A New Way To Do Halloween: Chocolate Chunks In The Trunk

Facts from the original

• The event is called 'trunk-or-treating,' a Halloween event first started by churches that has been gaining in popularity.
• Instead of going door to door seeking candy, kids go trunk to trunk, with cars parked in a central location.
• 'Trunk-or-treating' is billed as a safer alternative to trick-or-treating.
• The parking lot of Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church in Beloit, Wis., is filled with dozens of costumed kids at an early Halloween event.
• At the event the kids yell 'trunk or treat' rather than 'trick or treat,' going from car trunk to car trunk.
• Each car is decorated with a theme.
• Pastor Jason Reed says his church likes to focus on the fun — rather than freaky — parts of Halloween.
• Reed says that if the kids are going to have fun making fun of the devil, let them, and if they get candy out of it, wonderful.
• Discomfort with some of Halloween's themes first led churches to start trunk-or-treat events in the late 1990s, according to Halloween historian Lesley Bannatyne.
• Bannatyne says a trunk or treat became a very gentle, kind and child-friendly way to deal with the fact that the church didn't approve of Halloween.
• Bannatyne says it is very similar to Halloween and you don't give away the great stuff like costumes and candy, but you can control it and keep away the imagery you don't like.
• Bannatyne says trunk or treats are a safer alternative than going door to door.
• Bannatyne says the biggest danger to children on Halloween night is traffic, and trunk-or-treating takes that away completely because there are no moving cars.
• Bannatyne says that with all cars parked you get to control whose car is there, so you know who's giving your children candy.
• She says that's why the trend is catching on with more than just religious groups.
• A Boys and Girls Club in California, cities in Florida and Iowa and even police and fire departments in Minnesota have participated in trunk or treats.
• At IDEAL School in Milwaukee, teacher Jennifer Carter says she'd never heard of trunk-or-treating until a PTA parent got the idea from her church four years ago.
• The annual event allows Carter's students to celebrate Halloween while being respectful of families that don't.
• Carter notes it is called trunk-or-treat night, not Halloween night, and that it is an afterschool event that families do not have to participate in.
• Milwaukee parent Fiona Nicolaisen says having her children go door to door can be tricky in an urban area.
• Nicolaisen says a lot of the trick-or-treating in Milwaukee is during the day, so trunk-or-treating at night is a nice way for her kids to know what it was like when she used to go out trick-or-treating in the dark.
• While millions of doorbells across the country will still be ringing, more and more kids will instead be hitting up decorated car trunks in their search for treats.