Comments on: Trunk or Treat?

By: A Healthy Dose of Skepticism | Main Street Plaza

A Healthy Dose of Skepticism | Main Street Plaza — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:46:52 +0000

[...] I took my petition to a local stake trunk or treat event. I don’t usually attend local LDS stake events (as my name was removed some time ago), [...]

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By: chanson

chanson — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:31:31 +0000

Speaking of people with no appreciation for the sanctity of Halloween — did you see this video about people campaigning to kids on Halloween?

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By: chanson

chanson — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 15:01:46 +0000

Jonathan — lol, we atheists should start decrying the prop 8 folks’ “War on Halloween”.

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By: Jonathan Blake

Jonathan Blake — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:06:37 +0000

Chino,

That’s a great way to kill the goodwill of Halloween, as if I wasn’t getting enough political fliers in my mailbox. Have these people no appreciation for the sanctity of Halloween?

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By: t.n. trap

t.n. trap — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:41:13 +0000

Word. Why do you want to hide from your neighbors? I am opposed to the trunk or treat-it’s just not as cool as the real thing. Mormon and non-mormon churches here do them. If you want to have a party, have a real party. Then let the kiddies go trick or treating, go around with them and maybe get a hint of how nice it is to actually get to know the people in your neighborhood.

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By: chanson

chanson — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:37:11 +0000

p.s. to Chino — yikes!! That is pretty scary…

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By: chanson

chanson — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 06:30:42 +0000

Aha, the plot thickens!

I’d figured out (by googling “Trunk or Treat”) that it wasn’t just a Mormon or Utah thing. But I’d wrongly thought it was exculsively used as an alternative to real trick-or-treating for safety reasons.

I remember those “razor blades in apples” scares Aerin mentions. People were supposedly sticking needles and staples into candies and poisoning treats. That whole thing always struck me as a pretty irrational fear. After all, the people handing out these treats live in your neighborhood (you obviously know where they live), so if they were offering tampered treats (for some crazy reason) there’s a pretty high probability they’d get caught. And parents can examine the treats for tampering — some neighborhoods even offer to X-ray the candies. And if you really want to be paranoid about this, it’s not as though it’s impossible for the local kid-poisoning-psycho to be someone in your ward or stake…

I hadn’t realized, though, that (as Mike D. and Jonathan point out) it’s often in addition to trick-or-treating instead of competing. It looks like what it’s really competing with is the tradition of having a ward Halloween party. I think Green Mormon Architect may be on to something:

In case we werenâ€™t spending enough time in our cars, now we can spend halloween in our cars as well. Since the suburban lifestyle revolves around our vehicles, maybe we should look at ways other holidays can also be spent in and around our carsâ€¦

LOL!! I’d rather show off my kids’ costumes to friends at a party indoors with games!

But maybe I’m just being an old carmudgen saying “In my day we did it this way, and we liked it!” For example, we’d do things like bobbing for apples that I suppose will soon enter the realm of things people used to do in the olden days…

Of course, for all my talk, I haven’t taken my kids out trick-or-treating even once. Halloween is catching on in Europe, but it seems like trick-or-treating hasn’t caught on to the point where there are any places the kids could go and expect to get anything. This year both boys dressed up as pirates and we wandered around town a bit. We saw a few other groups of young people in costumes, but not many.

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By: Hellmut

Hellmut — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:31:38 +0000

Awesome! A smart growth Mormon! Good to see you, Green Mormon Architect.

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By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:58:29 +0000

I don’t remember doing them growing up, but many churches and schools sponsor them these days. It’s not particularly a “Mormon” or “Utah” thing at all. A lot of parents like it simply because it gives small kids a chance to get some candy and have fun without the parents having to walk the neighborhood.

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By: Chino Blanco

Chino Blanco — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:10:04 +0000

A super fun link for your All Hallows’ Eve:

Just in Time for Halloween: Spook the Neighbors with your ‘Yes on 8 Zombie’ Routine !!

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