2009 Halloween Stats

For the 8th year in a row, I am pleased to present our trick or treating statistics. One of these years I'll have to get my brother Bob to make me some bar graphs and pie charts and whatnot. Being a word person, though, I am giving you my usual annotated list.

To see the results from previous years, start on my blog post dated Nov. 1, 2008, and you can follow the numbers all the way back to 2002.

Now, on with this year's numbers:

200: Total number of trick-or-treaters! Early on, Robert predicted 200 for the night, and as so often happens, he was proven uncannily correct.

6:35pm: First trick-or-treaters

8:25: Last ones. I kept the lights going for 20 minutes after that, since we usually get a few stragglers up until 9pm or so. But none this year. My theory is that all the older kids were at parties by this time.

30+: Princesses, mainly Disney, remaining by far the most popular costume for little girls.

50-ish: Cowboys, pirates, robots, superheroes, skeletons, vampires, etc. The boy costumes seemed evenly distributed among the classic looks.

15+: Something that appeared to be a costume, but we didn't understand it. Case in point: a pink tracksuit with ironed-on letters in front spelling out "WOOPY." We still don't get it.

7: Pack of very tall, polite teenage girls with, thankfully, not a single slutty costume among them. One of them had a great 80s workout outfit with fluorescent shirt, head band, leg warmers, the whole bit.

4: Family members in matching orange Department of Corrections jumpsuits. Each suit also had a nickname printed on the front. The mom's was Dopey, but I didn't catch the others. Is it possible they were trying to look like dwarves, or was this a reference to what landed her in the slammer?

3: Oompa Loompas, looking fantastic in full costumes and make-up. Before handing over the candy and I asked them if they would sing. They excitedly lined up on my porch and did the classic knee bending dance and sang about the dangers of overeating. Best trick-or-treaters of the night, for sure.

1: Sleepy baby in stroller, possibly in a costume but we couldn't tell for sure, whose two parents came forward with grocery bags to collect candy. For the baby. Sure.

Other costumes of note: 2 matching Cleopatras with elaborate costumes, hair, make-up and jewelry; a grown woman in a fancy Indian Princess dress; Supreme Court Justice with black robe and white wig.

In general, most of our traffic was made up of classic trick-or-treaters of the appropriate age, 2-12 years old, with smiling parents standing back and reminding the children to say thank you.

We had very few moms with their own candy sacks, very few uncostumed teens, and although the number of treaters who were taller than I am was still in the dozens, I have to acknowledge that most of them were still of the appropriate age. It is really weird seeing prepubescent children taller and heavier than I am, but with all this good nutrition and cheap meat in our society, it's becoming more and more common.

Most importantly, I was very happy to see that our numbers were back up again this year after several years of decline. I am hopeful that this signifies a renewed interest in trick or treating in general. Certainly while we were out ourselves last night, we felt a great community spirit as we traveled among many other groups of trick-or-treaters. Happy Halloween!