I think it may vary depending where you are in the US but here in NJ Halloween is a really big deal and people go all out for the holiday.

Almost all children dress up in their costume for school on Halloween, including high schoolers, and keep it on to trick or treat that evening, minus those whose religion who doesn’t allow it. Some adults dress up in costume for work that day and some adults dress up to take their kids trick or treating. For kids who live in small towns where there aren’t many homes or they are farther apart, parents will drive their kids to another neighborhood that has more homes that are close together and trick or treat there. Most trick or treating is from 4 or 5 pm to 8 pm on Halloween. Most kids trick or treat from when they’re little until they’re around 13 years old. Some high schoolers trick or treat, too, as well as some younger adults with special needs with their parents.

For those who stay home on Halloween, many people hand out small packages of candy, tiny toys or sometimes even change to Trick or Treaters. The most popular item to hand out are full sized candy bars though they’re not a common item due to the cost. All that said, it’s okay if you don’t want to participate. If you don’t, you either turn all your lights off that are visible from the street so children don’t waste their time knocking on your door and you’re not bothering by people knocking and ringing your doorbell all evening, or hang a sign that there’s no candy.

Many people here decorate their yards, windows and/or doorways in a condo or apartment . Some people have a very large set up in their yards. Sometimes the decorations to take up the whole yard. One family near me has 6 skeletons, some skeleton dogs and cats, has a big yard on a popular road that most take daily and does a new elaborate set every day in October related to all sorts of pop culture and Halloween themes. Some people decorate their home and yards so much that people come from other towns to see their decorations. All the grocery stores and many other stores decorate inside their store.

Some towns have a Halloween party or parade the weekend before where everyone dresses in their costume and walks through town. One town near me has a big zombie walk every year at the boardwalk where people, mostly adults, wear some very unique and intricate costumes. Some have their own costume and some have a group costume and have a parade through the streets and on the boardwalk by the ocean. One year they set a world record for participants when almost 10,000 people were present. Local bars often host costume parties for adults usually a weekend or 2 before Halloween and some adults to throw costume parties at their house and invite friends. It’s common for Halloween parties for kids and adults to have costume contests. My son has a Halloween trophy from Halloween when he was 6 for scariest costume. Some couples choose to get married on Halloween and all the guests come in costume. Sometimes even the bride and groom wear costumes. I’ve attended a wedding in costume where the bride and groom did as well and it was a lot of fun.

When my kids were little, every year we’d all get 1 pumpkin each, the size of a basketball or larger, to carve all of the inside out so you can put a light inside and carve a picture into the pumpkin. Some years we would bake the pumpkin seeds to eat later. We’d then put it on our front porch and at night would put a light inside the pumpkin to make the picture carved into it stand out. Some use candles but we had battery operated lights.

There are many farms near me that have pumpkin patches where you can pick your own pumpkin from where it was growing. You can also buy pumpkins for a lot less at the grocery store. Some also have haunted houses, haunted mazes, corn mazes and haunted hay rides. Some haunted houses here are more funny than scary and children go in them but some are extremely scary and require you to be over 18 to enter. Most of these things are available and open all throughout October and some a bit earlier. We live near a big Six Flags amusement park and it does a big Halloween make over for all of October. It has lots of Halloween decorations, haunted houses and a lot Halloween themed activities for kids and days and times to wear a costume to the park. Pretty much Halloween is everywhere here.

When I was a child in the 1980’s, we also had another holiday related to Halloween called Mischief Night. It was always on October 30, the night before Halloween. Kids and teens would cause mischief all throughout the town. Things like throwing toilet paper in someone’s trees, throwing eggs, squirting shaving cream on car windows or washing a car’s windows and leaving the suds behind. Then when you went out to Trick or Treat, you saw what everyone did. Back then police just looked the other way to things like that on 10/30. Though area grocery stores did not sell toilet paper, eggs or shaving cream to minors in the few days before. In the early 90’s it fell out of favor and now you’ll get arrested if you tried to do any of that. From what I understand, only a couple states in the US had Mischief Night or a similar holiday back then.