Completely Unscientific Survey

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Gather 'round, all you internet people and listen up, because Professor Amelia needs a hand with some research.

Specifically, I'm wondering about a particular trait of That Mom.

I'm sure quite a few of you, back in childhood or now with parenthood, have had to contend with That Mom. You know, the one who thinks all downtime is wasted time, who serves on every possible church, school, and neighborhood committee, and who still organizes and closely supervises playdates for her 16-year-old son.* THAT That Mom.

Here's my question: when she would inevitably take it upon herself to Organize the trick-or-treating among you and your friends so that it would be safe and healthy and razor-free and boring as shit, was the mall ever an option? Did anyone ever brightly suggest, without a hint of irony, that the mall was hosting trick-or-treating and that it would be a GREAT way to spend Halloween? Or did they just try to convince you to stick with a safe well-lit party, like any sane zealously overprotective parent afraid of poison candy?**

I always thought the mall option was a standard lame option, but my friend from Boston said she'd never heard of such a thing until moving here. (She had also never heard of doing trick-or-treating only within one's own ward, but I can believe that because yeah, that is pretty much a Utah thing.) So my question for all you non-Utahns out there is: WAS that an option? Did the That Moms of the world all leap at the chance to have a nice well-lit Halloween? Or was that just a Utah variation of That Mom?

And if there weren't any mall options, were there, god forbid, OTHER lameass possibilities that they suggested instead? Because if there's one thing That Mom knows, it's that lame is the best way to do things. Much safer that way.


*And actually uses the term "playdate."

**Fun Fact: The only actual, documented case of poisoned Halloween candy is from 1974, when 8-year-old Timothy O'Bryan died after eating Pixy Stix laced with cyanide. The culprit was not some random happy-go-murderer, however--it was his father, Ronald Clark O'Bryan, who had just taken out a life insurance policy on little Timmy.

Comments

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

I had a buddy that used to do the mall thing. We never knew why.

Do you all have trunk or treat out that way?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I meant by "within the ward." Boston buddy had never heard of that, either, so I didn't go into detail because I just assumed that was a Weird Utah-Mormon Thing. Are you telling me it's not? I am learning so many new things!

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

There's usually some church doing trunk or treat or an equivalent festival.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Follow-up question: do folks in your neck of the woods switch the festivities to Saturday when Halloween falls on a Sunday?

[bean-bunny.livejournal.com]

I think it's been talked about, but never done. I think it's more "who the hell wants to party on a random Tuesday?" than anything, though.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Around here it's a bit disorganized. You wind up getting kids for two days sometimes.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

You can trick or treat at a MALL?

Of course, we didn't really have any malls here when I was a kid... And I wasn't allowed to trick or treat at all because my Dad thought it was begging. I WAS permitted to dress up, and to go to the school haunted house thing. But no trick or treating.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Aww, that's too bad. I always enjoyed trick-or-treating. But at least you got to dress up!

[beccastareyes]

Usually the mall festivities were on a different day (usually a weekend), precisely so kids wouldn't complain about missing actual Trick or Treating. (IIRC, the Lincoln zoo also did a Trick or Treat event, but I don't recall which nights they picked.)

But I remember trick or treat at the mall being a thing in Long Island and here in Ithaca. And zoo trick or treating in Lincoln, Nebraska (I don't recall if the mall was a thing). I always figured it was also a weather thing, since I remember some pretty awful Halloweens where everyone had raincoats or winter gear over costumes.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the heavy coats and boots did detract from the Power Rangers costumes. One year I wised up and went as Polgara the Sorceress, and had an excuse to wear a cloak as part of the costume.

(I still think of Jerry Seinfeld--"I don't recall Superman wearing a JACKET.")

[beccastareyes]

I think I did that once as a wizard. Of course, one year I wore it as a volunteer at the zoo's Halloween thing, and it was sweltering until the sun went down.

(Mom also built many of our costumes on sweatsuits, under the idea that no one really cares what the body of a unicorn costume looks like as long as you had the horn, mane, and tail (I think I also had hooves made of cups covered in tinfoil).)

[van.livejournal.com]

Never did it at a mall, but I didn't have That Mom, either. My elementary school had an event called "Halloween Happening" after school, where there would be lots of festivities set up and little booths and things you could trick-or-treat at, or play little games and win stupid prizes. I always loved it.

Now that a Mega Church has moved in, there's a huge Trunk or Treat in the Mega Church's parking lot, and that has sparked a few smaller churches to do similar things. There's also Disneyland, which has a Halloween trick-or-treat event. (That costs admission to the park--$100--plus an additional Halloween event night ticket, between $40-60. @_@;) I don't know if the mall has one, but I wouldn't be surprised if did. However, I lived in a neighborhood that was considerably nicer/safer than the mall.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Aw, man, we were at Disneyland last year at about this time, and it was excellent! (Here! Have some Photos!) My siblings and I didn't do the trick-or-treating, but even just all the decorations were so darn much fun. Not to mention Space Mountain's Ghost Galaxy. That was hilarious. (I met a little girl dressed as Minnie Mouse who was going to get ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND pieces of candy, AND she was going to face down that Space Ghost. She had practice closing her eyes when it appeared by watching it on YouTube. That conversation with her may be one of my favorites ever.)

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

I'm from four miles outside of a ridiculously small town. Malls weren't a question, and I'd never heard of this trunk or ward thing until this post. Somebody usually had a haunted house and/or a hayride sometime before Halloween. For trick-or-treating, we'd get dropped off somewhere in town and work part of it 'til it got dark or we got tired of it. Then we'd get picked up by Mom and driven to hit all the houses in our neighborhood. Our neighborhood is roughly two miles of rural road with about six houses, so being driven instead of walking after dark at the end of October made a lot of sense. Concerns about poisoning were things that happened to bigger cities and really not on our radar at all.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

We never did the mall, but my bitchass grew up when no one was freaking out and trick or treating was late into the night, and parties were for the kids whose parents obviously didn't want them to be happy campers or teenagers too cool to get candy from it. Our parents went walking with us, and sometimes we did cars, but mostly it was walking and getting candy from sunset until almost 10 or 11 PM.

ETA: Once, I got taken to a church function as a teen, but that was because a friend wanted to go, and I was rather meh about it.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I got roped into the mall once as the older kid watching a bunch of younger ones, and it was exactly as stupid as I'd always expected.

So with you on the parties. If they didn't get in the way of trick-or-treating, they were acceptable. If they replaced it, you felt quite sorry for the kids whose parents were trying to push it on 'em.

[starwatcher]

.
There were no malls when I was a kid, and I now live in a small town with no malls. BUT... many of the local businesses are "Safe Stops", with signs in their windows, and their names on a list that the local radio station (and others) prints and distributes.
.

[pghbekka.livejournal.com]

Funny to me that some people didn't have malls to go to because they were in small towns, I didn't have malls to go to because I was in the big city. There weren't any malls in D.C. when I was little, except the Smithsonian one, different type. But Doc at the pharmacy always had candy out for Halloween. Mostly it was just a bit different trick or treating in apartment buildings. Debbie was the coolest because she was on the third floor of a rowhouse and would lower the candy down in a basket. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, so mostly we just all went trick or treating together.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I used to wonder how apartment building trick-or-treating worked.

[kittikattie.livejournal.com]

Go door by door, generally; building by building, until everyone was covered. If the porch light was on (back when we had porch light control inside the apartment), they were a good stop. Hell, as a kid my first hour or so was going between the two sets of apartments on my block, and we often had to make a home stop for heavy bags before we started going on other streets, and smaller kids could get their whole night in just a complex.

[renshai.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of the mall thing (Canadian Prairies) - we used to do it via carpool, though, one of the parents would drive, we'd hit all the neighbouring farms, and then they'd drop us off in town (usually in a friend's neighborhood) and arrange a meeting time and place (or, later, a cellphone call to summon our ride when we got too cold/too bogged down with candy).

I always enjoy seeing how people have managed to incorporate their kid's snow suits into their costumes.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

I was all excited because my mum was THAT mum and i thought i would be useful... But i am Australian and we never had the whole halloween thing here when i was a kid, i have only seen a couple of trick or treaters just starting up in the last couple of years.

[broken-moons.livejournal.com]

I have no significant input, having grown up in a country where Halloween is Not A Thing, but how, exactly would one go trick or treating in a mall? No one lives in a mall, and unless you go trick or treating really early the shops would be closed, wouldn't they? It sounds like plausible That Mom logic, to do it in a confined, well-lit place, while at the same time completely defeating the whole purpose of Halloween.

My friends and I have taken to using Halloween as an excuse to get together, eat exorbitant amounts of food, watch bad horror movies (or comedy horror) and drink inventive cocktails. Sort of like Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all at once (neatly combining a bunch of foreign holidays that have no real place in our society but that are still fun). And then in December we do it again for Sinterklaas. :D

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

It sounds like plausible That Mom logic, to do it in a confined, well-lit place, while at the same time completely defeating the whole purpose of Halloween.

Pretty much.

The businesses at the malls give out bullshit candy, like single pieces of taffy, or promotional items. I think they do it after the mall has officially closed for the day, but it's still pretty early.

[gethenian.livejournal.com]

was the mall ever an option?

What the...

what...

WHAT??

The MALL??

o_____o

What the fuck, seriously? Is that a thing people actually do?

There are no words for how blown my mind is by the suggestion that it is even possible to go trick-or--treating in A FUCKING MALL. That just... does not... compute. On any level. You don't trick-or-treat at BUSINESSES, wtf?? I don't understand how that would even work. Besides, malls are not safe, by default. They're not DANGEROUS, but the thing is... there are no malls where I live that are easy to access, ESPECIALLY for anyone without a driver's license. Well... okay, no, Georgetown is easy to get to by bus but unless you live in the freaking slums of DC, Georgetown on Halloween is not a "safe" option.

....yeah, I am just completely mindblown at the idea of trick-or-treating at a mall. It's like you just asked me if solving calculus could be done by juggling sharks, it makes THAT LITTLE SENSE.


EDIT: "trick-or-treating only within one's own ward" I don't even understand what that means and the guesses I'm coming up with are just as equally nonsensical as to why this would even be an issue, ever.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's about how my Boston buddy reacted, too.

A ward is a local Mormon church congregation. "He goes to my ward" is a frequent way to identify someone around here.

[flutterbychild.livejournal.com]

We trick-or-treated around the neighborhood until about 10 or 11pm, with older kids accompanying their younger siblings/neighbors/friends. Most of the time parents stayed home to give out candy. There were parties at rec centers and libraries and things like that, but I don't remember anyone trick or treating at the mall until fairly recently.

I didn't know if any of Those Moms when I was a kid.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The older kids accompanying younger kids was always a sweet gig. You got to continue amassing candy even when you were in that teenage limbo when people would ask if you were too old to trick-or-treat.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

It beats the teenagers without costumes "trick or treating". That always hacks me off.

[jennyanydots21.livejournal.com]

My experience of trick-or-treating has been a) going along myself, in Hong Kong, where it's by no means a standard thing but worked pretty well for us as we had lots of Americans in our estate who got really into the decorating and so on, and b) giving out sweets to local kiddies in Dublin.

In both countries it seems like the razor blades/poison issue just hasn't occurred to either parents or Evile Neighbours (and in fairness, it seems like that never happens, anywhere). We seem to get fewer trick-or-treaters every year, but that could be due to the time a few years back when my boyfriend dressed up as a werewolf and terrified a five-year-old Batman to the point where he left his sweets behind. Maybe word's gotten out.

[jennyanydots21.livejournal.com]

Also, I can imagine few things more shaming than going to a parentally-sanctioned playdate at the age of 16.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

We don't really have a Mall here, but there is a downtown trick or treat thing where most of the businesses give out candy, and that's always a madhouse. I try to avoid leaving my apartment for that three hour span. (The Icon is for the people who think this is a good idea.)

When I was really little, and we lived over in Seattle, we only trick or treated in a couple block radius, but as much as anything that was because it was a very densely populated area, and once we'd covered a few blocks, we would have more candy than a 5 year old could really carry, so there wasn't much point in going further.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

You know, you just made me realize that we rarely went very far when trick-or-treating. Partly that was because Mom's trick-or-treat tolerance was kinda low, and partly because we live on a mountain, and if you went too far you suddenly found yourself puffing up a ridiculously steep incline, which detracted from the fun somewhat.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I think that this is something that has arisen in the years since we grew up. Malls didn't even HAVE this when I was a kid.

We made popcorn balls once for trick-or-treat and put our address labels so that people knew they were ours

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of that, but malls were never a big thing around here. You'd have to drive for a ways to find one.

[friendoffrogs13.livejournal.com]

The mall? I've never heard of that.

In the last couple of years (since moving back to NC), I have heard of churches doing "trunk or treats". I think that some of them are seen as an addition to trick-or-treating, but others are instead of trick-or-treating. I never heard of anything but regular trick-or-treating in ND.

[sofish-sasha.livejournal.com]

I've never been Trick-or-Treating, it just wasn't a Thing here in Sweden back then*. These days there are some kids who dress up and do it, but I imagine they're not getting much since it's still pretty uncommon, and people don't stock up on candy the way they seem to do in the US. Halloween dress-up parties are all the rage though.

Also, I'm pretty sure I've never known any of Those Mums.




*We did something similar at Easter instead, dressing up as witches on Maundy Thursday and then going around knocking on doors, saying "Happy Easter!", and getting candy. Apparently this had something to do with the way witches were said to travel to Blåkulla to attend a sabbath with the Devil on Maundy Thursday. I'm pretty sure this is still more common than Trick-or-Treating.

[biomekanic.livejournal.com]

Being the oldest one around usually, I escorted the neighborhood kids around, in costume.

We only did the car thing once, with 2 other kids who's parents were also our friends. We made out like bandits, because instead of hitting just the neighborhood (at that point, a 20 some unit trailer park) our parents drove us into town. We came out of it with grocery bags full of candy; and this was before plastic bags, so they were the big paper ones.

I think my parents were appalled at the amount of loot my brother and I got, so we never did it again. We had a sugar rush that lasted for weeks.

As for poison candy... I think there was also an incident (in the early 70s) where a little boy ate some of his uncles "special powder", aka heroin, and died. To deflect attention from the uncle, the parents sprinkled heroin on his candy.

To more directly answer your question, there was no "That Mom" when I grew up, at least not among the people I hung around with.

[cysfics.livejournal.com]

My mother had a... complicated relationship with Halloween, so I only actually Trick or Treated for about five years. I used to go to my best friend's apartment building, since my mom didn't like me doing it around her. Went to a different friend's building, too. People would sign up and you'd go to all the apartments that had signed up, and get your candy!

[kt-n-dd.livejournal.com]

When I was a wee one, trick or treating at the mall was not considered. Our neighborhood was plentiful enough and kids would wander around with their parents getting candy before/as it neared dark. I've only ever driven to another neighborhood once when a friend insisted they had "the best candy".

In the neighborhood where I live now, it's a free-for-all agewise. So, the wee ones come before dark all dressed up, the preteens come around sunset (about 7pm or so), and the teens roam throughout the night. Everyone gets snack IF they are in a costume. And no, dude, a shirt with "costume" sharpied on it does not count! Also, not all of the snacks given out are sweet. Some people hand out arare and crackers or dried ika (but that's a little mean) and there's always the one house that hands out toothbrushes.

Rec centers have celebrations and schools do little events (usually during school time and mostly involving arts and crafts and dressing up), but parties are not that popular. Mall stores will offer candy now (one per person unless your a little kid dressed up and then the bowl is just offered), but it's not technically trick or treating.

And I've never heard of "trunk or treat" or "within the ward".

Fortunately, I only met That Mom later in life. I just smile and nod in acknowledgement of how busy Her life is when She chattered to me. :)

[piccolo-pirate.livejournal.com]

Uh, there was definitely no trick-or-treating at the mall where I grew up (NH). Also, very few Mormons. But you did tend to stay within your own neighborhood for trick-or-treating, mostly because the driveways were so long that we could only make it to about 10 houses during the 2 hours of town-sanctioned trick-or-treating.

Also, the local cops used to drive around to keep things safe, and they handed out candy if you flagged them down. And then reminded you to "stay safe, kids!" So basically, I grew up in the 1950s.

[finnyb.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid, trick-or-treating at the mall was the only option; we lived in a forest, and with houses being at least five acres apart and up driveways that were at least a mile long, trick-or-treating in the neighbourhood wasn't really a very good idea. So we always drove the forty-five minutes into town, went into the mall with a couple thousand other families, and went from store to store at a glacial pace getting cheap candies in our bags.

The mall always closed early on Halloween, so that none of the stores were open for shopping, but an employee or two would be sitting or standing at the front of the store, handing out candy. I apparently loved trick-or-treating this way as a kid, though all I actually remember of it was far too many people and far too much heat.

[finnyb.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, and this was in Colorado in the 80s, so it was frequently very cold and snowy (we'd have three, four feet of snow by Halloween, some years), which certainly didn't hurt the "go to the mall for trick-or-treating" deal.

[ishyface.livejournal.com]

... I have never heard of anyone doing that ever. How on earth do you go trick or treating in a mall?