When it comes to holidays, you develop different family traditions, especially when you have kids. You pick and choose things you loved as a child to bring into your family as an adult. You collaborate with your partner and form new traditions. And sometimes, you abandon traditions all together.
For Halloween, my husband and I used to dress up and have parties. I loved getting my friends together to celebrate the holiday. Like many others however, the partying soon became less frequent as we got older. Then, when we bought a house, a new Halloween tradition began: hiding from the trick-or-treaters.
I grew up trick-or-treating, and I don’t really have anything against it
My parents lived on a busy road, so we never got many trick-or-treaters anyway. Handing out candy wasn't something I ever had to do.
Deciding not to give out candy as an adult was a decision that was forced upon us because our dog didn't deal well with strangers. Having people coming to the door for hours would have driven him absolutely crazy. He would have been barking and completely anxious the entire time, so instead, we turned off our indoor and outdoor lights to deter anyone from coming to our house.
Those early Halloweens, we even hid out in the basement to try to avoid having to deal with it. We figured the fewer lights on, the better, and having the dog in the basement would keep him from seeing anyone on the road too.
When we had kids, it became even more important to avoid trick-or-treaters
It would interfere with babies trying to sleep, and we were worried about them waking up because of the doorbell or the dog. Even the earlier evening trick-or-treating times started around our newborn's last nap, and if there's one thing I try not to interfere with, it's my kids' naps.
Even though the kids are no longer babies, we still don't answer the door for trick-or-treaters. Our neighborhood holds trick-or-treating in the evening, which overlaps with their normal bedtime. Not only does this timing make it a pain to even take them (so we haven't), but it also makes it annoying to worry about trick-or-treaters.
I don't need bedtime meltdowns when I could just continue with life as usual on Halloween
We still have our other Halloween traditions that are constantly evolving as the kids get older. We do more baking and pumpkin carving, but having to delay bedtime because of trick-or-treating is not something I want to do.
Handing out candy just isn't something that I care to put into our Halloween traditions right now. Although the dog is no longer around, my kids don't like strangers anyway. They wouldn't be interested in greeting people they don't know in costumes or giving out treats. By hiding out, we get to celebrate how we want to with our own treats and dance parties before putting them to bed at their regular bedtime. And it's really better all around.