This is what ended up happening that year: I bought a big box of Sunkist gummy candies to hand out (they’re in little packets, naturally) but made plans for the evening with a friend of mine to watch scary movies. At that point I was using a projector in the basement so there was no way I could hear kids coming or going. I decided to make a sign on cardboard, and hang a bag of the candies (Honor System!) from the latch of my screen door outside. The sign said something to the effect of “please just take one” but honestly I wouldn’t have cared either way.

I don’t think anybody took anything. I didn’t realize until later that you could barely see the bag from the street and with no decorations probably nobody even checked it out. Those that did might’ve been creeped out by the lack of supervision. In any case I was stuck with a pile of gummies for a long time after that.

Addendum: Lori and I tried handing out candies in 2012 and we had like five kids all evening, so it’s also possible my street is just super unpopular. [October 2, 2013]