Daylight Saving Time May have Ruined Halloween

(Originally published in 2007)

If I recall correctly one of the reasons that Daylight Saving Time was changed to end on the 1st Sunday of November was so that on Halloween the children going Trick-or-Treat could start in the daylight.

At the time I thought that it sounded like a good idea.  That was before seeing the results.  I didn’t realize that at 6:30 it would still be light and that many kids didn’t want to start until it was getting dark.

Usually at my house the kids would start arriving at a little after six. This year (2007) none had arrived by 6:30.  Looking out side it was still full light.  Finally a few started coming, but until dusk there were very few and it wasn’t until after 7 that they really started arriving.

The usual ‘turn out the pouch light, it’s over’ time has always been 8 o’clock and once again that was the time that the lights went out.  When they went out there had been about 1/2 of the usual kids.  That makes sense since the dark time for them to be out was 1/2.

I’ve talked to some others and they have had the  problems.

Daylight is not the time that the kids want to go out.  It may be preferred by some parents, but the kids want to be out at night.  For some of them it’s the one time of the year that they get out at night.

Maybe it’ll be better next year.  Halloween falls on a Friday.

(Continued 2009)
The next two years really hasn’t been any better. Maybe it’s not just the time change, but the times in which we live.