I love being at my house on Halloween. Usually we get around around 250 – 300 trick-or-treaters in a 2 hour period on Halloween night. This year we had 262 people come to my house. If parents are dressed up I give them treats also. In my opinion anyone can enjoy Halloween no matter their age.

This is what I prepared for the first 20 this year. Every year I like to give something special to the first 20. I have done this since 2007 (our first Halloween in our house) and nobody ever comes back the next year asking if they are the first 20. So the kids don’t care but I enjoy doing it. I think I would have to hand out something much bigger (more expensive) for there to be an early run on my house of kids trying to be first.

These are some of the treats I handed out this year. It might be strange but I like to give an assortment of pretzels, cheese balls, candy and chocolate. I give out our favorite treats last in-case we have leftovers. I think that the pretzels were the least popular of what I handed out this year.

I participated in the Teal Pumpkin Project again this year. This was my special basket of non-food treats that were available upon request. Two kids took a non-candy treat from my basket this year (the Jack-o-lantern note pad and Fairies puzzle). Their Mom said that they were avoiding a red food dye.

My parents joined me for Halloween again this year. I was very happy for their visit. They live over 4 hours away. I painted and carved the teal pumpkin and my parents carved the other two pumpkins. This year the pumpkins came from my mother-in-laws garden. I received a lot of comments from kids and parents about my painted pumpkin but most did not know about the Teal Pumpkin Project.

We put a fake electric pumpkin on my balcony. One of my friends who lives in Japan asked me how kids know they can come to my house for Halloween. I told them that the universal symbol is to turn the porch light on. But that I also make it very obvious with carved and lit pumpkins. I am already looking forward to Halloween next year.