1. Give away something other than candy. (Toothpicks, golf balls, bags of sand)

2. Wait behind the door until some people come. When they get near the door, jump out, wearing a costume, and holding a bag, and yell, "Trick or Treat!" Look at them, scratch your head, and act confused.

3. Fill a briefcase with marbles and crackers. Write on it, "Top Secret" in big letters. When trick-or-treaters come, look around suspiciously, say, "It's about time you got here," give them the briefcase, and quickly shut the door.

4. Get about 30 people to wait in your living room. When trick-or-treaters come to the door, say, "Come in." When they do, have everyone yell, "Surprise!!!" Act like it's a surprise party.

5. Get everyone who comes to the door to come in and see if they can figure out what's wrong with your dishwasher. Insist that it makes an unnatural "whirring" sound.

6. After you give them candy, hand the trick-or-treaters a bill.

7. Open the door dressed as a giant fish. Immediately collapse, and don't move or say anything until the trick-or-treaters go away. When you answer the door, hold up one candy bar, throw it out into the street, and yell, "Crawl for it!"

8. When you answer the door, look at the trick-or-treaters, act shocked and scared, and start screaming your head off. Slam the door and run around the house, screaming until they go away.

10. Insist that the trick-or-treaters each do ten push-ups before you give them any candy.

11. Hand out menus to the trick-or-treaters and let them order their own candy. Keep asking if anyone wants to see the wine list.

12. Get a catapult. Sit on your porch and catapult pumpkins at anyone who comes within 50 yards of your house.

13. When people come to the door, jump out a nearby window, crashing through the glass, and run as far away from your house as you can

14. Answer the door dressed as a pilgrim. Stare at the trick-or-treaters for a moment, pretend to be confused, and start flipping through a calendar.

15. Instead of candy, give away colored eggs. If anyone protests, explain that the eggs are the only thing you had left over from Easter.

16. Answer the door dressed as a dentist. Angrily give the trick-or-treaters a two-hour lecture on tooth decay.

17. Answer the door with a mouthful of M & M's and several half-eaten candy bars in your hands. Act surprised, and close the door. Open it again in a few seconds, and insist that you don't have any candy.

18. Hand out cigarettes and bottles of asprin.

19. Put a crown on a pumpkin and put the pumpkin on a throne on your porch. Insist that all of the trick-or-treaters bow before the pumpkin.

20. Dress up like a bunny rabbit. Yell and curse from the moment you open the door, and angrily throw the candy at the trick-or-treaters. Slam the door when you're finished.

Halloween Trivia

Question One: How did the tradition for bobbing for apples begin?

Answer:

The apple has strong associations with Demeter, the Roman goddess of the hearth and home. Bobbing for apples is a fertility rite, or a marriage divination.

Question Two: Which culture was first to celebrate Halloween?

Answer:

The earliest Halloween celebrations took place among the Celts, who lived more than 2,000 years ago in what is now England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Northern France. The Celtic priests, called druids, used to honor Samhain, the god of the dead, on the evening of Oct. 31 and the day of Nov. 1. According to Celtic legend, Samhain controlled the spirits of the dead and could allow them to rest peacefully or make them go wild on this night.

Question Three: What is the most-often-told legend behind the jack-o-lantern?

Answer:

In Irish tradition, jack-o-lanterns were the poor man's gargoyle. The Irish would hollow out turnips and place candles inside to keep wandering spirits from the house. Irish immigrants who came to America during the potato famine continued this custom, but also used pumpkins, which only grew on this continent. Tradition says that an Irish man named Jack, too wicked for heaven and expelled from hell for playing tricks on the devil, was condemned to walk the earth with a lantern forever, and that's why they're called jack-o-lanterns. Other legends about the jack-o-lantern also refer to a scoundrel named Jack.

Question Four: Why is the black cat a symbol of Halloween?

Answer:

The Celts believed that black cats were people who had been changed into animals because of evil magic. The blending of Catholic traditions into this story of black cats turns the cat into a witch's companion,called a familiar. According to legend, the witch could also turn herself into a cat.

Question Five: What was the English Protestant equivalent to Halloween or All Souls Day?

Answer:

Guy Fawkes Day, which is celebrated on Nov. 5. Angered because King James I exiled Jesuits from England, Fawkes tried to blow up the House of Parliament in 1605. He was caught in the cellars with 20 barrels of gunpowder and was hanged for his crime. Britons light bonfires, set off fireworks and burn effigies (called "burning the guy") to commemorate the date. Guy Fawkes has nothing to do with Halloween. The holiday is quite simply about blowing things up. All Saints Day was started by the Catholic Church to assimilate and convert a pagan holiday.

Question Six: What is the Mexican equivalent of Halloween?

Answer:

Dia de Los Muertos, or "Day of the Dead." Celebrated Nov. 1 and 2, Dia de los Muertos is the time when the souls of the dearly departed return home to their families from heaven, hell and purgatory. During parades, families will often scatter flower petals to help the souls find their way. The cadaver, a skull or skeleton, is the main symbol of the holiday. Sugar-candy skulls are as traditional in Mexico as candy canes on Christmas in the U.S.

Question Seven: The "Friday the 13th" movies made Jason and his hockey mask famous. But Jason didn't do the killing in the original film. Who did?

Answer: His mother, Mrs. Voorhees.

Question Eight: In the "Halloween" films, what is the name of Michael Myers's hometown?

Answer: Haddonfield, Ill.

Question Nine: What is the name of the town where Freddy Krueger kills children in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films?

Answer: Springwood, Ohio

Question 10: What was the name of the seemingly "normal" blond cousin on "The Munsters"?

Answer: Marilyn

Question 11: Where did the tradition of Halloween costumes come from?

Answer: This staple of Halloween comes out of Scottish tradition. The Scots saw Halloween as the night when the dead walked among the living, and feared that the dead might steal their souls. To confuse them, the living would dress as the dead. On a less spiritual note, even then, it was a night of pranks, doors bombarded with cabbages and the like. If everyone's in costume, pranksters can't be recognized.

Question 12: What Halloween television special was created by Charles Schulz?

Answer: "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"

Question 13: What football team is named after the subject of Edgar Allen Poe's quintessential Halloween poem?

Answer: The Baltimore Ravens

Question 14: What "graveyard smash" by Bobby Pickett and Lenny Capizzi reached number one on the Billboard Charts for two weeks in 1962, and then returned to the charts in 1970 and 1973?

Answer: "The Monster Mash"

Question 15: Who holds the world record for growing the largest pumpkin in the world and how much did it weigh?

Answer:

According to the World Pumpkin Confederation, the company that the Guinness Book of Records consults, the current record is 1,061 pounds, held by Paula and Nathan Zehr of Lowville, N.Y. The record was made\par official Oct. 5, 1996.

Question 16: What U.S. city banned all Halloween celebrations from its schools in 1995?

Answer:

The Los Altos, Ca., school system banned all Halloween celebrations because of the holiday's roots in pagan tradition. School systems across the country, including Howard County's, have changed the focus of Halloween to emphasize the harvest time and have banned children from wearing certain politically incorrect costumes, from witches to bums to Indians.

Quiz from The Washington Post

The Answer:

Ghouls are the more disgusting of the two. They were evil spirits who robbed graves to eat the dead. (This was before fast food hamburgers). The 19th century low-life grave robbers who provided doctors with fresh corpses on which to experiment were also called ghouls.

Goblins were frightfully ugly sprites who could be bad as bad can be, but sometimes were merely mischievous. The latter were often called hobgoblins. Some goblins were also said to come with old houses (and you thought crabgrass was a problem!).