Yeah lol, I'm not too bothered by it though. I mean, I try not to eat obvious bugs in my fruit and veggies, more for the sake of the bugs than myself, but in the back of my mind I know I eat a certain number of worms in my berries (to say nothing of the allowed contaminants in processed food) and since I know it won't hurt me, as long as I don't notice I don't really care. But that's an entirely different experience from picking up a big, juicy fly and chomping into it. I bet they are bitter. No thanks. XD

Quite a few people do decorate and celebrate although there's a huge range representing the extent to which people participate. Usually there are a few really outstanding displays in every neighborhood where people go all out and put up lights and spooky animated decorations and skeletons and whatnot. Most people who intend to hand out candy at least just stick up a few window clings and put a pumpkin on their porch (and leave a light on) so kids know they can knock at that house. I'm sure a lot of people only decorate inside and keep their porch lights off because they don't want to hand out candy (I'm one of those...sorry but I like to go out to haunted houses and parties - except this year, oof - not sit around and wait for kids to take my candy lol). I feel like there were more houses participating in years past and that it gets sadder every year, but it could just be differences between neighborhoods (or idealized childhood memories). It's generally less than half the houses but kids can still collect a full bag of candy in a night if they try. My mom loved handing out candy and she complained that fewer kids went trick-or-treating these days but again, that could have just been the neighborhood. For those who do decorate, the decorations have gotten much more elaborate in recent years because stores like Spirit Halloween open up for the season and sell all sorts of life-size animatronics, giant inflatable yard decorations and light strings in Halloween colors at fairly affordable prices. When I was a kid, I don't think people put up light strings for anything but Christmas, but they've gotten popular for every holiday now. This year was the first year in my life I've ever just stayed home for Halloween and not a soul knocked on my door (which is good, because I would have ignored them anyway; keep your germs, kids). I don't even know if that's normal where I live (dead-end street in a crappy neighborhood, so maybe) or just because of the pandemic. Anyway thanks for coming to my TED Talk lol

Yeah, I try not to think about all the bugs I am probably consuming in my canned goods. Now that I think about it, my dog loves hunting for big juicy flies around the house to eat. It is pretty adorable, though not for the fly. She usually traps them between the curtains which is a menace to clean the hair off though.

Haha thanks for the amazing TED talk, very enlightening! :) I have always been curious about it cause we don't have that tradition here and there a logistical things they just don't explain in the TV Halloween specials. I also think (hope) that the lack of trick or treaters this year would be due to the pandemic which makes me reeeeeaally glad. Thanks for the link to that dope store - I can't believe they are so cheap!! I can totally envision getting one of those animatronics for the sole purpose of hiding it in the closet and scaring the crap out of my partner XD

BTW, two really dumb questions... are there just random public Halloween parties or do you attend parties thrown by friends? Also, are haunted houses just regular event spaces they set up as a haunted house for Halloween or are there LITERALLY buildings that function as haunted houses 365 days a year? I'm trying to figure out how dedicated people are to Halloween over there.

My dog tries to snap them out of the air and it's funny to watch her but I don't think she catches them very often. It's just as well; my last dog loved doing that too but she was better at it and one time she caught a bee. I had to extract the stinger from her tongue, not fun times for anyone involved.

Halloween movies probably seem weird and unrealistic if you're unfamiliar with the tradition but from what I've seen of them, the trick-or-treating part is pretty accurately portrayed. The part that never looks like what I've seen irl is the parties. In the movies, they're all beautifully decorated with a vast spread of perfect treats that look like they were baked by Martha Stewart herself. That stuff never turns out looking like the pictures on Pinterest, I can tell you that. Those mummy dogs are a lot harder to get right than you'd think lol.

Ooh you should totally do it! Hopefully the shipping wouldn't be too bad. The way I see them set up in the store is they have a little trigger pad on the floor that you step on and they jump out at you. The giant spider is honestly my favorite, it gets everyone every time.

Not dumb questions at all! How would you know if you don't have them there? There are all kinds of events and some people take Halloween SUPER seriously while others just don't care at all...there are parties that are open to the public (usually geared more toward children, advertised as a safer alternative to roaming the streets to trick-or-treat), generally put on by church groups and community centers. They might have games and costume contests. There are also haunted houses open to the public, usually for a fee (these tend to be better suited for older kids and adults, some are pretty unsettling for little kids) which can be run by charity organizations or for-profit companies. The ones I've seen have all been seasonal but apparently there are year-round ones, maybe at supposedly real haunted locations, I'm not sure. There are also "extreme" haunted houses that sound like a pretty hard-core experience. Like actors will actually touch you and there's a lot more interaction and "messing with your head", so you have to sign waivers so you can't sue if you get too scared by whatever they do there...I'm kind of interested in this experience because I want to see if it would actually scare me but I don't like the idea of actually being touched so I don't know how I'd end up feeling about it. There's also the rural fall festival experience...local farms often grow pumpkins so you can pick yours right out of the field and have a corn maze and offer hay rides and stuff. And then there are all kinds of private parties; I suppose the picture-perfect movie parties probably happen, I just haven't been to one like that. The ones I've been to usually just involve dressing up in a half-assed costume (I always full-ass my costumes though, thank you very much) and then standing around with a bunch of other people and drinking lol. I went to a pretty wild Halloween house party with my sister once...she knew someone who knew someone who got us in I guess? I have no idea who owned the house, I didn't know anyone there, and there was entirely too much alcohol. A ton of people. The house ended up pretty trashed. The bathroom was out of TP hours before the party ended and you had about 3.7 seconds to do your business in there before someone was banging on the door. But anyway that's a thing too lol. I think my sister wants to host something in the middle...cute treats and fun boozy drinks but not a sloppy crowd of drunk strangers puking off her balcony, you know? X'D