64 Halloween Conflicts That Prove Costumes Aren’t The Only Things That Can Be Scary

My wife and I (both 32) have been living at our apartment for 4 years and are both huge horror fans. We have had an art the clown door mat from spirit Halloween for 2 years now, it’s not a Halloween decoration it’s just what we like.

Last month (around the beginning of April) we had some neighbors move in across from us. They have two kids, one is a baby and one is maybe 3-4 years old. The first time we met them was a couple days after they moved in, we were all bringing in groceries and I introduced myself, shook hands, all of that. The dad says “still Halloween huh?” And I just laughed it off.

Since then we’ve come home 4 times to them flipping our doormat, and we know it’s them because we have a ring camera. We were fine letting them do it and just flippng it back until a couple days ago when we caught them doing it in person. We asked what the issue was and apparently their son is super afraid of it, even though the kid was right there and was acting completely fine. Not crying, not anything. The only one that seemed agitated at all was the mom, who swore at us and rolled her eyes and was just generally unpleasant. Haven’t interacted w her much before or since. My wife waited until they were inside and flipped it back over.

I stayed out with the dad and talked it over and he seemed fine. He said he understood it was our space and he’d talk it over with his wife and that his son was old enough to understand it couldn’t hurt him.

This morning we walked out and saw our doormat wasn’t even flipped over, it was thrown outside of the stairwell. We live on the 4th floor so it was a very deliberate thing.

My wife wants to report it to management but I’m just about tired enough of this. I kinda wanna throw it away, but I also wanna keep it. Idk, I’m just confused yall.

Married 16 years and my in-laws have never been on time for anything. Not just a couple of minutes late, usually 20-30 mins or more and they don't ever tell us they are going to be late.

On Halloween they were supposed to be here at 6:30 to go trick-or-treating, my kids are teens so they already had plans but cancelled to spend time with them instead. At 7:15 we called and they said they were '5 mins away'. 22 minutes later, they arrived without any concerns.

This inspired a new rule for me, I called it the 5 min rule. Basically, if you tell me you're gonna be somewhere at a time and aren't, after 5 mins I will leave. If we are meeting to eat or something, and you're late, we will order and eat without you, we will leave when we finish even if they are just getting there.

Tonight they had plans to take my kids out for dinner, they said they'd be here at 7. We talked at 2p and I reminded them of the new rule. At 7:05 they weren't here and had not called or anything, so I called them. They said they were 10 mins away. I told them to not bother with it, they tried to ask me to give them another chance since they live an hour away, and I said no way and stuck to it.

I feel like they are disrespectful by doing this and that they aren't valuing my time. AITA?

I(34F) and my husband(35M) have a 5 year old son together. My husband was raised in a family where boys play with cars and girls with dolls. Son has a huge obsession with unicorns and asked if he could go as a unicorn for Halloween. My husband told him no and he would take him shopping for a boy costume.

I found one in his size and wrapped the costume up to surprise him. I gave it to him after school and he immediately went to put it on. My husband looks at me and tells me that I am trying to change our son to be girly and should have bought him a spiderman or superman costume. This incident happened over the weekend and husband is still fuming over it.

AITA for buying my son a halloween costume?

My husband (34M) and I (34F) have 6 kids, our two oldest are our 15 year old daughter, Autumn and our 13 year old son, Thatcher.

Thatcher and Autumn are both at the age where they don’t go trick-or-treating for Halloween anymore, both of them have different parties they want to go to.

Thatcher and his girlfriend want to go as Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. My son plays baseball and watches all sports, including the NFL. His girlfriend is into Taylor Swift. Autumn and her boyfriend want to go as Marie and Pierre Curie.

The issue has been Autumn and her boyfriend saying mean things to Thatcher and his girlfriend about their costume. The biggest issue is that they said that his girlfriend shouldn’t be Taylor Swift because his girlfriend is Black. We are white and live in a very white area, she’s one of the few Black kids in the district. Thatcher got into a massive argument with Autumn over this. We weren’t home when this happened but when Thatcher told us what happened, we spoke to both of them.

Thatcher was justifiably really angry, he said that it didn’t matter because anyone can be Taylor Swift for Halloween. Thatcher tries to learn about his girlfriend’s struggles and culture.

We talked to Autumn about this and she at first dismissed it. We pushed her and she wouldn’t apologize until we had to threaten to take away her electronics.

A few days later, she made a comment about how “dumb” the costume was and how they’re only going as it because they’re famous and how my son is just “following trends”. Autumn was talked to again and she apologized.

The last straw was yesterday, I had gotten a call from Autumn’s science teacher that her and her boyfriend were complaining about Thatcher’s costume and had made other kids uncomfortable, I apologized and she said that Autumn and her boyfriend had said racist things before and I asked why she didn’t tell me. She told me she emailed me. After talking for a bit, we realized the email in the schools system was wrong and I gave her my correct email and she said she’d help me get it changed in the system.

I talked to Autumn and she said that her and her boyfriend just “tell the truth in class”, she also admitted she wasn’t sorry for what she said to Thatcher.

I told her she wasn’t allowed to go to the Halloween party and she told me I was overreacting. I asked some of my friends for advice and they said I was being too hard on her. My son, however, is really upset and says that knowing she’s getting grounded for her behavior makes him more comfortable bringing his girlfriend over. He says he wouldn’t want to live with us if we didn’t punish her racism. AITA?

My job had a Halloween event recently that I (32F) purchased $100 worth of candy for. No one asked me to do it, but since I knew that we did not have the budget for the candy, I took it upon myself to purchase. I did make it clear to my co-workers that if any candy was left over from the event, I would be taking it home. Well, the day of the event came, and everything went great until we were packing up to leave, with a bag of candy left over, when another department asked if they could have any leftover candy for another event they were having the day of Halloween. Apparently, a lot of other departments had donated their leftover candy. I politely declined, no reason given, just said “no, that's okay” and finished cleaning up our area

The other department seemed surprised, and one of them made a cringy face before walking back to their table

I mean, I paid for the candy, and Halloween candy ain't cheap, shouldn't I be able to determine what happens to the rest ?

Every year at Halloween we give out chips instead of candy. My wife and I think it’s fun for the kids to get chips to go along with their candy. We buy ahead of time at Costco so there’s always plenty. What we don’t use will be saved for things like bbq later in the year so people can have their own bags of chips.

I have a neighbor Debbie who is really upset about the potato chips we give put because her kid don’t eat them. She thinks we should offer some other options to her kid because he has a disability. I don’t think that’s fair and I told her it’s extremely rude to ask people who are giving out free stuff for Halloween to change things for just one kid and I told her I’m not doing it. When her child comes and knocks on my door he gets chips like everyone else. I let the kids pick the types of chips from the bowl that they like and I feel like that’s more than generous. Debbie said other neighbors are accommodating, her child disability for Halloween and I should think of others. I’m older so I think a child should be grateful for whatever they get for free on Halloween and not expect special treatment for a disability when getting free items.

Edit: My wife and I decided we don't want to deal with it anymore and will be donating the chips to the local school and churches for their Halloween party. Lights off at our house.

I live in a large neighborhood, about 90 houses. We are what's considered the 'rich' neighborhood. So our neighborhood as always been a hotspot for trick or treaters. We used to get about 700 - 1000 kids a year, I've always loved getting trick or treaters because my kids are teens now and don't trick or treat anymore. But in the last four years, it's gotten ridiculous. There's thousands of kids and their parents flooding the streets, people with hay in their rigs carrying kids around, trampling yards, littering candy wrappers everywhere, and the amount of small children walking around by themselves is APPALLING. People from the neighboring town of 30,000 people take their kids to my neighborhood.

I was annoyed, but I never really did anything about it till two years ago. My daughter tripped and broke her arm (we didn't think it was a break but we wanted to go to the er anyway to get it checked out) and there were so many people in our neighborhood, we couldn't get out. There were cars everywhere, lining the streets, parked in people's yards, it was horrible. We had to wait until everyone left (about 1 am) to go to the hospital. My daughter had to wait in pain for HOURS.

At that point, I was done. I contacted the neighborhood community and we managed to get some folks (cops mostly) to stand the at the gate with a list and only let in certain people. (folks that live here, family members, friends) If you wanted to get in, you had to be close to someone in the neighborhood. It was great, there were only about 300 kids in the neighborhood and after there was barely any trash. And, we're doing it again this year.

I recently told my sister what I have done, and she got really angry. When we were kids, we had to trick or treat in other neighborhoods because we lived in a trailer park with no other kids. She told me I was a horrible person for ruining thousands of kids Halloween. But honestly, I'm not too broken up about it. It was a hazard, if there was a fire or an emergency, no one would be able to get in to help. When I was a kid, there was never any cars lining the streets, the residences could get out if they wanted, it was never dangerous.

I don't think I'm in the wrong, but I've always respected my sister's opinion. AITA?


Info: there was no one in the cars. They were parked in the middle of the road and in yards so there was no way for me or an ambulance to get through unless every driver in that neighbor at the same time went to their cars at the same time and drove out. My daughter was 13 and in that awkward phase where she doesn't want to bother anyone for help, and said it didn't hurt that bad.

So, this one is fresh, and I'm still getting a cold shoulder over it.

I'm going to give a bit of a backstory only because I think it's relevant. I've been married 14 years to an incredible guy and we ended up with 3 kids. 8 years old, 5 years old, and 3 years old. We both used to be pretty athletic pre-kids and both picked up I hate to say it quite a bit of weight. I had a bit of a health scare after our 3rd kid was born. And, I took my health more seriously and dropped a good bit of weight along with feel absolutely incredible in comparison to where I was before. I tried to take my husband on this journey with me... but he wasn't ready. He was half-committed to the effort.

So, boom. It's Halloween. All the kids are dressed up. Which was an exhausting effort in and of itself. And, we are heading out where I see my husband sitting in the van waiting for us to pile in. I stood there surprised. We live in one of those cookie cutter suburbia neighborhoods where we can walk door to door to all our neighbors without being on a highway or something. I told him we could just walk instead of having to pile everyone in and out of the car(strapping in car seats between each house too). He was totally against it said it would be safer this way and that it would be too much work to do all that walking complaining about being tired from work. Meanwhile, beside him there's a pile of candy wrappers from him snacking on our Halloween candy we were leaving in a bowl.

At this point I tell him if he's driving he can follow behind us in the car. And, he throws yet another mini-chocolate in his mouth and says fine. So, I walked the entire night in my Wonder Woman costume with my Captain Marvel, Spider-man, and Batman kids while he just watched us from the street. We got so many compliments and he wasn't apart of the experience. One neighbor told me I was the real treat of the night because of my costume and it helped cheer me up a little. He even put a little airplane bottle of liquor in my candy bucket. Ha.

We finish up and get home. Kids are in bed and we are sorting through the candy checking to make sure it's unopened. He sees the airplane bottle of liquor and kinda freaks out. I tell him that some guy gave it to me what I didn't notice is that had slipped his phone number in the bucket too. Basically all hell broke loose. I'm telling him it's not my fault he flirted with me but if he was there with me maybe it wouldn't have happened. And, my husband is all upset we didn't just ride with him and I'm just so over it. Then I tell him basically we don't all have to suffer because you don't want to help yourself be better.

AITA?

I need some perspective here, this whole thing is so out of control

I (28/f) own my house and my bf (29/m) moved in January. We had a ton of early money arguments and agreed that we would keep to a household budget. Also, he agreed to pay down his credit card debt. I have more flexibility in my personal spending than he does.

Early after we moved in, my bf told me that as a kid he always wanted to live in one of the houses that were totally decorated for trick or treat and handed out full size candy.

Here's where I messed up. I took this as a comment and not a plan. When the end of September came, we went to the halloween store, and he was under the impression we had savings for this. I didn't know. We go over the monthly budget together, and it was never listed. When he found out that there was no halloween savings, we had an argument.

Afterwards I talked to friends who all said he had talked about trick or treat extensively and how much it meant. I chalked this one up to a misunderstanding on my part. So I came up with $500 my money, and went to him with an apology.

He decided to buy one big piece, an animatronic clown and some lights. It burned through the $500, plus he put a little on his own credit card.

He wanted another big piece and was mad I wouldn't put it on my credit card. I asked if he wanted to put up handmade decorations or spider webs but he said it would look cheap.

A few weeks later, we had a fight over candy. He was still stuck on buying full size bars. We easily get over 250 trick or treaters and I said we just don't have that much money. So we got the bulk bags of good small bars. I also had these little coloring books for the allergy and diabetes kids.

Jump forward to Halloween. Early kids show up and he is letting them grab handfuls. I remind him we have a ton of trick or treaters coming, and he got really annoyed. I had ordered a pizza for us. So I get it and go inside for about 10 minutes. By the time I came back out, the trick or treat bowls were empty. He had been dumping a third of a bowl in each kids bag and had given out all the coloring books to whatever kids came along.

He told me that I'd have to go run out and buy more candy on my credit card. I said I wasn't going to do that, and it wasn't my fault he just handed out 20 pounds of candy. He started yelling right there in front of the kids, and I told him to come inside. He responded that he wasn't stopping trick or treating even if there was no candy. I told him to have fun with the clown, and went inside.

He came in 15 minutes later. Then he demanded that I leave for the night so that he could clear his head. He argued it was fair because I had already eaten and it was my fault that trick or treat was ruined bc I'm cheap. I handed the rest of the pizza at him and refused

He left and went to a friend's house and I guess they spent the rest of the night drinking, handing out trick or treat candy and texting me how awful and cheap I am.

AITA?

Good evening.

This happened a few nights ago, but I just heard it was causing drama today.

My wife and I moved into our neighborhood a few weeks ago, and we live somewhat rural. We're in a small town, under 5,000 people, but have about 4 dozen homes within a 20 minute walk.

We know there aren't any kids in the neighborhood, and were told to expect no trick or treaters.

So, my wife and I dressed up in costumes we had easy access to, nothing controversial or inappropriate, and stocked up on candy. We made little baggies for each house in our neighborhood with about a dozen fun sized pieces of candy in each.

On Halloween night we went from house ot house, and about half the people opened for us. We'd give them candy, introduce ourselves, and move on. We started around 6:30 PM and finished around 8:30 PM. (We started far out, and moved back in towards home, towards a few people we had casually met.)

Today while getting the mail, my wife overheard a group of people talking about the new, weird, neighbors, who decided to take up a chunk of everyone's evening on a Saturday night.

That mixed with two of the houses on our route telling us that people don't do that kind of thing in our neighborhood, and one telling us we're going to burn in hell for celebrating a satanic holiday, has me thinking that A. We have at least one loony neighbor, but B. maybe we may have crossed a line in going out in the evening?

I'm dismissing the satanic panic right away, but with multiple people telling us we weren't welcome, and the stuff my wife overheard, I'm wondering, were we out of line?

Are we the jerks?

Thank you.

I(32F) work as paramedic and work 10 hour shifts. We are short-staffed at the moment and I am working the over time that is given. My niece(4F) and nephew(5M) are all set and ready for going out on Halloween. My sister and BIL work different hours and will reach out to me if I am available.

Halloween is coming up and they are traveling Saturday for a funeral and will be returning Monday. They did ask me if I could watch them and I told them that I was working a 10 hour shift Saturday. Sister and BIL think I work too much and don't spend a lot of time with niece and nephew. Niece and Nephew will be staying with our parents. Three co-workers called out for Sunday and they filled two of the slots. I told them that I would take cover the shift for Sunday.

My mother asks me if I could take them out on Halloween. I told them that I could not as I had to work until midnight. She calls me and says that I will be ruining their first Halloween. I tried to explain that work is short staffed and is a priority. My sister texted me a few times calling me a horrible aunt and to change my priorities to my niece and nephew.

AITA for not taking my niece and nephew out on Halloween?

My husband and I moved into this neighborhood about 2 years ago after we got married. We haven’t been able to celebrate Halloween the last two years due to Covid, it’s our favorite holiday so this year we decided to go all out.

We filled our yard with tombstones and skeletons. All of our bushes and trees are wrapped in fake webbing, the tree closest to the street having a huge 6 foot spider dangling from its limbs. The final touch was a huge rope web, that we added extra webbing to fill it out, that hangs from our roof all the way out to the street. We’re not into gory stuff so we got a couple of fuzzy spider decorations to place around the yard. It took us hours to decorate and we were so excited, my husband looked like a kid in a candy story.

Yesterday while my husband was at work, I heard a knock on my door. It turned out to be my neighbor, he looked absolutely frantic. I didn’t even have a chance to ask what was happened when he yelled in my face, “You need to take all this thing down!”

I was really taken aback, this neighbor has always been very nice to us. I’ve seen other houses decorate in the past few years, maybe not to this extent, but I know it’s not against our HOA rules. I decided to ask if that was his issue just in case.

He looked at me completely dumbfounded and started going off, “Cut the noensense. You need to put all this away. My wife has arachnophobia. Your yard practically gave her a heart attack this morning.”

I kind of messed up here and laughed. “I didn’t think our purple fuzzy spiders with big googly eyes would even scare the little kids in the neighborhood. You’re pulling my leg, right?”

He got in my face and practically stepped into my house, “You’re going to scare my wife. If you and your husband don’t take all this down I’m reporting you. I’m a retired police officer and I can make this a real problem for you.”

I started seeing red and getting really uncomfortable because I was completely home alone and my husband wouldn’t be home for hours. Even if I wanted to take it down, it would be impossible without his help. “Listen, this our first time getting to celebrate Halloween in our house and we really put a lot into our yard. We don’t even have any gory or graphic decorations. None of our spiders even look realistic. Can we please not do this right now?”

“I don’t care. Take it down or else.” He didn’t really give me a chance to answer, he just started walking back to his yard.

Our decorations are not scary, other neighbors have even said our yard is cute. We also spent a few hundred dollars decorating, it would be a huge waste to take it all down. I haven’t told my husband yet because I know he’s petty and will throw a fit (and probably decorate with even more spiders out of spite). I refuse to take down our decorations, this is really important to us and I just want to enjoy my favorite holiday with my husband. AITA?

A few weeks ago I (17f), along with my friend,"Martiza"(17f) went to a Halloween party. We both got the jab, so we were all good there.

On the way there Martiza informed me that she had changed her mind about leaving the party at our agreed time and was more than likely going to spend the night and just skip class the next day. She told me this as we were in her car. I was going to be the designated driver on the way back.

I would've been fine with this if she hadn't waited to tell me the unilateral change of plans 5 minutes before we pulled up to the house. So I was already a little peeved when went into the party.

I knew I was either going to have to pay $121 (halloween rates IG) to get home or call my mom and have her come pick me up. I chose my mom. 1. Because I knew she would be upset if I paid $100+ for a 45 minute car ride. and 2. my parents have always made it very clear to me that I can call them whenever I need them and they won't hold it against me.

Anyways, we got to the party around 8:30. But around 9 a lot more people started coming in. Some I recognized because I do dual enrollment at my community college. Unfortunately one of the people that came in was someone I had French with. I tried avoiding him but he saw me anyway and proceeded to follow me around the party. Martiza had disappeared off the face of the planet like 2 minutes after we step foot into the door, so I was all alone.

"Mark" is 24. I have no interest in him. He is 24. Which is pretty gross and old imo. I dont want to date someone 7 years old than me. I'm also gay...so yeah. I've told him this multiple times. But he "wants to make me straight"

I get away from Mark and around 9:30 I call my mom and ask her to pick me up. I explain to her whats going on. I leave out Mark on purpose. I text Martiza and tell her that I'm leaving. She doesn't respond so I go looking for her. I spend like 40 minutes looking because I started on the top floor. But she was in the kitchen doing shots and says whatever when I tell her I'm heading out.

I go wait outside and Mark manages to find me while I'm waiting. I keep trying to walk away from him but he continues to follow me. I see my moms car pulling up at this point. She must've recognized my costume because she got from the end of the driveway, out the car, and pulled Mark by his collar away from me in like 2 seconds.

Lo and behold, Martizas mom is also there because Martiza had told her she was spending the night at my house. I did not know she lied. Her mom goes inside and starts yelling her name looking for her. Martiza comes out with her mom looking mortified. I'm already in the car with my mom. They leave in Martizas car.

So now Martiza is punished and had her phone and car taken away. She can only talk to people in school. She's mad at me and blames me for snitching. She's also upset that I didn't get punished and still have my "privileges". When she talks to me she's really passive aggressive, she ignores me a lot too.

so AITA?

I (14F) am born on Halloween and almost all of my birthday parties have been halloween themed. (I live in a country where trick or treating doesn't happen but parties occasionally do)

'Hannah' (15F) is a girl who joined our school beginning of this academic year so she hasn't been in the school for long. And didn't know about my birthday when she celebrated hers( important later)

So on Monday, I was sitting with my friends and the topic of what I wanted to do on my birthday came up and I said halloween party as usual. Suddenly, 'Hannah' speaks up and is like "no! You can't do that. You're copying me!" and I asked her why. She said that she had a Halloween themed birthday party in may (which is as far from October as possible) and that I should let her be the special one this year. I told her it was practically tradition for me to have a Halloween themed birthday cuz I'm actually born on said day.

(Now Keep in mind it really isn't a holiday in our country but people do know a bit about it but not that much.)

So she says, "just because your birthday falls on it this time doesn't mean you were born on it" and I'm just sitting there looking at her confused. Friend 1 asks her wth she's talking about. So she says " it falls on the last sunday of October. Just cuz you are born around that time doesn't mean that you have keep a party." And another friend is like "do you know anything about halloween?"

She basically refused to believe it doesn't change every year and kept on trying to convince me to have a normal birthday party. I kept refusing and she walked away saying that I'm just a copy cat. A friend said she was the one who copied me but I reminded them that Hannah didn't know about my birthday then.

Some of my friends tried to change my mind cuz she's new but others are happy to have two halloween parties in a year. I really don't want to change because last year I didn't get to celebrate cuz of the pandemic and so this year I was really excited for it. Also this is my last year in school and I'll prolly never meet these ppl again.

Edit: ok wow I have a LOT of birthday twins and now you guys have convinced me so I'm 99percent planning on having it

Halloween is one of my most favorite times of the year. My husband and I have two little ones so we know almost all the kiddos in our block through the kids/school. Usually for Halloween we get a swarm of kids who don’t live in our neighborhood because I guess we’re known for better treats here? Anyways this has caused problems for us because we usually make Halloween goodies for the kids with cool things in it usually ranging from $5-$10. We’ve run into cases where we’ve had so many random kids in the neighborhood that by the time kids I actually know come over, the goodies are all gone.

Last year my husband and I decided to just get a big of candy from Costco to give to the other kids and just save the Halloween goodies for kids we personally knew. Well afterwards my son came home from school and told me some kids from his school apparently stopped by our house(we don’t know them) and were mad they didn’t get the special bags. I do feel bad but we can’t afford to give a hundred kids these special bags, we usually set aside like 30 bags for all our neighborhood kids. AITA?

I (25f) have been married to my husband (29m) for 5 years. I am a sahm to 2 kids (4f) (1m). While I was making breakfast this morning, DH was breaking down boxes so he could take out the trash and recycling that had piled up over the last week while we were all busy with Halloween activities.

A box filled with packing peanuts got spilled when he picked it up, and one comment from him and spilling them ended up turning into a big argument about how I don't help with chores around the house. For the record, the only 2 chores we agreed would be his responsibility were dishes and taking out the trash. Every once in a while I will ask for help with changing a diaper or feeding the kids the food I've already prepared, but the 2 main chores he has are dishes and trash. I take care of their laundry, I take them places during the day for their education and entertainment (library, children's museum, etc) I try to fit a load of dishes in during nap time while our daughter eats lunch to try and help when the dishes are starting to get out of hand, and sometimes if he's particularly tired after a day, he'll ask me to help with dishes so he can go to bed.

Unfortunately for the past week, both the trash and the dishes went neglected while we were running around doing Halloween activities with the kids. So in the argument this morning he claimed that he does everything and has to beg me to do even just one load of dishes a month. And now he's told our daughter that I'm being sarcastic because I left to go eat my portion of the breakfast I made for the family in our bedroom while he finishes figuring out how to get all the trash taken out, do a load of dishes, feed our son the eggs I made, and find a way to entertain our daughter and keep both kids out of trouble while he's busy. And that's still not everything I do, because I managed to find a minute to do the kid's laundry earlier this week and I'm the one that made breakfast before the argument started.

AITA for letting him prove he does everything if he's going to claim it?

Within the past year, my girlfriend moved in with me into my home in an affluent neighborhood. For the past few years, the neighbors and I have seen a growing amount of people come to our neighborhood for Halloween. This has caused a lot of people to "turn off" for Halloween, which you'd think would get the crowd to lessen but it keeps growing. I was openly annoyed with this leading up to Halloween and my girlfriend would condemn it every time I brought it up because "Halloween's all about sharing", saying it shouldn't matter whether the kids are from the neighborhood or not. She'd also point out that many of these children probably live in bad neighborhoods where it's not possible to trick-or-treat. Not surprisingly, this year at both entrances to the neighborhood, cars line the streets.. some with out of state plates (I live in a suburb of a city which is just over the state line.)


Am I the jerk for getting annoyed with parents who truck carloads full of kids to a neighborhood they don't live in?

I (35F) am the Stepmother to two lovely ten year old twin girls who I adore. I have been married to their father (38M) for five years and we dated for two years before that. I consider myself very close to them and we always have fun whenever they stay with me and their father.

They recently asked what kinds of movies I watched when I was their age so it led to me digging out some old classics most notedly the Parent Trap. Of all the older movies I showed them this one was their favourite I think they got a kick out of seeing a movie about twins. They even delighted in the fact that in their opinion I look like Meredith Blake (it's the hair I think no way am I as gorgeous as Elaine Hendrix). It has become an inside joke of us with me often putting on her voice and acting the part while they fall into hysterical giggles. My husband has even gotten into it and playing the clueless Nick when we get into this playful spirit.

The girls are staying with us for Halloween, they alternate who has them on holidays and whoever has them for Halloween is in charge of the costume. The girls asked if I would do a group costume with them I was touched and told them of course, and asked them what they wanted to do. I should have seen it coming, they wanted to do the Parent Trap, with them as the girls and me as Meredith. I found it harmless and agreed. My husband found it funny and said he'd even dress as Nick then.

I got a call from their Mother today telling me she'd heard of the costume and she didn't approve that she felt it wasn't appropriate. I at first was touched and assumed she worried about their stepmother being portrayed as a wicked gold digger and told her it was fine it was just an inside joke that had occurred that sparked this. That wasn't the issue, she didn't think it was appropriate for me to do a group costume with her daughters at all and that it was clearly lazy and I was forcing it as why else would her daughters want to do a costume from an old movie?

I got rather upset here but tried to stay calm on the phone and I told her she might not approve but it was harmless and i'd been in the girls life for 7 tears at this point. My husband who was in the room during the call could see I was getting upset so took the phone off of me and began to get into it with his ex-wife. Telling her that she could have all the issues she wanted but it was an entirely proper costume for their age and it had been the girls who suggested it. Reminding her it was up to him what they dressed as this year and he'd approved of it. I got him to calm down as he was getting upset and the call ended rather tersely.

I just feel awful about this whole thing and I wonder if I should just bow out of matching the girls in costume if it will prevent further problems. I just know this will be a bigger thing down the line.

Children involved are 3 and 4. Born in Canada, so far raised without any religious influence but neither parent is apposed to it. The father, lets call him Dave, and I have been separated since January 2021. Co-Parenting has been rocky at best. The relationship was riddled with emotional abuse, IMO Dave is a text book narcissist. Having finally settled in court, this is the first year that a custody agreement will dictate the division of holidays (alternating each year). This year, I am entitled to Halloween with our children. Please keep in mind, I have no knowledge of what a Diwali celebration entails and am going only on what Dave has informed me will take place. Forgive my ignorance or incorrect terms! (Additional info on Diwali celebrations are welcome!)

Dave approached me this morning to ask if I would trade years for Halloween - He would take the children this year and I would have them next. Dave explained that Diwali falls on Halloween this year and that his girlfriend celebrates. He stated that the children have been invited by her family to join in the celebrations. Dave stated that the children would be picked up from school, travel 20 minutes to their home where they will have dinner, do Puja #1 at 5:10pm, travel 1 hour to gf's families home, do Puja #2, have a snack, trick-or-treat and go to bed. They would then stay over night at the gf's families home to continue the Diwali celebration the following day.

Both October 31st and November 1st are my parenting days. Dave has not directly asked to have the children for Friday but in stating that they will sleep over and the celebration continues, it is presumed.

I am of the opinion that it is great for the children to experience other cultures and religions and welcome their participation in Diwali. However, the children loved Halloween last year and haven't stopped talking about it since! They picked out their costumes in august and tell anyone who will listen what they will be! I feel that with the travel and additional celebrations, it may make for a very rushed and tiring Halloween. I don't know how long Puja lasts but the time line does not appear to allow for much time to trick-or-treat. I do not want their Halloween experience compromised when they will ask again for another full year.

I have offered a solution to Dave that the kids would trick-or-treat as per usual but could spend Friday with the gf's family to celebrate Diwali. I also offered to drive the children the 1 hour to their family home, knowing that they will already be there and celebrating. This way, the children could experience both Halloween and Diwali.

Dave seems to think that I am trying to control his parenting and it should be a simple trade for Halloween this year for next. I feel that it is not simply a trade for this year and next because the children may miss out on the Halloween experience as a result of the switch.

AITA?

My daughter, Emma (11F), is planning her Halloween party. We’ve invited most of the girls in her class, since they’re all pretty close and she’s known many of them for years. However, there’s one girl in her class, let’s call her Lily, who’s known as the class clown. She is new this year. My daughter greatly dislikes her and made it clear she doesn’t wish to invite her. I am fine with that, she is in middle school and can pick the guest list

Lily’s mom found out about the party (I’m guessing from another parent) and reached out to me, asking why her daughter wasn’t invited when most of the girls from their class were. She asked me to reconsider and invite Lily to avoid making her feel left out especially since they are new to the school.

I told her that my daughter picked the guest list and she isn’t close to your daughter. She reiterated that she should be invited since most of the girls in the class are. I told her no again. She asked why and I told her the truth. That my daughter doesn’t like your daughter and finds her annoying. That she is the class clown and disruptive and my daughter doesn’t wish to deal with her outside of school

The mom called me an jerk and other parents are contacting me. Some saying I a in the right and others saying to invite her