Trick or Treat? [Updated]

Hallowe’en is fast approaching, and once again I am caught without a costume. I was thinking of hunting down a few accessories at a thrift store so I could be Hipster Hitler, but I’m not sure how well that would go over with folks not privy to the comic. There’s also the possibility of making a placard for Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity, which I would have loved to try to attend had I still been living on the East Coast.

I’m trying to decide whether or not I should attempt to trick-or-treat on Sunday night. Last year my brother and I handed out candy at my mom’s house, and when the number of kids coming by slowed to a trickle we grabbed some hats and cloaks from our old costume bin and did some collecting of our own. Update: I am reminded that we didn’t just demand candy from folks, we actually put together a little rhyme about how older folks like candy too and performed it slapstick-fashion when people opened the door. I’m sure there’s a video of this floating around somewhere but it never made it onto the computer.

This was actually a first for me—when I was a kid, we had “harvest parties” with bonfires and candy-filled piñatas. They were fun in their own right, especially since there weren’t that many places to trick-or-treat around our house and you really need to be in a neighborhood to maximize the return. Of course, when Mark (my little brother) got older he had friends who lived in neighborhoods, and we eventually moved to a place in a neighborhood ourselves, so he’s been trick-or-treating for years.

Especially since last year’s holiday being such a blast, I’m worried that the 31^st will kick off a series of festive days that are going to make me pine for Maryland. It’s hard to find people crazy enough to go trick-or-treating at this age, and I don’t know the neighborhoods around here very well. Even if we can’t go candy-looting, we’re thinking about having a pumpkin-carving party in the next week or so. Mark and I have carved pumpkins together every year around this time, so perhaps we can still do it in spirit if not in fact. Plus, lots of eviscerated pumpkins means that many more seeds for me to oven-roast.