What Your Trick Or Treat Schedule Says About You

halloween dollsLike most years, Halloween falls on a school night this year. A Thursday, lest you haven’t had that moment with your digital calendar yet. If your kids are young, you probably weren’t exactly planning any all-night ragers anyway. But school the next day does mean perhaps making your schedule a little tighter, with an “in the costume” deadline as well as an hour in which the last house on the block will be hit up. Or maybe not!

(photo:  Bebopgirl1969)

If you’re looking to have all this trick or treating business finished by eight p.m.

You’ll be one of the admittedly dorky trick or treating in the daylight parents but luckily, your kid is much too young to care. You’ve hit up a couple families in your area and have exactly four or five houses/apartments that you’ll be tapping. One or two pieces of candy before bed may make you seem like one of those Halloween prude parents. But what you really care about is just getting the kid in bed by the normal hour so there will be no next day bitching.

If you’re just going to do the costume dress up and maybe hit up one house

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What Halloween, at least at this stage of your kid’s life, is really about is the photo ops. The pictures to post on Facebook, to e-mail to relatives, and to Instagram like crazy. Your child is still a little too small to grasp that trick or treating is a staple, because frankly, he or she doesn’t even know what Halloween is aside from what you say it is. Being stuffed into a dragon costume and being made to thank a single stranger for candy is what Halloween will be this year. That and maybe eating a few Snickers yourself.

(photo:  obsessivelystitching – StitchWhipped)

If you’re leading a neighborhood trick or treating troop after dinner

Your kid has probably been trick or treating with the same pile of kids since he or she was in his or her first pumpkin costume, and you like that tradition. Hence why you lead up the troops and organize the times and have a lineup at your door at seven p.m. and away you all go. You’re right there confirming which of your little brigade has nut allergies, soy allergies, which houses are safe, which houses are unsafe, and you’ve printed out maps for the parents who want to join later. You are On. This. Shit.

If your kid goes along with other kids and you stay home

Your kid is probably a little older at this point and you have all those obligatory cutesy pictures banked already. While you never fail to grab that costume shot every year, you’ve done the around the block thing, you’ve done the awkward small talk with the parents in your neighborhood for 20 minutes while everyone takes pictures. These days you’re content to wave from your door, see your kid off with people you trust, and eat some Hershey’s Kisses before you put some out for the kids.

If you trick or treat in your neighborhood, other neighborhoods, and beyond

You’re the parent that goes the extra mile for Halloween –literally. Your neighborhood is just one stop on a whole list of places that need to be visited, including, but not limited to, your friends’ neighborhoods, your kid’s friends’ neighborhoods, and even the malls. Halloween is serious business, damnit. You’ve already run into a few disapproving parents here and there who are scandalized that you’ll be out past 10. You feel like cackling like a witch, broom in hand.

If you’re hosting a Halloween party

You’ve done the trick or treating thing and it’s such a bore. Furthermore, it tends to be pretty anticlimactic given all the fuss over costumes. You can do it better. It’s just that simple. You prefer hosting mini-parties for the kiddies and seeing to it that nothing gets too scary, that food allergies are respected, and that games are age appropriate. Plus, you can try out all your new Pinterested goodies and theme up the house. Happy Halloween indeed.

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