In New England, Halloween is pretty much a season unto itself. There are haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides, Salem, etc. Kids dress up but also adults at work, etc. People take it seriously. We always do trick or treat on the day of too not like the friday before (which I feel like is a recent thing anyways)

Is it a big deal where you are? I know some places decorate a lot. Some places are just halloweeny like the day of halloween. Just curious to see.

22 comments
  1. I know there are haunted houses, hayrides, and trick or treating, of course people, well some, decorate their homes here, probably not to the extent it is done in New England though.

    We have those ‘designated’ times for Trick or Treating, something that wasn’t a thing when I was a kid, despite that, no one came to our door this year, the snow and wind, which is unusual (but not unheard of) didn’t help matters any in that department.

  2. Depending on the neighborhood it is huge. Like nearly street shutting down huge. I just went to my friend’s neighborhood to go with the kids. We are talking hundreds of kids in the streets with hundreds of parents. People with a popcorn machine passing out paper bags of popcorn. People serving up hot cider. Most houses participating. Some decorated like crazy.

    We had a neighborhood Halloween party for the kids in our neighborhood on Sunday at one of our neighbor’s houses. The previous Sunday we went to another party at one of my daughter’s classmates houses. We went to two different town Halloween downtown trick or treats where the main drag shuts down to traffic and all the local businesses and community organizations pass out candy. Tons of Protestant churches do trunk or treats in the more rural areas.

    All of October is fall festivals, apple picking, cider donuts, haunted forests, haunted houses.

    I love the New England dedication to fall and Halloween in particular.

  3. Pretty similar in Michigan, but trick or treating is usually on the actual holiday. We walked the kids around from 6-8 and I’m enjoying some hot cider from the local mill.

  4. We literally had a pop-up mini blizzard today that hit right at trick-or-treat time. We put on boots and coats over our costumes and trapped around in the snow and 15mph winds.

    We didn’t see hardly any other trick-or-treaters. Next year it could be sunny and 75 degrees or blizzard again. So, Halloween is weather-dependent here

  5. Halloween is huge here. I feel like the decorations in our neighborhood level up every year. despite the snow and ice today, we had a good showing of trick or treaters at our place. we handed out lots of airheads.

  6. Pretty much the same as you described, save for “taking it seriously” corn mazes, hay rides, haunted trains, decorations, trick or treating, costume parties, etc.

  7. In my immediate vicinity, just average decorations and trick or treating. It’s very tame, though there’s been somewhat of a resurgence since covid. But it’s very easy to get involved in haunted houses or hayrides or whatever if you want to.

    It’s funny because actually the little kids aren’t trick or treating as much, they’re all doing trunk or treat. The trick or treaters are the teens now. Which is fine, I’m happy for them having harmless fun like that.

  8. Halloween is pretty much a month long season where I am. There’s a haunted house set up at the county fairgrounds, houses have decorations up, etc etc. the corn mazes usually only go until September though, so that’s more of an early fall thing. And yes, Halloween night is always busy. Work cleared out by like, 2 pm today because everyone wanted to go home to get ready for trick or treaters

  9. Next to no one has kids in San Francisco and the weather never changes here, so it’s not very festive tbh. It’s mainly bar and club events and a lot of people just go to EDM shows. It’s fun though.

    We also have some Day of the Dead events because of the Latin population here.

  10. It is big in Florida but it’s so hot, some things change. Hayrides, if you can find them are blazing hot and half the time it is just an open field. You can’t carve pumpkins because they rot almost a day later. And any costume that is too covering is going to have you sweating.

    That said, at least in my neighborhood, everyone gives out bags of candy and stuff, a lot of people set up tables by the end of the driveway, and it is almost a social thing

  11. No one shows up :c

    But I live in the bad part of town with no sidewalks. I’ve delivered pizza on Halloween before and found hundreds of people concentrated on just a few roads. Tbh I don’t see very much decorations especially when compared to Christmas. When I was younger in Michigan, I always went with my friends and the harvest festival was the week prior. Very fun, I hope they still do that

  12. NYC, all the kids walk from store to store and collect candy from the cashiers.

    There was a huge display down the block that kids could walk through and see all sorts of characters.

  13. It’s a big deal in my town but maybe not quite as big as you’re describing. Kids dress up, and some adults do at work as well (I’m a teacher so it’s probably more common at my workplace.) People start decorating sometime in mid October. Churches and community organizations have Trunk or Treat events, and a lot of kids go Trick or Treating afterwards.

    Some of the Trunk or Treats are the Friday or Saturday before, but I would be shocked to see a trick-or-treater at my door on any day besides the 31st.

    There are also some haunted houses, a haunted corn maze and a regular “fun” corn maze, and some places to do hayrides and such nearby.

  14. Hundreds of little goblins went door to door this evening and collected scores of candy. I think we had over 400 kids even though it was pretty chilly and the wind was blowing. Kroger had a big bowl of candy sitting out at the pharmacy for anyone who wanted a candy bar

  15. Sounds like where I live here in California, one of the haunted houses near me was featured Sunday on Great Halloween Fright Night on ABC.

    My neighborhood sidewalks were packed with trick or treaters. There were houses that went all out, haunted garage you go into for candy, one house had a huge screen projecting horror movies with a dj

    There were halloween cars driving by, and even halloween golf carts.

    Just crazy and glad my kids experience it

  16. Basically the same here but cold as shit…we already have snow on the ground, but sounds exactly like what we do

  17. Hii i am an Indian my name is Nick it’s a nickname of my name Nikhil I like this festival so much i like to enjoy this festival too much but it is very sad to know that nobody knows here that there is any festival called halloween.

  18. Our neighborhood had to have restricted traffic last night, and I handed out over 1200 pieces of candy – up 200 from last year. The first kid arrived at 6pm, and the streets were clear by 8:30.

    The HOA sponsors a chili competition and a costume parade the Saturday before Halloween. Some houses go all out decorating, some do a little, and a few folks don’t participate at all.

  19. I live in a rual area and it’s not as big as when I lived Chicago. The biggest difference is trick or treating doesn’t happen here. Instead we have trunk or treats throughout October and on Halloween we have a Pumpkin Parade where kids parade through downtown in costume and get candy from the business. There are haunted houses, corn mazes, and that stuff but it’s a bit of a drive to get to.

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