When it comes to holidays, you develop different family traditions, especially when you have kids. You pick and choose things you loved as a child to bring into your family as an adult. You collaborate with your partner and form new traditions. And sometimes, you abandon traditions all together.
For Halloween, my husband and I used to dress up and have parties. I loved getting my friends together to celebrate the holiday. Like many others however, the partying soon became less frequent as we got older. Then, when we bought a house, a new Halloween tradition began: hiding from the trick-or-treaters.
I grew up trick-or-treating, and I don’t really have anything against it
I don't need bedtime meltdowns when I could just continue with life as usual on Halloween
We still have our other Halloween traditions that are constantly evolving as the kids get older. We do more baking and pumpkin carving, but having to delay bedtime because of trick-or-treating is not something I want to do.
Handing out candy just isn't something that I care to put into our Halloween traditions right now. Although the dog is no longer around, my kids don't like strangers anyway. They wouldn't be interested in greeting people they don't know in costumes or giving out treats. By hiding out, we get to celebrate how we want to with our own treats and dance parties before putting them to bed at their regular bedtime. And it's really better all around.
