Serious question, I have no idea. Is there an established tradition, sequence of events, rule?
I just asked some kids, and they said they’d come later and secretly do some trick on me, but they didn’t seem too sure about it either.
This in Europe btw.
Trick or treat is actually a social contract you give treats so kids don’t eggs your house
My family never really did Halloween.
I mean I kinda went trick-or-treating for the first 2 Halloweens in NYC, but then I just felt like it was too childish. But I was 10, idk who I’m calling childish, I was literally still a child, maybe its the social anxiety.
We never gave out candy (I mean… we were literally broke ourselves), and idk what this “you’ll get egged” come from, that never happened.
Halloween is huge in the suburbs, not so much in the city. I lived in the city for almost 20 years and my doorbell never rang once on Halloween. People don’t even really decorate.
The threat of a trick is just for fun, though. If someone answered the door, they are giving you candy. If they don’t, oh well! To the next house! Pranks like throwing toilet paper or egging (way less common) was for friends, enemies, and random houses. And that was teenagers doing it, not trick or treaters.
I’m back in the suburbs this year and am really looking forward to it starting in 2 hours. I have a ton of candy and homemade dog treats! I’m gonna ask them what their trick would be…maybe I’ll come back and share some of the funny ones.
Brooklyn, NY did Halloween.
I remember in like 2010 or 2011 going up and down the entire 86th street for like 3-7 block. Sooo many people, some stores ran out, or maybe they lied and didn’t participate and just had a big “NO CANDY” sign on the door.
Ah, memories. I was so nervous at the time, but in hindsight, that was a good memory. Such innocent me. I got so nervoid when I saw classmate lol, like the idea of seeing classmated outside of school was so terrifying to me. Like… embarassment was my top fear at the time, now… the fears are so much more political.
This is anecdotal but I’m born and raised in nyc and if I got raisins the house got eggs and apt doors got eggs too
I egged 1 house out of retaliation back in the day. My friends and I were like 14- 15at the time, and were taking out our siblings, then going tp 2 parties, an earlier chaperoned house party, then a bonfire in the woods, after we dropped them back off.
One house were complete dicks to the younger kids, made my friend’s little sister cry making fun of her costume. So we all went home as planned, but grabbed our eggs, and stashed them nearby the first party, along with out supplies for the second party. When we left the chaperoned party at like 11, we swung back by the offending house on our bikes, pelted their house with ~3 dozen eggs, aiming for the wood shingles and up high, knowing it would be a bitch to clean, then rode off to our bonfire party splitting up for the first half of the ride in case they called the cops.
I lived in brooklyn and never got egged or anything. Its was a multi-family unit that we rented. If we did get egged, then we didn’t hear about it because that’s the landlord’s problem. (There are 2 sets of doors, they have to get in the outer door before they could get into the hallway area.)
But is it ever happening this way?
Do people really answer “trick” when asked?
Or rather anything from “no treat, sorry” to “fuck off you lousy brats”?
How does the ritual continue then? What do the kids answer?
And then, do they vandalize that person’s property, usually, or are there other types of tricks?
Do they do it immediately, or do they circle back later, secretly?PS: Egging or TPing would require the kids to come prepared for that outcome. That’s another thing I’m wondering about. Do kids really do that these days, if so where.
It used to! Kids would steal wood, break down fences, take outdoor furniture, and use it to build a big bonfire in the center of their towns. They would egg houses and run wild.
Modern trick-or-treating and Halloween parties were invented to counter this destructive behavior, actually. Tasting History did a pretty cool episode on it.
It used to!
That’s the impression I’m getting overall. From the presumably USian comments - for those that got Halloween via the US, it probably never was.
The video tells an amazing story (starts about 6min in, ends at about 16min in). Apparently Halloween as it was in the 19th century was a mix of traditions from different cultures, partly even the result of culture clash. And the introduction of candy in the early 20th century was aimed at placating the little rowdies, invented by ladies that remind me of the temperance movement.
In light of that we should celebrate kids that still cling to the old ways!
Seriously though, most cultures have traditions of at least one day per year where mischief is allowed, and I like it.
Bonus, from the video:
🔖
You just come back after candy getting hours. Why waste treat time tricking? That’s what sugar rushes are for
Would be a reeel shame…
An adult did this to me when I was a kid and got mad when I started spraying them with silly string.
I’ve tried it with younger kids 8-10 and older kids (11-13). When I said “Ok I’ll take the trick then.” they just stand there with a confused look on their face. Even if I explain that I don’t want to give you candy, so go ahead and trick me, I’ve only had one kid who said “What’s that? and pointed over my shoulder.” The others continued to stand there confused or started to walk away.
Nice. Too many kids have to be prompted to even use the incantation “trick or treat” much less pay attention to the words
Someone has to teach those little gangstas how extortion is done.
Well at least you tried…
Your house gets egged
Or toilet papered
When I was a kid it was shaving cream. Take a can, put a needle in the nozzle, then melt the nozzle with a cigarette lighter. Once it’s cooled pull the pin out so you have a pinhole nozzle. It’ll spray the shaving cream ten feet or more.
I honestly forget how I learned that trick…
My neighbor choosey trick each year. He lives at the top of hill with a long driveway and leaves out joke treats. I think it was a bucket of frozen fish this year
Immediate civilizational collapse.
Time to rip the Band-Aid off.
Here, it used to be your house got egged or trees/shrubs tp’d
That’s when I juggle knives for you.
Yes, I own a set of purpose-buily juggling knives.
Thought about doing fire this year, but I worked late, it was raining, and I didn’t get a chance to do a few days of practice to make sure I’d be in good form to safely do it
The “trick” is usually some kind of innocent vandalism like throwing toilet paper around. That being said, as a kid I was never prepared for that and never had it happen
Thanks for an honest answer. I suspect most commenters here are larping.
the only time it ever happened i saw as a kid was parents signing up to be “tricked” and groups of kids tp’ing the signed up houses so the kids could have fun.
This gives off the same vibes as a government allowing peaceful protests while they continue to do the bad things to prevent civil unrest.
Mark Twain talks about tipping over outhouse and other pranks as the main activity on Halloween. So I guess if we assume he’s an honest narrator of his time (definitely in doubt…) then trick or treating is a mass extortion
According to this he wasn’t exaggerating. Tricks, pranks, theft and vandalism used to be the default; candy and organised parties were introduced later to placate the rowdies.
I grew up in the 80s and we never had any tricks. Older generations did, it wasn’t nice. Like they’d break stuff. Decorations, pumpkins, nothing major. But we never did
Older generations did
So what’s the ritual? You come to the house, say trick or treat, I’m guessing the adult never answers “trick” but rather fuck off or no treat. What then? Do the kids immediately start wrecking?
No. My experience growing up in Appalachia in the 80’s was the kids (who were older 15-20) were not trick or treating. They were just going out to cause mayhem. Houses where I lived were far enough apart (miles) that you trick or treated by auto. I remember several Halloweens that were disrupted because someone had cut a tree down across the road blocking it. One memorable Halloween someone piled old tires under an overpass and set them on fire preventing anyone from proceeding further.
No one says eff off to the kids. If you’re not participating you turn your porch/outside lights off and kids know not to visit your house. They just move on. 99% of the stories are mischief makers or someone who has a problem with you prior to Halloween. (Like you are a teacher or something.)
Posted the full story above, but one time back in the late 90s, we hit a house in retaliation for them being dicks to our younger siblings. In our town it was fair game not to participate, especially since its a seasonal town, so more than half the houses are empty by October anyway.
But these guys opened the door, said they were out of candy, but that the kids costumes were shitty so they didnt deserve any anyway, and made my friends sister cry mocking the fairy costume she’d put together herself. Pretty sure they were drunk.
So we came back a couple hours later when the lights were out, covered their 2nd story wood shingles in eggs to maximize the difficulty of cleaning up, then bailed on out way to the party.
Instead of kisses, you get kicked.
When I was a kid, there was no Halloween in our culture, but on a slightly similar occasion our verse ended with “…or we break a hole into your house”
Where I’m from we just did the “trick” part. Ran around in dark clothing on 30th April* in the late evening, fairly distributing toilet paper if we were unimaginative, and painting cows violet if we were more creative. General mischief, is what I’m saying, none of that bargaining for sweets, your house is going to be TP’ed and you’ll like it because the alternative might be actual property damage.
* I… think that was the date. It’s been a while and I don’t live there anymore.
Sounds like something you’d do at Walpurgisnacht. I remember women actually carrying scissors to cut off men’s … neckties or other parts of clothing. Or nighttime carnival where we’d just make infernal noise throughout the city center.
I miss the mischief.
The way you describe it, Southern Germany or Austria or Switzerland?
Southwestern Germany, yep :) We called it Hexennacht, Witches’ Night, which is of course the same as Walpurgisnacht. The necktie cutting as I know it is a Karneval thing, specifically the Thursday before Karneval, called Weiberfasnacht (“Wives’/women’s carnival”). Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there were heathens somewhere cutting neckties on some other day ;D
The necktie cutting as I know it is a Karneval thing, specifically the Thursday before Karneval, called Weiberfasnacht (“Wives’/women’s carnival”).
Shit, you’re right (same in Cologne). But I seem to remember something similar from Walpurgisnacht; women being in control, somewhat.
Walpurgisnacht Celebration
They’ll shit in your jack-o-lantern
I see, So that’s what the jack-o-lanterns are for?
So they are actually not lanterns but temporary toilets, but then someone got an idea to put candles in them so that it at least makes the “trick” part kind of uncomfortable. Right?
The original idea was that the “trick” was the default (some type of mischief or vandalism) but the costumed (annonymous) tricksters would give the person a chance to be spared by offering a “treat” instead.
We’ve gone so soft…
I thought that. Kids would have to a) come prepared for tricks (eggs, TP…) and b) not be recognizable. And I guess it also required that sweets/treats were more precious and less ubiquitous than they are today.
I think most traditional feasts used to have some sort of good/bad dualism built in, but over time the bad part got removed.
