We moved into our current home in the summer of 2020. When Halloween rolled around, there were just five occupied homes on our relatively new block in this growing community. As I drove through our neighborhood last fall, I had dreams that Halloween would be insane because there were so many homes with young and school age children. I bought a ton of candy in anticipation of the throngs I expected. Whether it was pursuant to the pandemic or our mostly unoccupied block, we had two small groups of trick-or-treaters last fall. I consumed most of the candy that was leftover. Boo.
This year, with the pandemic concerns lessened somewhat and with all of the homes on our block finally occupied, I went to Costco and picked up two large bags of candy. Tonight, we had maybe 25 trick-or-treaters, all of whom were treated to a massive handful of candy. It’s almost 9 pm here now, and if I want to get rid of the ton of candy that is left in my house, I need to pray for some wayward teenagers to come and raid bowls I set in our driveway under a neon sign. What I hoped would be a sugar rush was actually a sugar crash. Sigh.
I am hoping that as the years go by, we continue to see an upward trend in little peoples darkening our doorstep dressed as adorable lions or scarecrows or firefighters or unicorns or fairies. Until then, I need to either stop buying so much damn candy or find a way to turn it into a fuel source.
In the meantime, I just saw a holiday ad on television, so it appears we’ve already moved on. Maybe I’ll just stuff the holiday stockings with leftover Halloween candy. Problem solved.
Live Now and Zen 
We live in a very hilly neighborhood that is not trick-or-treat friendly. In the 30 years we’ve lived here, the most trick-or-treaters we’ve had has been six! The fewest was two. Last year we had zero kids come but I wasn’t surprised and blamed it on the pandemic. This year we had zero. Most of the kids on this street have outgrown trick or treating. But who went out and bought a ton of candy? And who has been eating all that candy? I just know the year I don’t buy candy is the year kids will be pounding on my door.
We had more than a half a box of Costco full size candy bars left this year. Which shocked me, as our neighbors know us as the house with the “good” candy. It all makes me wonder if Halloween is a dying holiday (pun intended)?
I hope that Halloween is simply taking a hiatus because of the pandemic. I hope we get back to “normal” someday.