The Fall...of Halloween

For the first time ever that we can remember, Jacob was with his mom on Halloween. As we discovered, that makes Halloween so much different around our house. No excited little one jumping around asking "When can we go?" "Is it time?" "Are you almost ready?" No rushing through dinner to get out to the neighborhood before it gets too late. No pondering who takes Jacob out and who stays home to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. No Halloween candy hangovers. And as awesome as all that sounds...I missed it!! So, Matt and I settled ourselves in for some baked spaghetti (OMG--I cooked and the smoke detector didn't go off and no one died) and a night of handing out candy to the neighborhood kiddos. After we ate the delicious meal I prepared (don't you love self-promotion), we decided to head out to the front porch--you know, the beautiful wrap around porch that sealed the deal when we were house hunting, but has only been used twice--and enjoy the night. We loved that time without the distraction of the TV or laptop and really had some great discussions. The talk was occassionally punctuated by a trick-or-treater or two. As the night wore on, however, our conversation turned to the lean number of ghosts, princesses, and Star Wars characters that were coming to claim the unreasonable amount of chocolate we had purchased! At 8:30 we realized we'd seen the last little critter, which brought our grand total of trick-or-treaters to...8! Yes, 8! What's happened to Halloween? Where are the kiddos? Can they all be at the Highland Harvest Hallelujah Hootenany? Have trunk-or-treats taken over? Now, don't get mad! I don't think there's anything wrong with the church and/or civic organizations that hold these events, but I miss the neighborhood Halloween. Am I alone in this? Anyone else notice the drastic decrease of the neighborhood trick-or-treaters? How many trick-or-treaters did you have last night?