Daytime Trick-or-Treating

This year, because we moved to a colder climate, I found daytime trick-or-treating events to take Evelyn to. It allowed us to be out during the warmer parts of the day, and I was able to layer clothes under my daughter's costume and feel secure that she was warm enough without a coat. We've actually had better fall weather than I expected, and it would not have been bad to plan to go trick-or-treating Halloween night. But I've had enough of trick-or-treating at this point, so we'll be at home, passing candy out together.

I learned that daytime trick-or-treating has some disadvantages. We took Evelyn to an event at our local farmer's market, and we took her to an event where shops at an outdoor shopping area were handing out treats. Each event was sort of fun, but I'm not sure they were worth the effort. The problem is etiquette, or a lack thereof. At today's event in particular (the outdoor shopping area), it was difficult to let my daughter walk on her own. Because she is so small, she would easily be overlooked by kids and adults alike, and I constantly worried about her being stepped on. When we would try to enter a store to trick-or-treat (why all the stores participating didn't set up tables outside where it was less crowded and easier to keep the crowd moving, I don't know), both adults and kids would cut in front of us as we opened the door and waited for our slower toddler to make her way in. You would have thought that the stores were handing out $20 bills rather than Dum Dum suckers and bite size Tootsie Rolls with the way some people tried to rush through. And nobody could blame their actions on the weather. It was a very pleasant, sunny 50 degrees outside.

Perhaps in the future I'll stick to more traditional trick-or-treating (doing it around the neighborhood Halloween night), and maybe try to find a Halloween party to go to rather than daytime trick-or-treating. It's not to say that it hasn't been fun this year. I just don't like big crowds of people who don't care to cooperate with one another.