Halloween, Manhattan-style

Over the years, I've had many people ask me how the whole trick-or-treating situation works in a big city like New York. It makes much more sense if you knew my neighborhood. Visitors come to Manhattan and see Times Square and Midtown and can be under the impression that we all live in crowded chaos.

I live on the Upper East Side in an area called Carnegie Hill, which is very residential. And, since there seem to be roughly 10,000 schools in a 20-block area, it's also full of families. The traffic isn't bad, but at certain times of the day we have stroller gridlock.

So yeah, Halloween. Most people live in apartment buildings. Often the staff puts on parties in the lobby and the residents sign up if they want to give out candy as well. All the trick-or-treaters get a list and go apartment to apartment, taking the elevator to the top and working down. Sometimes the halls are decorated (I spent about 2 hours yesterday doing mine.) All well and good, but I'd rather go outside. So we did.

The townhouses in the neighborhood go nuts with decorations -- on some blocks, every townhouse is covered with ghouls and spiderwebs. I took my kids up Madison (the stores all give out candy) and we wound our way up several of the better side streets, hitting the townhouses and buildings one by one. HUNDREDS of kids were out, many of whom we knew. Some streets blocked off traffic. One of the owners was holding a giant bag of candy and asked her how many she had to buy. "About thirty," she said.

We went home after about 2 1/2 hours of non-stop candy-grubbing.

How was your Halloween?

At the risk of sounding like an uptight fuddy-duddy...

My daughter and I were in search of a friend’s birthday present this weekend and happened to be in the Times Square area, so we stopped by the giant Toys-R-Us store (note to readers: do not attempt this on a Saturday, unless you happen to enjoy crushing crowds).

“Stop by the 3rd Floor for Club Libby Lu! It’s just for girls!” the perky salesgirl said as we walked in, shoving a flyer into my hand. Take my advice: don’t--unless, by chance, your 3-12 year-old girl is in dire need of a cheesy makeover. Seriously. Look at these girls. All lined up like mail order brides. I don’t know if it was the sight of four-year-olds putting on makeup and hair extensions or kindergarteners getting manicures that did it, but my daughter and I ran screaming from Club Libby Lu. (She's a tomboy. My six-year-old wasn't with us--she'd be much more interested.)

Of couse, they had lots of Halloween costumes, so your daughter can look like this:

Or this:

Or perhaps this:

Hot stuff! Isn't that just adorable! Let's dress them up like sexpots!

Blech.

Thankfully, her friend prefers Legos. No problem.