Go with Trick rather than Treat
When the kids knock on your door, looking all dough-eyed at you expecting a bucket full of sweets from you, shock them by saying you’ll give them a trick. Tell them you have a trick to make them scream with shock, but you just need to get your magic equipment. Then, as they wait at your door, thoroughly enthralled in the excitement of the impending magic trick, you leg it out of your back door and run round to the front of your house. All the children will be looking at the door, waiting the return of the magician from within, so the last thing they will expect is you sneaking up behind them. As you approach, sneak up behind them and then shout ‘BOO!’ and wait for them to scream. When they have finished, go ‘Taa-darrr!’ and give them the jazz hands (for effect), then re-enter your house and shut the door, basking in the genius of your fiendish plan. You may find that you have to deal with an annoyed parent or two, so you may want to keep some sweets handy as a back-up plan just in case.
Hold a Fancy Dress Halloween Party
If juvenile pranks aren’t your thing, then the Halloween fancy dress party is always a fantastic excuse to get dressed up without looking like a severe mental-case. Invite as many of your friends and colleagues who you think would be up for the dress-up, but try to avoid any individuals who have slipped into the ‘grumpy’ stages of life. The most important part of this plan is ensuring that everyone has plenty of booze available, so that when you suggest drunken trick-or-treating at a later point, everyone will be suitably plastered to participate. My personal favourite is the ‘Halloween Punch’, containing all the random bits of alcoholic beverage in your cupboard. Before you know it you’ll be knocking on doors, dressed like a drunken vampire, harassing your neighbours in the spirit of Halloween.
Make the kids work for their sweets
Kids these days have it too easy as it is. Their parents buy them an outfit from Tesco and send them off with the most minimum effort possible, expecting you to spend a fortune on sweets for them to stuff their faces with. But why should you have to spend your night getting up and down off your seat, interrupting Eastenders, dispensing chocolate to them like some kind of human vending machine? If you have got to miss ‘Kat and Alfie’s’ latest exploits, the least the kids can do is entertain you. So make them do something for their sweets like sing you a song or do a little magic trick. If they don’t have anything, then return to the Square with little more than a bit of hassle. If they do what you ask, then you have been entertained and they have earned not only your sweets, but your respect, and a valuable life lesson.
If you can’t beat them, join them
If all else fails, and your only remaining option is to join the grumpy ‘lights-off’ brigade, then you will have no choice other than just get out and do it. Someone one in your group of friends or family will have children, so volunteer to take them trick-or-treating. They will appreciate the fact they don’t have to do it and you will earn some extra brownie points for your participation. If by some remote reason, you have no family with kids or any friends of any type, you have other issues you should really be dealing with before you think of Halloween buddy!
So that is it, my fool-proof guide to enjoying/surviving Halloween. Now, on to Christmas…..