So say the adults who spent Halloween evening holding bowls and buckets of sweet treats, listening to chorus after chorus of “Trick or treat!” and filling Alpena children’s eyes with joy.

“Rain or snow, we’re out here,” said Kris Lamble, whose driveway at the corner of Washington Avenue and 4th Avenue saw a steady stream of decked-out kiddos on Monday evening.

Passing out treats around a toasty fire is a family tradition, complete with lots of family piling into the house for bowls of chili and adults snitching candy as the children sort it into piles, Lamble said.

“Ooh, you guys got the big one,” the dad of one trick-or-treater said, admiring Lamble’s fire ring as her family stood around it in a festive semi-circle. “I should just stay here.”

News Photo by Julie Riddle Tim Hoggard, pickle, 13, accepts a Halloween treat from Marguerite Wiseman on Monday, with Hoggard’s sister, Nicole, next in line.

Next door, where “Werewolves of London” and “Monster Mash” floated from a front porch that oozed autumnal vibes, Kiowa “Cobra Kai” Kirchoff teasingly blamed his wife for making him get festive for the holiday, but then admitted that he’s “a kid at heart.”

People handing out candy do the job whether the weather cooperates, as it did this year, or plays its own tricks on kids, like the recent Halloween when parents trudged past carrying tents on poles over their broods to keep off the wet snow, Kirchoff said.

Sevi MacNeill, 7, agreed that handing out candy is part of the fun as she perched on the house’s front steps in a Princess Belle dress and cozy shirt, making other kids happy, two pieces of candy at a time.

Through an inflatable arch hung with black ribbon, resident Denise Knoll, decked out in black (“I’m a witch, crone, whatever”), popped candy into held-out bags with a smile.

The giant dragon and old, old man in a cage on her front porch, wrapped in a spooky cloud of smoke, are her way of making kids happy, Knoll said.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Sevi MacNeill, also known as Princess Belle, warms up in a flannel shirt as she hands out candy to “psycho” Kennedy Kuhn, 11, on Monday.

“The kids love it. They’re like, ‘Ooooh,'” she said, imitating the awed faces and excited voices of the children who delight in the decorations she tries to make better every year.

She had to go to Saginaw to get the caged man, she said.

The holiday brings the community together as people see each other face to face, greeting friends and meeting strangers, she said, passing along another smile and a “Happy Halloween!” to a departing cluster of adults and kids.

In a nearby driveway, children who walked, somewhat uncertainly, up to a man dressed in a suit, sitting on a folding chair and holding a metal pan, found themselves treated to a rare, full-sized candy bar of their choice.

He got out of work late, Ted Johnson said, and had to hurry home and head straight to the driveway without changing out of his suit.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Tim Hoggard, pickle, 13, accepts a Halloween treat from Marguerite Wiseman on Monday, with Hoggard’s sister, Nicole, next in line.

“I thought, ‘I gotta get out there,'” said Johnson, who has for the past several years enjoyed kids’ excitement as they see the large chocolate bars. “Because they’re expecting me.”

Parents and kids alike gawked at the front yard of Kevin Wheeler, bedecked in skeletons and tombstones and scenes both grisly and humorous.

When he had a young family, he was always gone on Halloween because he had to take kids trick-or-treating, Wheeler said.

“So, now I do it for them,” he said, greeting wave after wave of costumed young people looking for candy and a good time.

In a garage decked out like a haunted house, children and brave adults took turns sitting gingerly in an “electric chair,” eeking with surprise and delight when the chair vibrated under them.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Little witch Indya Nash, 3, gets a sweet treat from Denise Knoll on Monday.

Kids come back year after year, wondering what new delight he has for them, said Wheeler, who creates music shows to accompany the grand holiday display into which he turns his home each year.

“It’s all for them,” he said, ushering another group into his garage-turned-haunted house. “And that’s what makes us smile.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.