I live in a suburb of Austin, Texas and don’t see any of this. Some people celebrate Halloween, some don’t. I have several Muslim neighbors who don’t participate in any of the American holidays — they think it’s against their religion. So they don’t give out candy. There is one white family that goes all out — they convert their garage into a “haunted mansion”. Several other families (black, white, Hispanic, Asian) in my diverse neighborhood are in between. We give out candy but don’t drape our houses in spider webs and skeletons.

Most of the kids who come by are neighborhood kids, so we’ve seen them playing or walking home from school. But we do get kids from other places. It doesn’t matter, they all get candy.

One tradition we do have at my house — we ask the kids to give us a treat in return for their treat — so, tell us a joke, or sing a song. The parents of the kids seem to get a kick out of this, and most of the kids do too, once they get over the initial novelty. But even the kids who are too shy get candy. No kid leaves our house without candy.