Leave a bowl out with a sign that says "if the bowl is empty, please knock." You don't even have to fill the bowl with anything.

The last time I left a bowl on my porch, literally the first group that came took all the candy and threw the bowl into my lawn. It disincentivized from doing so again.

It’s a holdover from Covid. It isn’t some glaring indictment of “kids these days”. The social contract changed with Covid and will take time to go back or maybe never does.

That's so weird. When I used to trick-or-treat (not murican so it was different ofc, and also we went to apartment doors instead of houses) I always assumed that if someone had a candy bowl it was just because they weren't home that night, and I think I preferred it when they answered the door and gave us the candy themselves. It was nice to show off my costume and perhaps even get a compliment from an adult pretending to be scared.

Most of our neighborhood sits outside with the candy and to hang out and see everyone's costumes. They make it very obvious they're handing out candy so when it's knock houses, we're less likely to go

I sit on the porch with the bowl, it's nice to see them walking around. It's easier for both parties, and I can dress up too.

I think it's because fewer houses are doing it, mostly. But I don't understand skipping very decorated houses, and honestly wouldn't leave out a bowl of candy here.

The sitting on the porch thing is traditional here now (my mom sat inside but I'm over 50 now and since being old enough to be on the treating side have always sat out with the candy and that's more usual as far as I can tell) Though my kids always did go up and try if a light was on outside.

Maybe they are also a little more sensible too, lol - a princess last night looked in the bowl and said, nah there's nothing I like, happy Halloween. My kids would have taken some anyway and traded it around, but it is always too much by the time they are done.

Overall I agree, they should yell TRICK OR TREAT but am glad nobody is, like egging your house if you don't have a treat for them.

Everyone in my area stays outside, no matter the weather. No kids knock on any doors. Also, no one leaves out a bowl, that shit would be gone in minutes. But people are outside with portable fire rings, music, some have cocktails for the adults. It's the only night of the year all of the neighbors are outside and socializing. Honestly it's great.

The houses that do leave bowls are my favorite, the kids trick or treat as normal but when there's a bowl-house I take one extra for dad lol

I would be mad if some kids would come begging for my candy. MY CANDY! yes I'm fat.

I never liked bowels. More fun to hand fist fulls of candy.

I didn't get a single knock last night.

Spooky decorations, LED candles, WLED providing backup lighting, 12 XL Hershey bars with frozen Snickers as backup.

Not. One. Knock.

Fuck em -- we'll be eating smores all winter. 🤷

Idk, in my area they knock on the door and it most often than not starts so early that were not even done eating. It's usually so busy here that we have to stay at the door outside and we're out of candies by the time the older kids start arriving when it's actually dark

I went out with my kids and we went to a few houses actually that had lights on outside and inside, told my kids to go to the door and knock, waited a minute or so, and nothing. This was maybe half-a-dozen houses, so it’s not always a given that just knocking on the door will get results. The new “normal” is that people are either waiting outside to hand out candy or they’re leaving bowls out for kids to help themselves. Knocking on the door for trick or treating is a crapshoot and it’d be understandable why most kids will skip that. Compared to other houses, it’s more effort for potentially no reward, or, even if there is a reward, it’s the same as every other house.

150 chocolate bars gone! And they had to ring the bell. Its a good neighbourhood for this.

If it came to skipping my house because no bowl, I'd skip Halloween altogether.

One of the houses this year had a couple of signs that led you to "knock three times" on the door. It was pretty fun for the kids.

They go for the unattended bowls so they can just take it all for themselves. I dressed up as a decoration scarecrow one or two years after I was too old to trick or treat myself and held a bowl of candy in my lap out on the porch. Every kid that attempted to take the entire bowl, got a scare as I stood up and shouted scary things like "TAKE THE BOWL, I TAKE YOUR SOUL!"

Not my experience. When I've had no decorations, my house was mostly skipped. When I put a few out with lights on, I got plenty of knocks and rings from both little kids with parents and young teens. And when I was cooking dinner one time, a teen could smell it and asked if they could have some, LOL. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Put a bowl out but in the bowl just have a sign that says "please knock"

Ah yes, let's skip the social part and get right to the obligatory consumption.

I don't really care for Halloween, but I don't actively hate it either. I like seeing kids and parents in cute costumes walking around. To me, the whole point has always been one of social activity, of walking around the neighbourhood and showing off your cool costume and such. You know, the whole "reinforcing horizontal social ties" deal we've done since forever.

We only had one group visiting on Halloween. But that's due to a decline of Halloween in general in this area - the fad is over. Here it basically started when our kids were young, and there were maybe five to ten groups coming through. But after a few years, it simply declined.

I still buy some sweets - I don't want to disappoint kids - but whatever is left goes into the sweets bowl at work.

Me and some friends of mine went out “reverse trick or treating” tonight, we carried around a door knocking at houses and giving them candy, and doing the same for any trick or treaters, that kind of thing. We were really disappointed by how few people we saw, and a majority of the houses in the area just had bowls. It made us feel quite sad actually.

I think we were just in an older neighborhood, full of mostly empty nesters with a few younger couples. I hope anyways. There’s a part of me that’s worried that Halloween is like a dying holiday I guess, but maybe that’s just because I’ve gotten older and have a different perspective. Who knows.

That’s sad. We only leave the bowl out during the time we are out trick or treating ourselves. All trick or treating is under fire, it seems. Have you heard of trunk-or-treat? Gah. And even people who live in safe areas will like their kids into a car and go drive to some affluent neighborhood where the decorations are fancier and full size bars are being given out. I greatly value the experience of knocking on my neighbors’ doors and it’s sad to see people discount this community building experience.

The last time I was handing out candy at my old neighborhood, kids would ring the doorbell but then they'd just stand there and stare at me until I handed them candy. You're supposed to say "trick or treat"!

Now I live in an apartment, so I don't get trick-or-treaters. (I have candy just in case, but nobody ever knocks.) My roommate went to hang out with his sister and hand out candy at her place, and apparently their neighborhood has decreed that trick-or-treating ends at 7 sharp now so that nobody is out after dark? I don't get it. I thought staying out late (and, for teens, potentially unsupervised) was part of the fun!