We bought a small bowl of candy, and expected to have tons leftover. Our neighborhood can be hit and miss, but usually no one Trick or Treats much. Sometimes we are lucky to get 5 people, though we have had maybe one year (in 8?) that was crowded. Since we border a gated community, we figure, most people hit the "rich people in the gates" rather than bother with us.

Anyway, so we took the kids out with their neighbor friends, and holy cow, TONS of people out. The weather was divine! It was maybe 60-65 degrees. We were sweating in our jackets.

Funny enough, since hardly anyone seemed to be home in our neighborhood, at some point my neighbor asked if anyone remembered the gate code. I drew a blank though we need it to use the pool, and we had been there a billion times this summer. A guy handing out candy yelled out, "It ain't all that. I was just there - those houses are so spread out you have to walk farther. The pickings are better here." We've never sampled the bounty because, well, the kids don't need MORE CANDY. Was happy to stick to our slightly more modest neighborhood.

My one pet peeve of the evening was the number of people who left their outside lights on, but didn't answer the door. You know, usually there are one or 2, so whatever. But this year? It seems like half the houses. Which was frustrating since so few people were home to begin with.

We got home, and the kids skyped their grandparents and great-grandparents. I figured as things were winding down and we got our first Trick or Treaters, I was handing out handfuls. Then, about 20 kids came to the door - and well, I had about 20 pieces of candy left. Dh and the kids finished their skype and were like, "What the heck happened to the candy?????" LOL.

I turned off the light while we inspected the kids' candy. We always pick out all the crappy stuff and hand it back out.

We went through it, and we were shocked by the bounty. Quite a few large candy bars, and for a new record, there was not even one item we wanted to throw back. I personally like chocolate, and that is mostly what they had. But seriously? Nothing weird and/or cheap in the bunch? ??

I thought the whole thing was rather insane. The economy has hit our city VERY hard. I told dh, "Remember when we used to be happy with a small piece of candy?" At some point someone only handed the kids one piece of candy, and they exclaimed, "They only gave us one!" & we are like, "yeah? Be grateful?"

This halloween just left me scratching my head. A lot less people seemed to participate this year, in handing out candy. But the few that participated, went BIG. & all I saw was new, store bought costumes on the streets. Makes you think, "what economy whoas?" By the same token, it just shocks me at what HAlloween has become. The more/bigger, the better?

In the end - I think we ended up with 3 times the candy we started with, and we only went to a handful of houses, really. Holy cow!

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For us? Spent a few bucks on candy. LM wore a costume from 2007, and BM's dracula costume was all of $10.

But yeah, just had to share because, well, the end result was completely unexpected. I do thing the bigger turnout can be attributed to the nice weather. But, who knows. No logic for the biggest halloween bounty of all time.