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I lived for many years in a small (one stoplight) town in Oklahoma. The best thing in the world is when the city started having "Town Trick or Treat" and the businesses give out candy. Not homes only businesses and some churches. Alot of times the churches will have a Youth Night and have hot dogs and chips. Now we live in the middle of nowhere. We will go to the nearest "Town" (the one with one stop SIGN) and do the town trick or treat.. We are actually participating in the next town over's City Business Trick or Treat. It will be lots of fun. We are also having a Halloween Party and Juliette Low Birthday Celebration for our Girl Scouts. Hopefully everyone will stay out of trouble afterwords. Cause in Oklahoma you might get shot too...
Last edited by okpondlady; 10-21-2010 at 10:18 PM..
Reason: spelling
Called Devil's Night here in Michigan. Ahh I had some good times as a wee little one. Didn't go for smashing pumpkins, that always seemed too mean. Chocolate syrup on windows and eggs.. oh yeah!
I second the Devil's night (I'm an ex-Michigander) - and no I never participated in any bad behavior. In the '70's / '80's there were curfews and if you were out late (the historic time period when children do bad things) the cops could pick you up.
However, you would walk out the door on Halloween morning and often see the "victims" -- generally trees covered in TP, or maybe even a house that had been TP's. Sometimes a door that had been "egged" - or worse a car that had been egged (eggs are very bad for paint finish).
My family's home only got hit once that I remember, and that was just a strand or two of TP in the front yard tree (the neighbor's house got blasted!)
Generally it seemed to be teenager's picking on their friend's home. It really was rarely random.
The pumpkin smashing thing wasn't very common in the 70's / 80's.
When I was an adult and decorating my own house/yard - I would occasionally see smashed pumpkins, but to be honest it rarely happened on a specific night - but could happen any time leading up to Halloween.
That's just a bully thing, no good natured mischief about it.
We too decorated our yard extensively - starting the week before Halloween. We never lost a single tombstone.
You don't hear nearly as much about it now as when I was a child. Of course the arson's in Detroit have fallen extensively compared to when I was a child too... so probably one of the reasons that Devil's night gets less news coverage...
(the arsons were generally not caused by Teens/Children - but by adults who simply used the night as a convenient excuse)..
I have never heard of "mischief night"! Sometimes the kids in our neighborhood play "ding dong ditch", but we live in a pretty close knit neighborhood, so no one really minds.
Yes, we have Mischief Night here in Ct. When I was growing up in Ok. we had Mischief Night there, too. As a teenager I once went out with some friends and TP'd a couple of houses lightly, nothing major. Not one of my finer moments. That's what I see mostly now, is just toilet paper thrown over trees etc. It's not widespread, and not usually done out of meanness, although sometimes kids go overboard. We lived in a city for several years, and kids there were bad. I remember our neighbors woke up to their house covered in eggs. While living in that awful city we had pumpkins smashed, and once they threw one of my potted plants on the porch down on the ground and broke it. Every year on mischief night I had to clear out the yard. To answer the OP's question though, would/do/did I let my kids out on Mischief Night? We did once for our teenage son, when he and his friends were targeting a friend of theirs. We just let him go for a little while, and home by 8 or so, with the strict understanding that they use nothing more than TP. I'd never turn my kids loose on the town.
So this year, the big pumpkins will be covered in vaseline. The little pumpkins will be "Hell Raiser" pumpkins with pins sticking out all over them. Touch them? Get hurt? Bleed? Didn't you read the sign that says "Don't touch the pumpkins, they BITE!"
Purposely hurt children?
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Originally Posted by lovesMountains
Where the heck do you live??
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Originally Posted by maciesmom
Never experienced it....perhaps it's regional? When we've carved pumpkins we've left them outside and never had a problem.
We have Devil's Night in my region, but not my specific neighborhood.
One small river town nearby has a large old tree that get's toilet papered every year. It's a tradition. Kids have been targetting this tree for generations and they're still doing it. I've seen it afterwards and some years it looks like every single kid in the town had to contribute. I think the police allow this tree to be toilet papered because it keeps children occupied on Devil's Night to minimie damage done elsewhere in the town.
Here's a picture of it (I found on google image search), but it's not as 'decorated' as it can get at times.
Devils at work | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/86165466@N00/284329674/ - broken link)
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Originally Posted by FinsterRufus
We have pumpkins decorated by my 3 year old out on the porch. If someone smashed them she'd be pissed. Like to avoid that scenario if possible!
Just take your pumpkins inside at dusk on the eve of Halloween.
I wondered that too. I've heard of this, but thankfully, here in Texas, I've never heard of it being practiced. You might get some pranks on halloween but not often even then. Even so, if I have anything out on the porch that night which could be smashed like a pumpkin or potted mum, I take it in. One time (when we lived in a much rougher part of town ) we had a car egged. That's about it.
Wow! I've never heard of Mischief Night. I've seen smashed pumpkins at times, but we've never had that happen. In Minneapolis our biggest concern is the squirrels eating our pumpkins -- they've already even taken a couple of bits out of our (still uncarved!) pumpkins. I've seen some houses with toilet paper lately, but think it's related to various local homecomings.
Just take your pumpkins inside at dusk on the eve of Halloween.
That's what we do - bring the pumpkins inside or put them out back.
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It will be lots of fun. We are also having a Halloween Party and Juliette Low Birthday Celebration for our Girl Scouts. Hopefully everyone will stay out of trouble afterwords. Cause in Oklahoma you might get shot too...
) we had a car egged. That's about it.
