Lessons from trick-or-treating in my twenties
Halloween is far from fading—explore Mississauga’s many spirit-filled neighbourhoods that make Halloween night truly unforgettable.

“Aren’t you too old to be trick or treating at 21?” Yes, I am, and you should join me. I don’t believe Halloween is fading, so let me show you how to make the most of your Halloween in Mississauga neighborhoods. 

Maybe you have a younger sibling to take candy collecting. Or, you are a twenty-something-year-old UTM student who loves Halloween. Maybe you stay home every year and wonder what Mississauga is like on October 31st. It doesn’t matter–there is much to learn about neighborhood festivities.

What neighborhood suits you? There’s the welcoming Elora Drive down Rathburn Road West, the mansions on the notoriously massive Mississauga Road, and the festive Palgrave Road tucked into a pocket of Kariya Drive. I have phased in and out of all three neighborhoods. Each has its audience.

Sure, you could take a lap inside a Spirit Halloween, but these neighborhoods are festive and free. Treat yourself to animated avenues and spirited neighbors, not just “step here” animatronics. I promise Halloween is just as fun as when you were a kid.

Your Guide to Conquer Trick-or-Treating

1. The ideal time to start trick-or-treating is 6:00 p.m. Busy neighborhoods run out of candy near 7:30 p.m. 
2. Bring an extra bag. Not to carry the extra candy, but to encourage people to give you extra candy. Leave the other bag in the car or place an extra bag inside your growing haul. Showing up to doorways with the “empty bag” lures out a surplus of sympathetic sweets.
3. A car goes a long way. Someone to drive you will save you the trip of dashing down avenues to get to the next street.
4. The classic rule: a good costume reels in profit. Your favorite mask will do. 
5. Trick-or-treating is a marathon, and costumes slow you down. A bizarre mask is a proper substitute, but the best option is a painted face. A painted face keeps the vision and breathing clear for someone pacing through streets for an hour or more.

Bring the young ones to Elora Drive

Rating:

• Decor: 4/10
• Candy: 4/10

Elora is a family-friendly neighborhood with too many kids and too many parents. Elora is the neighborhood excited to give out toothbrushes and boxes of raisins. But the next house might give you a family-size pack of Twizzlers, like what happened to me back in 2016.

The neighbors are a bit conflicted but also kind and enthusiastic. There is little grand decor, but most houses signal they have candy with pumpkins, plastic bats, and doorways drowning in spiderwebs.

If you’re worried about cavities, crowding, or clowns, Elora is a cozy community, especially for younger kids. For seasoned trick-or-treaters, don’t settle for Elora. There’s more just around the block.

Maximize your profits on Mississauga Road

Rating:

• Decor: 7.5/10
• Candy: 10/10

As a kid, Mississauga Road was that neighborhood that gave out full-sized candy bars, cones of caramel popcorn, boxes of jellies, and, sometimes, cans of soda.

Candy haul records are broken here. In 2021, October 31st at 8:00 pm, a thorough harvest of these streets left me disheveled, dehydrated, and my shoulder almost dislocated.

But it yielded me more candy than I could carry: my haul of full sized Aeros, chip bags, a box of jellies and countless classic chocolates covered the full length of my dining table and lasted me through spring. It’s a night I will always remember.

The downside is the dim streets. Maybe that’s your vibe, but I think the wide roads and too tall windows when left unlit, make the road a little too dreary. 

Though the houses that stay lit welcome you memorably. In 2021, The Nightmare Before Christmas was performed on giant windows. Another driveway had a very vocal clown asking passersby to be his friend (if you say yes, it will confuse him greatly). Then the clown will rush you up the driveway of a mansion where thriller music rattles through its walls. Other houses had whole neon gardens of ghouls and puppets jumping out at you from doorways. 

You may find some hollow spots, but you’ll find no deficiency in creativity. If the heart is set on candy, then travel forth to Mississauga Road. 

Find your inner child on Palgrave Road (Decor: 10/10; Candy: 7/10)

Rating:

• Decor: 1o/10
• Candy: 7.5/10

In 2022, I nicknamed Palgrave Road Halloweentown after the Disney Channel original movie. Tucked just behind Kariya Park, this is my favorite place on Hallow’s Eve.

Though the houses are much closer to the ground, every year Palgrave transforms into a festival of makeshift magic: neon inflatables guide you, 12-foot Jack Skellingtons will greet you, levitating teapots in windows will spook you, and if you get lost, simply follow the palm tree tangled in golden fairy lights back the way you came (picture above). 

Don’t be too stingy about the candy, it runs out long before 8:00 pm. Unlike the previous neighborhoods, trick-or-treaters flood the sidewalks like extras in a HalloweenTown sequel: motivated, chattering, and dressed to impress. Teenagers dressed as Luffy and Zoro (if you know, you know) and adults as inflatable Nickelodeon cartoons parade down Palgrave, knowing cars halt for their night.

For the first time, candy was not the most exciting part of the night for me. I didn’t care about my 2000-word essay due at 11:00 am. I wanted to stay in this corner of Mississauga where ghoulish garages and skeleton-infested backyards stay open to trick-or-treaters, neighbors stand outside their homes eager to give, and palm trees glow. Since 2022, I have stayed at Palgrave Road. 

When the lights finally blinked out, backyards closed, and families trickled into houses or out the side doors in the fences, I hoped I would have the sense to trick-or-treat here again on October 31, 2024, at 21 years old. 

“Is trick-or-treating fading?”

Trick-or-treating in my 20s, a time when people call me too old for Halloween and I call myself freer than I ever have been, taught me the right places do exist. Festivities may phase in and out of communities, but the spirit of neighbors is hard to kill.

I do not believe Halloween is fading, I think parental concerns and traditions are changing, and it makes it easy to feel like we’ve outgrown the holiday. But fun is hard to outgrow, and neighbors love transforming an ordinary night into a spell.  So, I am going to continue trick-or-treating in my 20s, because it’s fun, and I know someone out there has a candy bowl waiting for me.