We had 16 more trick-or-treaters this year than we had last year and the most popular time to visit was between 6:30p and 7:00p, which is earlier than the last couple of years. We had seen a trend where kids were coming out later, but Halloween was on a Sunday so I’m thinking the kids had to be home earlier on a “school night.”

Here’s the graph:

And the cumulative data from this year and the other years we’ve tracked:

		Year
		2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Time Block	6:00p - 6:30p	52	5	14	17	19
	6:30p - 7:00p	59	45	71	51	77
	7:00p - 7:30p	35	39	82	72	76
	7:30p - 8:00p	16	25	45	82	48
	8:00p - 8:30p	0	21	25	21	39
	Total	162	139	237	243	259

As mentioned, Halloween was on a Sunday and we did the two giant bags of candy from Costco like we did last year. We had a little left over, maybe a third of a bag, so it seems two Costco bags is the magic number.

I had intended to decorate more than last year, but I ended up with only putting out the projector again. We’ve had a lot going on lately so I had to skip on the heavier decorating. I was pretty pleased with my costume this year, though, which was Sherlock Holmes:

I made the hat, coat, and vest myself. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I did a decent job matching up all the plaids at the seams and got several compliments, which is always nice when you put in a ton of effort.

Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed a lot more of what I’ll call “Halloween Bullshit” going on. I ended up tweeting about it as it was happening, and while it’s not like “Holy crap, this is a huge problem” or anything, people are doing stuff that, well, I feel is probably less than in the spirit of the holiday.

• If I see a big group of kids leave your house to go trick-or-treating, you’d best leave someone at home to hand out candy. I watched as a huge family with at least five trick-or-treat age kids left the house, shut off the lights, locked the doors, and went out to harvest candy without leaving anyone at home. That’s leeching, folks, and no one likes a leech. If you’re going to go out into the neighborhood and take candy, have the common decency to leave someone at home to hand out candy, too.
• If you couldn’t be bothered to wear a costume, you shouldn’t bother to trick-or-treat. I see this mostly in the older kids who probably shouldn’t be out trick-or-treating in the first place. Plenty of jeans + sweatshirt + flip-flops showing up with a pillowcase demanding candy. The “I’m a student” or “I’m a regular person” line to try and justify it isn’t clever or funny, it’s just bullshit. You don’t have to have some elaborate get-up, but at least put in some effort or just stay home.
• If your kid can’t walk and/or talk, they’re not old enough to trick-or-treat. I’m not stupid. I know the candy’s for you. That kid doesn’t even have teeth with which to chew this peanut butter cup. Go buy your own damn candy and stop freeloading off the neighborhood. We actually had two ladies - not in costume - wheel a toddler - in costume - up to the door in a stroller and hold out two bags for candy. Really? There’s only one kid here. Two bags? You’re not even trying to hide it. (There was a very specific demographic of people who did this. I won’t comment on exactly what that demographic is, but experience in the last couple of years says it’s definitely this demographic that thinks this sort of thing is OK.)

Looks like Halloween is on a Monday next year so I anticipate attendance will be down slightly, and possibly shifted into the earlier times the way it was this year.