Raising Wayland: Old Fashioned Trick-or-Treating

I loved Halloween as a kid and still do as an adult. Who doesn't? I have the greatest memories of trick-or-treating back home on the city streets of downtown Providence! 

I remember my sisters and I getting started at 5:30 p.m. and getting home around 9 p.m. with achy feet, smudged face make-up, usually sweaty and exhausted from logging all the walking miles.

The second phase of the evening, which is equally as fun and as important as the ritual of going house to house, is the candy trade! We would dump the contents of our bags onto the floor and sort our candy by its properties: Milk chocolate, plain, with nuts, hard candy, soft and chewy, crunchy, healthy (someone always stuck in the token apple or bag of popcorn!) and the discard pile. 

Then the official candy trade began! Resembling something of an an auction house -- "Two baby Almond Joys with one roll of Smarties for one giant Snickers bar - going once, going twice!!" 

In those days we were allowed to keep our own candy bags within our own personal space (never in a million years would I let my kids do that!!). We would stash our bags under our beds and for weeks we had our daily ritual of a sweet treat and a potential "trade back."

Now, almost 27 years since I my last gig as a "trick or treater," and I continue to get so excited to assist my kids in the yearly ritual of Halloween festivities. I can't wait for all of us to walk the "route," then return home to start to the sorting and trading process. The best part of being a parent is I don't need to dress up to get the candy. By default, I get the discard pile!

What are your Halloween traditions? What's the "It" costume for your kids this year? Do you make the costume or buy it (any tricks for making one)? How do you feel about "tricks" -- Do you allow your teens to carry Silly String, for instance?