There are perhaps no other times as conducive to memory-making as the holidays—and Halloween is certainly no exception. Every year, children and adults alike end off the month of October with some of the most fun highlights of their year. From trick or treating adventures to epic costumes, this holiday just seems destined to be an occasion that isn’t easy for anyone to forget. Here are 42 examples of some of the most memorable Halloween experiences that people have ever had.
1. A Night In
I was going out trick or treating earlier tonight with some friends. We're all in our 20s, which is probably okay because I live in a college town. We stopped at the first house with decorations that we came across, and the guy who answered the door said that he had no candy left to give out because he was a stoner and had eaten it all himself.
We said that we would accept other things besides candy, so he ended up offering to smoke with us. We went into his house, watched numerous episodes of Seinfeld, and even made a batch of muffins before finally deciding to go home several hours later. After all that, I realized that I didn't even catch his name.
2. Don’t Break Your Tooth!
While trick or treating one year, I got a rock. It didn’t taste too good...
3. Freedom at Last!
When I was growing up, my next-door neighbors would always have hot mulled cider and donuts for the adults. Half the time, my parents just ended up hanging out with them all night and sending us kids out on our own around the neighborhood.
4. There’s a First Time for Everything
Tonight was my little girl's first Halloween. She was dressed as a butterfly and spent most of the evening chewing on her antennae instead of on her candy. Even though it was pretty damn cold out, she didn't cry a single time. In fact, she smiled at everyone she met as we walked around the area with her older half-sister.
It was an amazing experience. But yeah, I'd still have to say getting Butterfingers was the greatest highlight of the night.
5. Let’s Face the Music and Dance
When I was something like 11 years old, I came up with a bizarre costume idea. I really wanted to be an iPod for Halloween. So, my dad made me a foam rubber iPod costume from scratch, complete with speaker mounts so that I could actually play music while I trick or treated.
6. Mamma Mia!
This might not be the best trick or treating story I’ve ever experienced, but it’s without a doubt the strangest one. Growing up, I lived in an Italian neighborhood in Toronto. One year, one of the old nonnas who lived on the block gave me a full loaf of whole wheat bread and at least one bag of milk. But that wasn’t the weirdest part.
She also gave my dad a bottle of (homemade, I believe) red wine.
7. Three Cheers for Me, Myself, and I!
Not to brag, but in this case, I was the person providing the awesome experience to others. I live in Arizona and, every year, my family has a bowl full of candy to give out, as well as a cooler filled with cold water bottles. You can't imagine how happy the parents are (and many of the kids, too) to get a cold bottle of water in the midst of their trick or treating journey.
This is especially when it's still 100 degrees at night in October, which has happened many times in the area where I live. People just never seem to think to bring something to drink with them when they go out, so getting water from us is a gesture that never fails to cheer folks up. Also, the candy bars that we give out are actually full-sized bars, not the small little wee itty bitty bite-sized ones that most people give out.
In case you couldn’t tell, I don't mess around on Halloween.
8. You’ve Got Mail!
One year, a house in my neighborhood was giving out little scrolls to everyone who knocked on their door instead of candy. The scroll said something along the lines of “Witchcraft is evil! God does not want to see you this way! Go home!” Well, kids weren’t really standing for it… By the end of the night, there was toilet paper everywhere.
I have never seen a house covered in that much toilet paper. There was even toothpaste sprayed on one of the walls, and one of the neighbors’ kids blew up their mailbox with a firecracker. Good times!
9. It Was Probably Past Her Bedtime
One year while trick or treating, an ancient old lady in our neighborhood forgot that it was Halloween until us kids started knocking on her door. So, thinking on her feet, she gave us each a box of after-dinner mints that she happened to have had lying around the house.
10. The Snack That Smiles Back
One year, when I was small, there was an old lady who lived down the street from my family who decided to give out solo cups to every kid filled to the brim with Goldfish. I freakin’ love Goldfish.
11. Fun for the Whole Family
Tonight, as I was taking my daughter trick or treating, we stopped at a guy’s house who gave my daughter her candy. He then handed me a beer and said, "Here's a little treat for daddy."
12. Loving Thy Neighbors
My parents and their neighbors would always host an outdoor party every year in the center of our cul-de-sac. There was always a table with a bowl of candy from each house for the kids, and any adult trick or treating with their kids got to eat the party food and have a beer. This became a tradition for over 15 years.
13. A Balanced Diet
Back in high school, a couple of friends and I went door to door rockin’ one year on Halloween. After a while, it was starting to get kind of late and one of the houses that we stopped at had run out of candy by the time we arrived. So, they gave me a can of Spaghetti-O's. My friends got Ramen noodles and a can of chicken noodle soup, respectively.
These were still hands-down the best things that we got that night.
14. Stormy Weather
I live on the East Coast. Last year during this time, the big October snowstorm hit us hard. The weather conditions were inclement and hazardous, as well as unpredictable. Power lines were down all over the place, many of them covered by snow. As a result, my family and I were forced to stay in a hotel in the northern part of our state, where things weren't as bad.
Many other families from our area did the same thing. Since Halloween was canceled and all, the hotel decided that it would be cool to host trick or treating inside the hotel, door to door style. So that's what we did. We all bought candy, and kids would knock on occupants' doors to receive some. Surprisingly, it worked out great.
Despite the harsh weather conditions, the kids never lost hope and still opened each door with a smile on their faces—in full costumes, too! I'll never forget last Halloween.
15. Turning the Tables
One year, my friends and I thought it would be fun to start off our evening by “reverse trick or treating” through our dorms. In other words, we were knocking on doors and handing pieces of candy out to whoever answered, much to the surprise of all those answering their doors. The backstory was that my roommate's mother had recently sent us several buckets of candy and we needed to get rid of it all.
We thought that this would be a fun way of doing so.
16. Cashing In
I went trick or treating in Beverly Hills one year as a kid, and someone handed me two dollars in quarters when I knocked on her door. That’s right, the woman literally had a bucket full of quarters and was handing them out to kids as if they were mini Snickers.
17. Come From Away
One of the best and most memorable Halloweens that I ever had was a few years ago. To preface this story, you need to know that in my family, we always do up our yard pretty nicely for all of the holidays. I don’t mean to brag, but our house is always by far the best-decorated one in the neighborhood on a consistent basis.
On top of that, we are always looking for new ways that we can make improvements, so it just keeps getting better and better from year to year. We always get a lot of compliments on it, and anyone going trick or treating in the area definitely can’t miss it. One year, not too long ago, it was later in the evening after most of the trick or treating traffic had started to slow down.
My mom and I were leaving the house to take our pup for a walk. As we were about to leave the driveway, a truck pulled up and a little toddler got out, clearly very excited by our elaborate decorations and hoping to get some candy from our house. I guess his siblings had told him what a great house we had and his parents drove him all the way here just so that he could see it for himself and get some candy.
Even though my mom and I were on our way out of the house at the time, we just had to go back inside to give this kid some candy. Seeing how happy and excited he was made our days, and we will not be forgetting it any time soon.
18. Where Is This Magical Town??
One of my coworkers commutes to the office from a smaller town about an hour away. Where he lives, the whole town plays a game called Trick or Beer, where they all knock on each other’s doors with empty beer cans and get free refills from one another. I got to experience it with him one year. It was pretty darn sweet.
19. Apparently, Age Isn’t Always Just a Number
A couple of years ago, I was out trick or treating in my neighborhood with some friends on Halloween. At one point, one of my friends happened to mention that he was over 21, as we had been discussing how the rest of us were a few years younger. A lady just happened to have overheard this conversation and offered us all drinks.
She had apparently just hosted a party at her place the night before, so she had plenty of leftovers for us to choose from. We all had shots and left.
20. Tank Top
My best Halloween was when I was nine years old and my dad built me and my brothers a tank out of a golf cart. It was so good that we even got into a local parade with it. Yeah, we had a lot of fun in those days!
21. The Times They Are a-Changin’
It sucks that people in society don’t really trust each other anymore. People don't even trust their neighbors enough to actually let their kids go trick or treating these days. In my neighborhood, it's all trunk or treating now. Instead of going door to door, all the adults in a social group or church just drive their kids to the church parking lot and let their kids go car to car.
Back when I was a kid, however, we had an awesome neighbor who would give us hot dogs and lemonade every year while also putting on his own little haunted house pirate show for us. We would actually go into the house while all of the parents relaxed outside. That sure as heck doesn’t happen anymore, but it was super fun when we were able to do it as kids!
22. Bunny Ears
My greatest Halloween memory is definitely the time when I got lucky with a hottie dressed as a bunny. That definitely doesn’t happen every day!
23. Putting the ‘Fun’ in ‘Funeral Home’
My greatest childhood Halloween memory is the year my brother let me volunteer at his high school drama club's haunted house in a historical funeral home. It was a nightmare come true and I loved every second of it. It made my first year not trick or treating my best Halloween ever.
24. Emotional Roller Coaster
A few years back, I was working in a photo studio at the mall on the day of Halloween. It was hectic, as you might expect. After a long day of work, I finally got home and knew that the neighborhood was going to be crazy, which I was not looking forward to at all on this particular day. We had a tradition on our street of having a chili cook-off every year on Halloween, and the neighbors would always rent a cotton candy machine for the occasion.
So I arrived home and, as expected, the neighbors were across the street having their party. All of a sudden, as I was getting out of the car and walking towards my door, one of the neighbors saw me and came over to say hello. As soon as he saw me, he said, "You look like hell. Here." He then handed me a Jell-O shot. It was a pretty good Jell-O shot, too.
Then, I went inside the house and learned that my sister had just set the oven on fire. Fun day.
25. Dry Humor
One year, I unexpectedly got a box of raisins while trick or treating. It was actually surprisingly good.
26. A Man of Many Faces
My dad has always been really good at Halloween costumes and some of my best childhood memories are of seeing his creative costumes. Over the years, he has gone out as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz (including a complete outfit made out of aluminum), a Zipper-Faced monster (he's better at makeup than I am), a guy who was struck by lightning, and a zombie, for which he went to extreme lengths: he actually buried a suit underground in our yard for four months so that it really smelled like dirt.
His passion for always going above and beyond really made the holidays special for us.
27. Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville
One year while trick or treating, we came across a woman who was giving out candy on her driveway, beside a sign encouraging parents to go over to the front porch where there were awesome homemade frozen margaritas available for them to take. We made sure to head back to that house a number of times before going home that night.
28. Bad Romance
One year, I was dressed up as Lady Gaga and got very drunk with my friends at an Applebee's because the haunted forest we had hoped to explore had been rained out. Somehow, later that night, I found out that one of my favorite celebrities who I had a huge crush on had just gotten married. Naturally, I responded to that information by subsequently bawling so hard that glitter from my costume got into my eyes. Melodramatic, but no big deal, right? Wrong.
It led to an infection in one of them that lasted well into November. I'm much better now. I don't drink anymore.
29. A Shocking Turn of Events
One year, somebody stole all of our family’s decorations the day before Halloween. It killed my mom for about three hours because Halloween is her favorite time of year. She's an old monster movie fanatic and loves things like the original Frankenstein, Dracula, and Creature from the Black Lagoon films. Some of the decorations we had were more than 10 or 15 years old at the time.
We loved them and used them every year. On top of that, you couldn’t really find good decorations like these so easily 16 or 17 years ago, when this all happened. My sister, my brother, and I were sent to school and our mom went to work. Then, all of a sudden, two hours into the school day, she showed up out of the blue and pulled us all out of class.
She decided that we were all going to go decoration shopping together and replace everything that was stolen in time for that night. That day almost instantly went from being the worst Halloween of all time to the best one as soon as she told us where we were going. We all still adore the memory of that Halloween to this day.
30. Home Improvements
One year, some guy a few blocks away from where I lived turned his entire garage and driveway into a mini haunted house for all the kids to enjoy. It was the coolest thing ever for my elementary-schooler mind.
31. The More, the Merrier
My greatest trick or treating experience was making some kid’s day yesterday. I had a big bowl full of candy, licorice, mini chocolate bars, sour candies, etc. The works. Yet the entire Halloween night, only one kid actually came to my door. It was around 9 PM when he showed up. He looked like he was about eight years old and was dressed up as Captain America.
I knew exactly what to do. I just dumped the entire bowl into his bag and said “Cool costume, buddy!” He was very, very excited.
32. Hear Me Roar
My greatest Halloween memory is of getting to wear a homemade costume that my grandmother made for me. She was a genius with a sewing machine. She could make anything, but her true genius came out the year that I wanted to be a dinosaur. She made me a one-piece zip-up bodysuit with a hood, little claw booties, and a detachable tail.
It was adorable and won me the costume contest in third grade. I wore it every Halloween from that year until I eventually outgrew it, at which point my brother started to wear it. I’ll never forget how much I loved it and how excited I was the first time I got to wear it.
33. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Years ago, when I was in undergrad, my friends and I got dressed up one Halloween and decided to try our hand at trick or treating in the ritzy, upscale neighborhood near our school. We were out late enough in the evening that few people had their porch lights on, and most of the ones who did had just put out a bowl of candy with a sign that said: "Take one piece!"
Naturally, all of the bowls were empty. We saw one house that still had its lights on, so we went up and knocked on the door. It turned out that the people who lived there were a middle-aged couple who were hosting a big Halloween party where none of the guests had come dressed in costumes. The hosts were upset because everyone had come decked out in business casual attire while they alone were all costumed up in the spirit of the holiday.
They were so excited to see people knocking on their door with costumes on that they invited us in, fed us hot dogs, chips, and soda, and introduced us to all of their rich friends at the party. "This is so-and-so. He's a surgeon." "This is so-and-so. She's a judge." And so on. After we finally left, we were all asking ourselves "Did we just meet the movers and shakers of the city in there?"
So that was definitely my most successful and memorable Halloween experience.
34. We’re Not in Kansas Anymore
My most memorable trick or treating experience was memorable for being the worst one that I ever had. It was last year. I was studying abroad in London, England in what was my first (and hopefully last) ever Halloween outside of the United States. I was in Essex with my boyfriend and friends, and I saw only a handful of kids out trick or treating.
Nobody got into the spirit of the holiday and most of the young adults' costumes were just normal clothes with some fake blood on them. We went out to a few bars and, while out and fairly drunk, I got an email from my mom with pictures attached of our done-up house back at home. I spent the rest of the night drunk crying. I’ve never felt so homesick in my life.
35. Workin’ for the Man
The greatest and most memorable gift I ever got on Halloween, believe it or not, was a job. After months and months of unemployment, underemployment, and lousy gigs that paid only in sandwiches which (while tasty) aren't legal tender, I was finally hired on Halloween. For me, that will always be what this holiday is associated with from now on.
36. The Loveliest Night of the Year
The most fun I’ve ever had on Halloween was running through a really well done haunted maze one year with one of my best friends. It was the perfect night for it and we had a blast.
37. Lucy in the Sky With Candy?
I went out trick or treating around Los Angeles this year. One house gave me something called a "Budderfinger." For those who don’t know, “budder” is slang for marijuana around here. I'm not sure if there really is marijuana in it or if it's just a funny bootleg Butterfinger type thing, but I guess I'll be finding out soon enough!
38. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
This year, someone had a 20 pack of cigars (semi-good quality) and was handing them out to the dads who were trick or treating with their kids. A few moms even took them too, it was pretty sick.
39. Two for the Price of None
One year, the guy that I was dating skipped class to spend time with me on Halloween. We went to an awesome dinner party and then I went out with him, my cousin, and her boyfriend to go trick or treating in the neighborhood. We had on costumes, and people were really nice to us and gave us candy even though we were clearly way too old to be doing this.
Anyway, one house was giving away both ring pops AND king-sized candy bars. It was amazing!
40. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way Home From Trick or Treating
I was about 15 years old at the time. I’m from Australia, so we don’t do trick or treating around here as much. On the rare occasion where I was able to experience it, I got a few treats but nothing too spectacular. One year, I was on my way home and a bunch of teenagers older than me (probably around 19 years old) walked past. It was two boys and two girls.
One of the girls approached me and said that if I gave her a lollipop, she would give me a kiss. The guy who was standing next to her assured me that she would actually do it. Before I even had the chance to say anything in response, she walked right up to me and did the deed. I gave her a candy cane, as I didn’t actually have any lollipops in my bag.
Then I went home and never told anyone about this, until now. I haven’t been trick or treating again since that time, because I don’t think that anything could ever top that.
41. We’re in the Money
One year when I was about 12 years old, I went out trick or treating in the evening with two of my friends. It was getting near the end of the night and we decided to stop at one last house before going home, seeing as how there was still one on the block with its lights on. Well, we knocked on the door and it turned out that the guy who lived at this particular house had only turned his porch lights on because he was expecting a pizza guy to show up with a delivery for him any minute.
Nevertheless, he told us to wait right there. He came back to the door a minute or two later with a large jar full of coin change and told us that we could take it home and divide the coins inside it up between us. When we got back to my place and added the contents all up, it amounted to a surprising total of 55 dollars.
It was amazing! At age 12, $55 seems like a million!
42. That Went Well...
One year, when I had come home from a fun night of trick or treating, I thought it would be funny to come in through the back door and scare my mom. It backfired on me, as I ended up getting punched in the face.
Sources: Reddit, , ,
