The Trick or Treat Conundrum

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Now comes the week of Hallowe’en, and with it, my perennial question: to buy candy, or not?

I live on a rural road with seven house close together - the way New Englanders settled, with your neighbors near and a LOT of acreage behind. The year Ross and I moved in with 17 month old Smithie and the one month old Boy, we were hitting a wave. Four of the houses had turned over in the past two years, and we all had babies and toddler. 

 

For the first years, that worked out delightfully. Seven houses is more than enough for three to five year olds, and because we didn’t live in a place where others came to Trick or Treat, everyone was generous with their candy bowls. Special shout-out to the late Steve Heroux, who gave out cold Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale to all the grownups.

But kid get older, and they make friends well outside of your small neighborhood, and they start to hear about the hauls their classmates made in nearby developments and at their grandmother’s suburbs. My kids went to Catholic school in the big city of Portland, Maine (pop. 70,000) and their tiny urban friends made serious Trick or Treat hauls. I’m talking house giving out full sized chocolate bars.

So we began spending the evening at a friends house; Shari would make a delicious chili and homemade bread for everyone, we’d take our pack of youngsters out and about, and everyone had a good time. (Yes, concerned parents, Ross and I did sequester the trick or treat bags and doled out  reasonable portions of the candy. Starting on November 1st.)

Fast forward to 2026. There are still seven houses in our neighborhood, but only two families have children. There’s a new couple with a teenager part-time, and the rest of us are all on Medicare. For at least the past three or four years, no one’s come to my door, despite my lit candles and friendly pumpkins. And here’s the rub - part of the reason I’ve lost thirty pounds over the past 3-4 years is by not buying any sweets. Never have them in the house. Niente.

But. But….

Reds, what would you do? And how is trick or treating in your neighborhood?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: No one ever comes. No one. Ever.  Comes. We live in a neighborhood that has a lot of houses, but they’re far apart, and we have a long driveway. I have always thought that trick-or-treaters make a return- on investment assessment, and decide it’s too far to walk for what they could possibly receive.

But I look out for them every year, with high hopes, because I absolutely love to see little kids in costumes.

We faithfully buy trick-or-treat candy, and we have some unopened bags in our pantry from, I’m afraid, years ago. (But it’s still fine, right?)

Last week at Costco we bought a massive box of individually packaged chips and pretzels, Funyuns and Bugles and stuff like that to hand out instead of candy. Do you think kids would like that?

I am still going to buy some Twizzlers, even if I have to dress up and knock on our door to get them. 

JENN McKINLAY: We were not prepared when we moved into the suburbs surrounded by three elementary schools and a middle school. Lord-a-mercy, we ran through three bags of candy in a half hour and had to shut out the lights and hide. The next ten years we went through 10-15 bags of candy (thankfully, this was the Hooligans’ trick or treating era and they enjoyed it to the fullest). Then the recession hit and so many families moved out. Our neighborhood became an ASU suburb and it was all man-buns and the faint whiff of weed smoke for a few years, then the families came back but not as many. Now we go through a respectable five bags of candy, if we’re home and not traveling.

 

 
HALLIE EPHRON: FIFTEEN BAGS?!? Yikes.

I love Halloween, and we have a pretty active trick-or-treat neighborhood with a fresh crop of kiddoes. We only go through 2-3 bags of candy. I try to buy the kind *I* like just in case there are leftovers, but usually by morning the candy’s gone. 

We get a blast of little ones at around 6PM, then a lull, then older kids. After 8 I just put the leftovers in a bowl on the front steps and by morning it’s all gone and I’ll be lucky if no one’s smashed the pumpkin we had on the front steps. 

I don't buy kids liking these, even back in 1958

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Wow, fifteen bags, that’s a LOT of candy!! I never remember to buy candy in time and the supermarkets are always sold out by the time I think about it. Maybe Hank should send me some of hers?? We haven’t done trick or treating in quite a few years now. There are some blocks in our neighborhood that get Jenn’s amount of traffic, but we’ve never had more than a few. Also, we have to shut up the dog, who barks like a maniac even if the little fairies and goblins don’t ring the doorbell, so it’s easier just to turn off the porch light.

And now I feel like a grinch!

 

 

 

 

 

RHYS BOWEN: I live up a steep hill so have never had many kids coming. When we first moved in there were other families on our block and one big boy was a witch with a cauldron that terrified my kids. Recently it’s two or three at the most, although John always bought several bags of Kit Kat. Oh dear. Now I guess I’ll just have to eat these!

I never did much in the way of decorating, but now I have Anne living with me… former theater person.. And we’re having a pumpkin carving party tomorrow. My house already looks like this:  Going to be fun!

 

 

 

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Rhys, those decorations are priceless–if they don’t give you a heart attack! We’re like Hank, we just don’t get kids. The payoff in our neighborhood is poor. Yesterday at the Stop and Shop I had the candy or no candy debate, and ended up with one bag of Nestle’s Crunch just in case. I looked at the Twizzlers and thought of you Hank! But I knew I would eat them all so I left them on the shelf.

When I got home, I said to John, “I tried to choose something we don’t much like.”

“You were successful,” he said. Now we hope a few kids come because WE WILL EAT THEM ANYWAY. There would never ever be bags of candy left lingering in our pantry!

 

JULIA: And of course, if you or your spouse don't leave for the office, the old trick of taking the temptation away to work isn't available! One year when Hallowe'en was on a Saturday, I dumped the rest of the candy in a bowl and set it out for coffee hour at St. Luke's. Sorry, fellow parishioners on a diet.

How about you, dear readers? Do you expect trick or treaters? And how will you prepare for them? 

 

Texted to Death, and We Are Still Reading

DEBORAH CROMBIE: So how are we all surviving the ad onslaught in the run up to the midterms???

We don't watch much broadcast TV, so have at least mostly been spared ads there. (I love The Voice, but watch on Tablo, which gives you commercial skip the next day.) But we do like to watch things on YouTube, and the ads there have been relentless and inescapable. You can't fast forward--you can only wait for the little disc to count down until it allows you to skip, and often they are bundling three or four ads in that space. And of course if you're not fast enough on the button, the cycle starts all over again... 

And then there are the texts!!! We might be able to choose not to watch TV or YouTube, but sometimes texts are actually important and we can't just ignore them or shut off the app. I can take some responsibility for the number I get because I'm on donor rolls, but Rick is not and he gets almost as many as I do.

I feel guilty, too, because many of these texts are from people I'd like to support but I'm already doing what I can for my state candidates, and I will vote. (Friday!)

Has anyone devised a coping strategy, other than infinite patience?

Now, for a couple of brighter notes, I had to share a photo of one of the gorgous pots on our front porch, which I mentioned the other day.

I have two of these, courtesy of our local hardware store, and goodness did they perk things up after our blistering summer. I'm trying to take half an hour every day just to sit outside and admire them.

And here's another cheery thing. There is a huge profile of James Daunt in the October 19th issue of The New Yorker, titled "The New Age of Reading." It doesn't seem that the magazine allows gift articles (or at least I couldn't figure out how to do it,) but here's the link if you're a subscriber. If not, it might be worth a trial just to read this piece.

I've been a huge fan of Daunt Books since long before Daunt became CEO of then-failing Waterstone's (and now Foyle's and Blackwell's as well) and now CEO of Barnes & Noble. The original Daunt's in Marlebone is one of the most gorgeous bookstores you could ever hope to visit, and I also love the Daunt's in Holland Park, which has been my "regular" when I'm in London. (A funny story about that store--quite a few years ago I was in London when one of my books had recently come out and the shop had several copies on display. I took them to the counter and asked them if they'd like me to sign the stock (as we do in the US) and they looked at me like I was absolutely bonkers. In the end I had to show them ID to prove that I wasn't just some crazy lady who'd wandered in off the street and wanted to deface the merchandise!)

After a slew of articles in the last few months, including "The Age of Reading is Dead" in the August issue of The Atlantic, The New Yorker piece offers a much needed rebuttal, as well as an in-depth look at the man who seems to have single-handedly saved bookstores on both sides of the Atlantic.

What do you think about the state of reading, dear Reds and readers? I know we exist in a book-centric universe, but I see positive signs everywhere.

A Madness of Pumpkins

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When I was a child (back in the dark ages I admit) I remember having one autumn pumpkin, and that was for carving a jack-o-lantern on Halloween. I don't remember my mother ever festooning the inside of the house with orange squash, nor were there any pumpkins decorating porch or driveway. Times have certainly changed! I give you my daughter's porch as an exhibit! 

Those mums are almost as big as Wren!! They didn't cart all these pumpkins home themselves, by the way. There are pumpkin decorating services! (What I'm wondering is whether the service will also come and take them away?) This makes the two tiny ones I put on my front doorstep this year look a bit sad, but that little pop of orange color is still cheerful.

I debated buying more, and bigger, ones for the front steps, but then did the calculations–not only would I have to carry them from the car, but also back to the trash bins at the end of season. We don't have a big compost pile and I never much like putting a bunch of rotting vegetables in the landfill.

But it's not just Americans that have gone pumpkin mad. I run across ex-pat Brits who will tell me that the British don't do pumpkins, or Halloween, but I beg to differ. Look around anywhere in London, where gourds abound, or at this shot of Tulley's Pumpkin Farm near Gatwick Airport just south of London. Check out their link above--it's atonishing.

Those are some serious pumpkins!

This started me thinking about the economics of the pumpkin craze, and what a boon it must be to farmers, whether here or in the UK. I just read in my Dallas paper that this summer's drought in the Texas Panhandle reduced the pumpkin crop by about a third and the farmers are suffering.

I have to say I do love all the displays, they are so bright and cheerful, and I'm all in for anything that gives our farmers a cash crop. How about it, fellow Reds, do you go all out for the seasonal squash?

LUCY BURDETTE: I love looking at the displays as well! We were so sad this year because the pumpkins did not come up in John's garden. Last year we probably got 20, put a bunch out ourselves and gave the rest to the neighbors. This year we have two tiny mini pumpkins on the dining room table and that’s it. But I think yours are adorable!

JENN McKINLAY: I’m more of fake headstones on the front yard decorator than pumpkins on the porch. When the Hooligans were young, we carved pumpkins and put them out, saving the seeds for roasting, natch. But once they outgrew it, I was over it. The headstones and skeleton come out every year, unless I’m traveling during Halloween. I do love other people’s pumpkin displays, however!

HALLIE EPHRON: My neighborhood goes mad for Halloween, but not so much for pumpkins. It’s more blow-up plastic tarantulas and skeletons sitting on roofs or leaping out of attic windows.

My Jerry was a master pumpkin carver and every year we’d set one that he’d carved in our front window. And I’d wash and roast the seeds that got came out of it. One year I even rescued the pumpkin the day after and made a pie. 

This year I have 2 smallish pumpkins on my front steps, courtesy of my lovely daughter who is now living part time with me. (Lucky me!!) I’m hoping she will opt to carve it as we approach the end of the month.

RHYS BOWEN: My pumpkin carving always left a lot to be desired. Triangle shaped eyes and mouth at best. Since the kids left home I have two ceramic pumpkins I put out with candles in them, but that's about it. We have so few children in my neighborhood that it hardly seems worth decorating.

 

But this year, now that I have my daughter Anne living with me and she is creative and enthusiastic, we may even carve pumpkins and put out a ghost or two.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m a harvest-time/Hallowe’en/Thanksgiving decorator, so I like my pumpkins, mums and gourds. I have several big ones on my porch steps; I like the way they look on the stone, with the last daisies and asters. After Oct 31, I’ll add a few gourds and, if necessary, replace the mums with decorative kales. Happily, I DO have a compost pile, so everything goes back to the soil one way or another.

When my kids were young, of course, we did jack o’lanterns, and sometimes I’d supplement them with uncut (and therefore longer lasting) pie pumpkins. I’ve had many a pumpkin pie in my time, but made fresh from the squash is the most delicious!

DEBS: I love your display, Julia, and now I'm a bit sorry I didn't do my steps as I usually do, alternating pale blue and pale pink pumpkins. I love the weird colors!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah. Um. No. Nothing. I am more a huge basket of mums person. Should I get a pumpkin? I will never make a pie of it, so maybe I’ll stick with the flowers? I am fond of Halloween but more as an observer. I’m not the Halloween Grinch, I promise!

DEBS: Hank, everyone should have at least one pumpkin, even if only a tiny one for your dining room table! I've put a little one on my coffee table and and also on my dining table, and they make me smile every time I look at them.

How about it, dear REDs? Do you have a plethora of pumpkins? Or do you save the squash for pumpkin pie?