Tricks and Treats for Trick or Treaters

[luvmysuper]

My wife and I have either lived overseas or in apartments and hotels for so long that we haven't celebrated a neighborhood Halloween in probably 10 years.
This year for the first time in a very very long time we are in a position that we will actually have kids trick or treating and coming up to the house for Halloween.

I'm rusty here fellas.

What do you do around your house to make it a Halloween must do for the neighborhood kids?

A dummy hanging from a tree - a scarecrow on the front porch - high tech digital window shows - ornately carved pumpkins - scary sounds triggered by motion detectors - I wanna know!

 

[techblade01]

What I have seen is some: pumpkins on the porch, a scarecrow on the porch too, candy in a basket with a sign "Please take two", and scary sounds triggered my motion detectors. Oh, I forgot the ornately carved pumpkins and ghosts hanging from trees.

 

[Toothpick]

I'll be out of town this year, but generally I just leave the porch light on and the door open (if I have a screen door) and pass out handfulls of various candy - mini chocolate bars, snack size skittles, sour patch kids, airheads, any willy wonka candy, and so on.
I just fill up a giant bowl with it all mixed in and as kids walk up I grab a handfull and toss it in their bag. One year I gave out full size candy bars.
Needless to say I don't get the egg (not that kids really do that, but why take a chance?)

as for decorations....I'm lazy, I don't do decorations.
I did carve pumpkins one year with a girl I was sweet on...but I don't remember what we ever did with them.

 

[Lmarkow]

Too few houses where I live, not worth the kids' efforts, so no prep is required. Don't even have to bring the dogs in.

 

[August West]

Don't give out knock-off candy or homemade treats. Go for the full size bars and/or packages. I generally put out a jack-o-lantern and replace the porch light with an orange bulb. Inquire with the neighbors regarding last years turnout to gauge purchase quantities.

Snickers, Hershey, Skittles, Reese's, etc...

Have fun!

EDIT: I have observed a phenomenon in the last ten years I must share. Kids from areas of the city with higher crime rates are driven by their parents into other neighborhoods to trick-or-treat. It can really mess up your purchasing projections. I had roughly 300 kids one year and only half were technically from 'my neighborhood'. I really enjoy the costumes and the big smiles. I especially like hearing "Thank you!". This may be unique to my location, but I thought I would throw it out there.

 

[OneShaveAttaTime]

Full size candy bars is the way to go. It doesnt cost much more then the fun size, and you will be virtually famous amongst neighborhood kids. Cheap insurance....

 

[luvmysuper]

Oh, I got the candy stuff down pat. It's full size bars for certain!

I'm more interested in what folks do to decorate and impress, or scare the kids that are trick or treating.
Especially if it's that kind of stuff that has the neighborhoods kids parents coming over and asking you "How the heck did you do that?"

 

[OneShaveAttaTime]

My wife is the big seasonal decorator, she certainly embraces all of the seasons and Halloween in particular. Ill post a few pictures, as we will be decorating in the next day or two. One thing I like thats easy and a 'fun' process,lol, is using Red Stripe bottles, and switching the labels to XXX, Poison, and a few others. We found labels that we printed off on a website. Im sure theres lots of them out there. Another easy thing is to take old clothes and stain them and stuff them accordingly, umm, we also use an old chest that we will stuff a body stuffed body and fake head into, we have also used the chest closed with a leg sticking out. lol, that gets lots of kids to stop. We have used a fog machine, and orange lights on the deck. Thats pretty extreme though, we used to do an annual Halloween party when the kids were younger, they are now in middle school and high school. Ill post more stuff we've don as I can remember, Im sure it will all start coming back when the decorations come out of storage. WOOOHOOO Halloween!!!

 

[August West]

Oh, I got the candy stuff down pat. It's full size bars for certain!

I'm more interested in what folks do to decorate and impress, or scare the kids that are trick or treating.
Especially if it's that kind of stuff that has the neighborhoods kids parents coming over and asking you "How the heck did you do that?"

You and the wife need to go to a costume store and do it up right! It can be costly, but a quasi-professional scary costume when you come to the door is a blast. I have not done it in years but it is a big hit.

 

[luvmysuper]

I've been looking at stuff from these guys

http://backfromthegrave.co/Index.html

Pretty cool ideas;

 

[beginish]

I just stop the kids in the neighborhood during the weeks before Halloween and tell them my neighbor two doors down has something hidden in the basement.

 

[Wood Badger]

I've been looking at stuff from these guys

http://backfromthegrave.co/Index.html

Pretty cool ideas;

Now that's COOL!!

Old school would be headstones in the front yard to make a graveyard, maybe have someone dressed up like Quasimodo digging a grave, and ZOMBIES! You can't go wrong with Zombies! If you have the time, you could build a European-style (tapered) coffin, and have someone dressed up as a vampire lie in it and pop out when kids show up. Splattering your porch with blood and having a "severed head" (dummy head) sitting on the porch would be cool...There's lots of things to do, you just have to use your imagination!

Good luck, and happy haunting!

 

[August West]

I've been looking at stuff from these guys

http://backfromthegrave.co/Index.html

Pretty cool ideas;

Phil is serious.

 

[luvmysuper]

If you have the time, you could build a European-style (tapered) coffin, and have someone dressed up as a vampire lie in it and pop out when kids show up.

I thought about that, but I've seen too many of these videos;

 

[Rockminer]

The biggest joy for me is seeing at the little trick or treaters. I think there's a fine line between Halloween scariness, and potentially scaring a kid for life. Keep it tastefull, have fun, and enjoy the youngins. You'll already be seen as a god when you hand out full size candy, so you can go as light or crazy as you want.

If all else fails, you could do like a guy in my fathers neighborhood and serve hot dogs and hamburgers straight off of the grill, in the middle of a culdesac. He was a big hit with the adults.......not so much with the kids LOL.

 

[mretzloff]

Buy a big bag of candy, eat the good stuff, and give the crappy candy out. Duh

 

[August West]

"Hey, let's egg Matthew's house!"

 

[mretzloff]

"Hey, let's egg Matthew's house!"

The driveway is very steep, so kids rarely come by. Lazy bums

 

[Wood Badger]

If you don't like your neighbors, pass out raw eggs and rotten tomatoes along with the candy bars.

 

[luvmysuper]

The biggest joy for me is seeing at the little trick or treaters. I think there's a fine line between Halloween scariness, and potentially scaring a kid for life. Keep it tastefull, have fun, and enjoy the youngins. You'll already be seen as a god when you hand out full size candy, so you can go as light or crazy as you want.

If all else fails, you could do like a guy in my fathers neighborhood and serve hot dogs and hamburgers straight off of the grill, in the middle of a culdesac. He was a big hit with the adults.......not so much with the kids LOL.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. I've no desire to truly scare any little kids. That particular shop has a wide variety of different effects available.