Halloween is less than a week away and one Ballardite is hoping families don’t forget residential streets for trick-or-treating. “The merchant trick-or-treating event is fine,” John emails us, “but I’d love to see families actually going door to door.”
View Ballard Trick-or-Treating 2010 in a larger map
John created this Google map — which you can edit — to add your house or block if it’s a good spot for trick-or-treaters. “I think this might be a good way to rally the neighborhood and focus attention on traditional trick-or-treating, instead of the commercial version we’ve got these days,” he says, “I know there are great streets for trick-or-treating, but I think encouragement is really needed.”
As a reminder, the Market Street trick-or-treating event is from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday and the Halloween on Holman event is from 1 to 4 p.m. That leaves a lot of time in the evening to go door to door.
What a great idea! We get fewer and fewer trick-or-treaters each year.
You can never have too much trick or treating! Here in Ohio, we’re looking forward to 60 degree weather. Hopefully! Two years ago it snowed.
34 NW from 67th to 70th is a really strong block for the kids.
We live on 29th in the first block North of 85th and have our front decorated. I could not seem to place us on the map. How does it work?
How do you add an address to the map?
Cool idea! Bundle ’em up, though. Getting more wind and rain next weekend.
2 free diecast cars Saturday and Sunday, hots wheels and johnny lighting they get to pick em
Agreed, this is cool. Two year ago, we must have had 50-60 kids come by. Last year, we had one. Although, since we had so much candy, we told that one kid, “Take as much as you want”, and her face just lit up… it was pretty funny.
Come to my house and I’ll drink your blood…seriously, I will.
To flag your house you need to hit Edit in the Left tool bar. A menu will pop up on the map with the blue flag, drop the flag on your location and type in the address. Voila.
Love this idea!
This. is. awesome.
Satya, I quoted your how-to on the map page. Thanks for the simple explanation!
Sounds like a great idea! I have such fond memories of going from house to house trick-or-treating as a kid. It seems a shame that it’s no longer of staple of Halloween in the neighborhood. Is it because parents think it’s too dangerous? Or it is mere convenience to go to the merchants?!
Love the idea but not seeing either a left hand tool bar or an edit button in the google map after I open it in my browser …
Here’s a tip, leave a family member at home to hand out candy along with the rest of your neighbors. The whole family doesn’t need to go. On my block, that is half the problem. Not enought houses lit up, so the only kids we get live no more than 5 houses away.
What time is a reasonable time to shut down the handouts? I can’t devote an entire evening to your kids.
You can always turn off your porch light when you are ready to call it quits. We’ve always taken TOT-ers up until 830 or so.
We like to take the whole family trick-or-treating — so we leave the porchlight on, jack-o-lanterns lit, and a bowl of candy on the porch. The west-Fremont area north of 39th & east of 3rd NW always has lots of kids going around & lots of houses lit up and/or decorated clearly expecting trick-or-treaters. The action doesn’t take place on the steep hills closest to those main drags I listed, but starting a block in where its a little less hilly.
I support this, as long as the houses involved are not members of the Ballard Chamber of Commerce.
Is there anyplace to go on Saturday? This is my one year olds first halloween and I have to fly out for business on Sunday.
This is a great idea. The past few yrs I’ve had loads of leftover candy. We’re ready to go!