Is trick-or-treating dying in New Jersey?

Maybe it’s just my nostalgia bias, but it seems like the tradition of trick or treating is dying. When I was a child, large groups of kids would band together to go in search of free candy on Halloween. Some of the neighborhood streets looked like Midtown Manhattan with the number of pedestrians in costumes meandering about, most of whom had no parental supervision. My mom would buy a ton of candy to give out and would use most of it.

Halloween 2017 is a much more subdued affair, at least in my subdivision, and from what I hear from friends, it is much the same in their neighborhoods. Are there just fewer kids or just more organized candy distributions (think “trunk or treat")? Last year we had tons of candy and is seems, anecdotally, that the number of kids coming to the door decreases every year.

This year, my wife bought one bag of Kit Kats and one bag of Nerds, and I’m sure that we will have some left over. When I was a kid, that amount of candy wouldn’t have lasted an hour. It’s difficult to find hard data on the number of American children who go trick or treating every year, but I hope that the throngs of kids I knew come back some day.

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