lots of kiddies in the neighborhood these days, I suppose, or else being bussed in, LOL!

[FauxFoodist]

Oh for heaven’s sake, give out candy or don’t give out candy.  There is no need to complicate the whole thing by creating tiered levels of candy giving.  How ridiculous.

I'd have to agree.  Last year, DH (then-DF) was a bit of a grump when it came to handing out candy (which is super-strange because, normally, *I* am the one who is harder on EVERYONE else in life, while he is generous-to-a-fault).  He was complaining about kids who came to the door not wearing costumes and felt they shouldn't get any candy.  He was mean (I thought mean) to one young kid who asked nicely, "May I have a Kit Kat?"  He told the kid, "You get what I give you" and gave him something else.  I was really taken aback.  I asked him how it would've hurt to give the kid a Kit Kat?  DH felt it was rude and presumptuous to ask.  I didn't see what the big deal is as there were also Kit Kats available.  I also pointed out that it wouldn't do for us to be known as the "house with the mean man" as we don't exactly live in the best of neighborhoods and, also, I don't want to one day find our house has been tp'd.

And, now that this thread has reminded me I need to pick up candy for this year (we weren't prepared for the huge number of kids last year, which was about 350, so we ran out of candy early on).

[Miss March]

I live in a rural town and the way things are run here, only one certain stretch of road is open for trick or treating. Literally, town announcements are sent out that Trick or Treating will be held on "North Road" from 6pm- 8pm. The road is closed to traffic and the kids only go to houses along that stretch- no where else in town. Because the people who live on that road face such a high demand of children, flyers are also sent out asking every parent to donate at least 20 pieces of candy per child who will be trick or treating. Candy donations are collected at the town library and then distributed among the houses on North Street. I'm actually always a little sad that the kids don't come down my street.