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Dear Reader,
Last night my husband went to the wholesale club store and when he came back home he proudly showed me a "Value Bag of Child's Playtime Candy"--5 1/3 pounds of candy: Tootsie Roll Juniors, Tootsie Pops, Tootsie Roll Midgees, Tootsie Fruit Rolls, Tootsie Snack Bars and Mini Dots (made by Tootsie Roll, who else?) There were 200 pieces of candy in the bag--I counted them. Well, 204 to be exact, minus the lollipop in my mouth and the three other pieces of candy I sneaked out of the bag, before my husband suggested we make a pact, not to open the bag, until Halloween, so we wouldn't be tempted.
But I was--tempted. (Tootsie Rolls are just as good as I remember them.)
My husband reminisces for the good old days when it comes to Halloween, and I admit so do I. It's fun when kids come to our door and we get to hand out candy. But the good old days are gone, because here's the reality of our Halloween statistics: five years ago 35 kids showed up, four years ago 27, the year after that 20, two years ago 11 and last year 6 kids knocked on our door, calling out, "Trick or treat."
I don't understand it, because my neighbor one block down, who lives on the corner lot, says she was flooded with kids trick or treating last year. But in surveying the few houses leading down to ours, I may have discovered the problem. They all are surrounded by cement fences. Don't get me wrong, they are very nice houses, but I imagine to a kid, it looks like a lot of trick or treating work for a piece of candy.
So here's my Halloween marketing plan for this year. I'll stand on the corner of my neighbor's house holding a flashlight, and handing out flyers. Like a carnival barker, I'll give the kids the pitch, explaining that we give the best treats in the neighborhood. I'm thinking of including a little map showing which house we are down the block. Or on second thought, I could develop an app that leads them to our house, which includes a trick or treat game to play on their iPhone while they're walking to our front door.
Then again, maybe instead of flyers, flashlights and apps, my husband and I could just take a couple of lawn chairs and our big bag of candy down to our neighbor's house and sit with them on their front porch. "Trick-or-treat!" I bet we see more than 6 kids this year.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
AUTHORBUZZ: AT BLUEBONNET LAKE (Fiction) by Amanda Cabot
Have you ever had a vacation that didn't turn out the way you expected? That's what happens to Kate Sherwood. Although she'll do almost anything for her ailing grandmother, the young marketing maven is less than excited about spending a month in the Texas Hill Country, especially when she discovers that the resort her grandmother has been raving about has seen better years--better decades, actually. But all that changes once Kate meets the all-too-handsome handyman who turns out to be much more than a handyman.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on AT BLUEBONNET LAKE to read more and to email author Amanda Cabot, you'll get a reply.
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