I just finished handing out candy to this year's trick-or-treaters. It's sad to see how much Halloween has declined over the years. There are proportionately far fewer trick-or-treaters and houses handing out candy than when I was a child. Almost no children were out without a parent, and most of them needed to be instructed before arriving at each house how to ask for candy. I understand that forgetting to say "thank you" has always been commonplace (and perfectly understandable), but nowadays half the kids dont even know to say "trick-or-treat". And it's not out of rudeness; they just show up at the door and have no idea what to say. A few improvise and say "Happy Halloween." It's as if the whole tradition of Halloween is no longer a part of the culture for today's children. It only continues because the parents push their kids into it.
One thing that was an improvement this year was that there were no scary or rude adults. It's not unusual in my neighborhood for an occasional older adult to show up at my door on Halloween trick-or-treating without a costume. I have no problem with that. I'm certainly not going to withhold candy from someone just because of their age or lack of costume. Besides, my impression is that some of them are very poor and do it out of hunger or a lack of anything else to do. What disturbs me are the ones who are greedy and don't even bother thanking me and the ones who don't even smile and look like they are thinking about robbing me.
Happy Halloween!