Sadly, the Haunted House on our street is gone for good. As a result, we received fewer trick or treaters.
I had to explain that it was gone to one of the groups of costumed kids who did come by. They were about 11 or 12 years old and had heard about it all their lives, from their earliest forays on Halloween night, accompanied by parents, through the dead Samhains of COVID. The haunted house! Dry ice fog and ghostly light! Screaming kids and a pretend maniac with a chainsaw! They'd finally worked up the courage to walk through it this year-- for more than a decade a rite of passage in this neighbourhood-- only to find that the effects of time on the performers and a basement flood on the props have robbed them of the opportunity.
Our first trick or treater was actually a non-human. A cat from a few doors down wandered up onto our porch around 5pm, so we gave him some cat treats.
The horrors of 2023 are so much more disturbing than any seasonal haunt. I do not know if that means we need Halloween, or are better served by a muted one.