Comparing the customs and rules of trick or treating now as opposed to when you were a kid, what would you say has changed? Did you go all over or just to people you knew? did your parents go with you? Did you ever go into people's houses? Did you ever get and/or eat anything that wasn't wrapped like cookies or apples?

For the most part my brother and I only went to the people our parents knew, one year we went to other houses because we went with a kid who did go all over, our mother was always with us, one year his mother gave out cookies and since we knew her, we ate them, for the most part everything was wrapped, except one woman who put out a bowl of candy, and a bowl of little toy tops and whistles, now that one I thought was a cool idea. Sometimes we would go inside people's houses but never past the living room, or kitchen depending on what door they were answering.

Supernova wrote:

Comparing the customs and rules of trick or treating now as opposed to when you were a kid, what would you say has changed? Did you go all over or just to people you knew? did your parents go with you? Did you ever go into people's houses? Did you ever get and/or eat anything that wasn't wrapped like cookies or apples?

For the most part my brother and I only went to the people our parents knew, one year we went to other houses because we went with a kid who did go all over, our mother was always with us, one year his mother gave out cookies and since we knew her, we ate them, for the most part everything was wrapped, except one woman who put out a bowl of candy, and a bowl of little toy tops and whistles, now that one I thought was a cool idea. Sometimes we would go inside people's houses but never past the living room, or kitchen depending on what door they were answering.

When I was a kid trick or treating people were not stuffing razors in apples and giving out poisoned candy or stuffing little bombs in the wrappings. I used to go with my older brothers and sisters and yes we went into peoples house and yes we ate cookies and brownies that they would give us and nothing ever happened to any of us.

Now these days I would rather not have a kid of mine go trick or treating at all.

The ironic part is back in the 50s when the needles and razor blades stories first started, and the poisoned candy, when it DID actually happen, it was an inside job, always parents trying to kill their own kids, not neighbors, go figure.

Shale wrote:

I thot the razors and needles were in the '80s when X-rays were being made available for your treats.

Apparently not, my mother said when she was a kid in the 50s, she was at a party and some kid there with her was told he had to go home because of a family emergency, his father had bitten into an apple with a razor blade in it. Of course, who knows if it was true or not, but 50 years ago they firmly believed it and back then they were already getting into the paranoia of don't eat anything that isn't wrapped.

I'm not sure if many trick-or-treating customs have changed since I was a kid - but then, as an adult now, I don't treat the trick-or-treaters! I shut off all the lights (including the porch lights) so they know not to come up the steps and bother me for candy (I know, total hermit right?!) Come to think of it, despite all this, a few of them still come around and they come around pretty early in the evening, when it's still light out. That's no fun! We would always go when it was dark out - that was part of the thrill!

But when I was a kid, it was a ball. I'd always go with a couple friends and my Mom would come with us to supervise. We went up to houses (both houses we knew and didn't know) as long as the lights were on, and knock on the doors, though we never went in anyone's houses. I never ate anything that wasn't wrapped up and sealed. I dressed as a witch every year - it was a blast!

I grew up in a small beach town in California, (It isn't small any more) back then we kids went trick or treating with friends or alone, parents didn't have to go with us, and teenagers didn't trick or treat.We also stayed within a few blocks of home. Today half the "children" who come to our door are taller than I am and have very deep voices. Last year I had a mother and daughter team, the daughter was 16 or 17 if she was a day! Before we moved here One very tall deep voiced kid came trick or treating at our door and brought his own beer with him, we never had Halloween there again. I would lock the gate and turn off the lights. Screw em", All the little kids had moved away and left the teen aged hoodlums when the grade school closed in that community.

What's changed? Kid's are a lot ruder! Even back in the 60's, my mother had to inspect our haul for booby traps. Apples were tossed as a matter of routine.

I recall my dad taking me out trick or treating when I was six. The next year my mom took me. The year after that I went with my older sister and her friends. Then the next few years I went with my own friends. This all sort of stopped when I was around thirteen or fourteen. I don't recall trick or treating after middle school. I may have gone to a Halloween party, or two, but aside from that I don't remember ever going into anyone's houses.

^^^ Pretty much was she wrote. Although my folks never took me trick or treating. I always went with my cousins or friends.