If the trick or treat scene in your neck of the woods is anything like mine you’ve probably seen the numbers dwindle over the last 5-10 years.  What was once a night of fun with kids crowding the streets dressed up in ghoulish glam, has turned into just another night in the neighborhood. Child safety advocates, anti-Halloween propaganda, and church and community events have surely played a part, and ultimately introduce a little thing called “Trunk or Treat”.

If you haven’t heard of trunk or treat you’re probably still living in an area where Halloween is widely celebrated and is still a huge tradition.  If that’s the case, let me know where you live so I can come join in the festivities.  While trunk or treat sounds like some messed up prank you would pull on your friend in the back of your car, its basically just tailgating for Halloween and kids go car to car to get treats in the parking lot of a church, community center, or the like.  Not exactly what I call a night of fun.

I’ve seen it growing in popularity locally over the last few years, as many of the schools have offered these events, but this year was the first I had seen that it had gone mainstream.  While browsing the Halloween section of Walmart the other day I discovered the following three decorations.

Yep. Now not only can you waste a night of trick or treating in a parking lot, but you can try and be festive in the process.  Now that trunk or treating has gone mainstream we are sure to see the death of trick or treating as we know it.  The whole thing is a joke and I am sad to see the tradition of Halloween fading as the years progress.  What was once a sacred holiday for young kids to enjoy tricks and treats has turned into just another warm and fuzzy holiday for overprotective authority figures to spoil.

What are your thoughts on the dying Halloween traditions and trunk or treating?  Has Halloween survived in your neck of the woods or are you seeing a decline in trick or treating as well?

The folks over at Pop Tarts are ringing in the holiday season with 3 new flavors this year, one for the month of October, November and December.  The first in the series is sure to add a little fright to your morning, with the Halloween flavor, Choc-o-lantern Chocolate Fudge.  The Halloween themed pastry will feature a chocolate crust, fudgy filling, orange icing, and bat and ghost sprinkles.

While Pop Tarts hasn’t announced an official distribution date, these pastries are sure to hit shelves soon and will be followed by the Pumpkin Pie Thanksgiving edition Pop Tarts and the Gingerbread Season Greetings Edition Pop Tarts.

It’s July, which means for us Halloween nuts its the start of the holiday season, and with that I recently started a massive migration of bookmarks from Mozilla Firefox to my Delicious Halloween bookmarks.  With that I found a handful of new Halloween websites including the home haunt and Halloween podcast, Hauntcast.  I have been listening to their archive of episodes on a nightly basis and am quickly being reminded of why I love the Halloween holiday so much.  This rekindled love has had me searching for more Halloween related material on the net, which lead me to an amazing discovery.

Tonight while doing a search for Halloween goodness I stumbled upon Google’s book search.  Being a search geek and internet marketer, I have obviously always known it to be there, but never actually used it.  Tonight however I did a search just for shits and giggles and was amazed at the number of Halloween book offerings Google provided.

As a collector of Halloween books I was excited to find this database of books, however it appears that the majority of the publications that turn up in the search are predominantly books published over the last 20 years.  Google allows you to preview large portions and even some full versions of books all online.

If you’re a big fan of Halloween definitely go check out the Halloween books on Google