Am I too old to go trick o treating?

Sounds like a great costume for you!

Count me in the crowd who thinks you're way too old to go from door to door
to ask for candies.

Then again: friends of mine live close to UCSD and so many students come
around and ask for "canned goods" and non-perishable food items. In the meantime it's a joke and my friends do have lots of canned goods for them....

I don't find it scary per se, more like lame.

I don't think a 20-yr-old should be, like, arrested for trick-or-treating, but if someone's asking my opinion (as is happening here), my opinion is: lame. Not what trick-or-treating is about. Have a party instead.

That's a reasonable view of things. It's not mine but it's a reasonable and fair view. I've heard other adults make my stated case that they openly feared the potential of home invasion if they opened their door to teenaged trick or treaters.

A party is a good alternative. And perhaps, the OP is merely suffering a case of melancholic sentimentality so the art of trick or treating could be a mere emotional craving rather then an actual desire to go door to door in costume.

it's more like a disinterest in dressed-up teenagers and twentysomethings

No fear, just no interest.

The little kids are fun. Once they get past about 6 or 7 y.o. I lose interest in handing out treats, and let Set do it til 8 p.m. or until 150 kids worth of candy has been handed out (whichever comes first).

oh yeah

lame, totally lame

When I worked at the title insurance company, we had annual Halloween parties. There were 35 branches spread out over 5 counties and the company sponsored parties for each division. Each county would have decorating and costume competitions between the branches and departments and the VPs would tour them all to determine the winners. I worked in the accounting department and we always went all out for it and won several times.

One winning year we decorated the lunchroom in vertical black and white crepe paper streamers, wore horizontal black and white shirts, black pants and knit caps. We then made extra large pencils using cardboard tubes from fax paper rolls and hung them on string around our necks so they looked like machine guns. We then created paper chains from used adding machine tape and tied ourselves together around the ankles to form a chain gang. The CFO was the whip-cracking cell block warden.

The funniest part was trying to synchronize our walking so we didn't rip up the chains. To keep the rhythm we sang the song "working on a chain gang" with accounting-related lyrics anytime we had to move. Each time anyone wanted to get up and go around the pot luck lunch table for seconds, the whole group of us had to go together.

That year we won and got to share the $500 prize in our county.

Another prize-winning year we decorated the lunch room like a cemetery, putting personalized cardboard tombstones over each of the lunch chairs we sat in. Some foggy dry-ice, spooky music and lots of spider webs helped with the special effects.

Parties are much more fun for adults than going around door to door asking for candy.

You were lucky to work for a company that would at least make an effort at employee moral such as this insurance company.

And who ever thought accountants were boring...

I say Trick-Or-Treating is age-less. I'm 19 years old, and I have to work on Halloween, I am devistated, still going to dress up and am wishing I could go trick-or-treating. Peopel who say your too old are old grumpy's. Enjoy the little things while you can, parties aren't for everyone. Dress up in an amazing costume and enjoy your fun, don't let anyone tell you your too old for something, it's your own opinion, I went last year and I plan on going every year I can until I am unable to pysically.

Now that's the spirit

If you want to go that much cant you borrow a child??? If I want to go to the movies to watch a childs cartoon, I just drag my nephew along as an excuse so I can go and watch it....hes reluctant mind you being 12 lol

I wouldn't mind an adult going to a kid's movie in the same way that I mind an adult going trick-or-treating -- it's something about the taking that bothers me. Like, dressing up: cool. Being silly: go for it. Begging for candy: buy your own damn candy.

I'll weigh in on the "it's lame" side. Parties, on the other hand, can be great fun.

However, I have a bias, a near life long bias against halloween - my birthday is extremely near it, and when I was at a formative age, oh, say ten, my neighborhood friends made a surprise party just for me, with a haunted house in the basement and some tunnel I had to crawl through... only me. Only child brat-scaredy cat that I was, new to even having friends at all, I refused. Ruined their effort, of course, but I wasn't thinking that far. I was shy and hated the whole thing. Years went by and I kept getting chocolate cupcakes with orange icing at birthday time and halloween birthday cards, and so on. Trick or treating in the Chicago cold.

I've been to a few very good halloween parties as an adult so that I'm not quite as uggh about halloween as I used to be.

Still, a twenty year old wanting to be a child, parents saying yes or no?
I can put myself in Dirrtydozen's place and imagine the yearning to do it - and vote strongly for not doing it.
But the parents making the decision? Maybe they are afraid that DD is vulnerable in some way, and maybe she is.

I don't think the dressing up part is the problem. My dad used to come up with the best costumes. It is the knocking on doors and asking for candy that I have an issue with. You are an adult and can afford your own - it is one thing if as an adult you dressed up and took your kids out.

Wouldn't you feel odd begging for candy?

Yep - I agree -it is the begging and taking for free as an adult - when you should be able to get candy on your own.

Exactly!
I would not give an adult tricker a single candy.

You should throw a party with your friends and wear "kid" halloween costumes, cosume a lot of alcohol and take video. If you want to go trick or treating , go with some family kids.

Now now! Now that would be illegal for a 20 year old! Not that I would go and tell on anyone who is willing to enjoy some booze in moderation.