Last night’s trick-or-treating was, I think, a complete success. The kids had fun, and weren’t too cold or too worn out after their hour outside. They brought home a nice haul of candy but not to the point of gluttony, and with a surprisingly small percentage that Captain Jelly Belly can’t eat. So all good!

Is it me, though, or is trick-or-treating just not the same as it was when we were kids? I remember the first kids ringing my mom’s bell at 5:30 (and her cursing about it, declaring it much too early) and older kids still coming around as late as 9 (again, with much cursing by my mother). When I was young we’d be out working the streets with our dad for at least a couple of hours; meanwhile, at home, my mom would hand out candy to upwards of 250 kids, sometimes resorting to apples from the fruit cellar or raisins from the cupboard to replenish her inventory.

This year, our kids went out at around 6:15, and they were one of the first out on the street. When I put Little Miss Sunshine to bed at around 6:40, we still hadn’t heard a single ding-dong at the door. In the end I would guess we saw maybe 40 or 50 kids at our house at the most, and the last kids to come by rang the bell at 7:35.

That leaves us with a LOT of leftover candy. Not that I’m complaining. My thighs might be complaining, though, in a few days, from straining to fit into my jeans.