How to be good neighbors

Oct 31, 2010 | Bright Ideas, Current Events, General Chit-Chat | 0 comments

When we first got our apartment I had big dreams of being the friendly apartment who handed out candy to all the kids.  Sadly, no one trick-or-treated in our apartment complex so we had to eat the candy ourselves. (We actually ended up returning a lot of it too)

So when we bought our house I was super excited to actually have trick-or-treaters!! I always loved going out as a kid, then sorting and counting my haul later. (I never really ate the candy as a kid, just sorted and counted…)

K also had fond memories of trick-or-treating when he was a kid. He was in a more rural area so he especially remembered the houses that would give out full size candy bars. So we decided that’s what we wanted to do.

The first year we gave out full sized bars it was a huge hit. Kids were all  very excited, some to the point of changing costumes and coming back a second time. (Yes these were the teenagers).  The next year we did it again and we were already developing our reputation. We’d hand out the bars and the kids would tell their friends “see I told you!”.  Excellent!!   The third year K actually had to run out halfway to buy more since we were such a popular house!

So the fourth year we decided to up the ante to KING SIZED bars.  I’ve never heard such squeals of delight from both boys and girls. We even got a few parents who came up to the house to get in on the action.  So here we are, year #5 and the king sized bars are back!  There is no greater joy then watching a kid walk away from your house screaming “Look Dad its KING-SIZED!”

Now a lot of planning goes into pulling something like this off.  We want to avoid having to go out halfway to buy more candy, we want to make sure we get stuff the kids actually like, and we need to keep track of what we are pilfering from the fund.  So last year we started keeping a log of what we bought, the weather, times of trick-or-treating, what we took, etc.

2009  –

Weather: Clear but coldish. Forcast from www.weather.com
Trick-or-Treat was from 1pm-4pm, kids came to about 5pm

12:05 PM  Cloudy 43°F
From W 12mph

1:05 PM Cloudy 42°F
From W 9mph
 
2:05 PM Cloudy 43°F
From W 9mph

3:05 PM Cloudy 44°F
From W 10mph

4:05 PM Cloudy 45°F
From WNW 6mph

5:05 PM Cloudy 44°F
From W 12mph
       
We had 4 boxes of king-sized bars (kit kat, snickers, twix, reeses peanut butter cups) and used them all.
Each box was 24 ct
2 peanut butter cups went into the “j-fund”, 1 kit kat bar went into the “k-fund”
We also had 1 box of regular sized caramello bars (36 count) and used 29.

Twix and Reeses Cups were most popular, followed by Kit-Kat.
Twix was probably the more popular of the two, but they were very close.
Snickers were the least popular of the king-sized bars with many kids asking to trade them in for other types. Only 1 kid asked for snickers by name

Kids weren’t given a choice on the caramellos (they were saved until we ran out of other candy) but upon eating the leftovers decided they weren’t very good. (low quality chocolate)

For 2010 trick-or treating is from 2pm-6pm (+1 hour from last year), its on a sunday and the weather is forecast to be high of 50, low of 45 – a bit warmer then last year.  So I’m expecting more kids. We ditched the snickers and caramellos this year and went with Butterfingers (what can I say I love them) and peanut butter m&ms.  We also doubled up on Reeses and Twix.  We purchased an additional 2 boxes of king sized bars. This gives us 6 king sized boxes and 1 regular sized box. I’ll let you know how it goes.  🙂

« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2010, 01:54:13 PM »  
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So far its going well – Reeses have an early lead as the favorite, but Kit kat and Twix are also doing well.

Some of the kids are asking to trade their candy for others which is fine. I let them do that.

Several have already run away from the house screaming about the king-sized bars – so yay!

right now the temp is 48 degrees but it feels like 52 according to accuweather.com
Kids have been relatively steady since 2pm.

Will try to update again later!

« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2010, 03:01:37 PM » 
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OK its 3:56, and accuweather says its still 49 degrees, but the sun is shining into my house so it feels more like 80. 

By 3pm we were onto the second box of Twix and Reese’s. By 3:30 we were out of Butterfingers (esentially…there is 1 left but I am not giving it up until I have to!) by 3:45 we were out of Kit Kat.

I’m getting a little nervous now, however the flood of kids seems to have died down a little so that is good.

One kids tried to get double treats…gotta watch out for those sneaky ones – greedy little bastard! Another one told me a story about her sister who needed some treats. I asked how I could know she had a sister and her friends backed her up so I gave her one.   I had to make some pre-teen boys explain their costumes cause they were everyday clothes….apparently they were characters from video games. Weak but I let it slide.

Interestingly several kids have asked for Hershey’s by name…will have to consider that for next year.