The Book Nerd’s Guide to Halloween

Welcome to the Book Nerd’s Guide to Life! Every other week, we convene in this safe place to discuss the unique challenges of life for people whose noses are always wedged in books. Find past guides here.
The North American climate, in its current condition, offers no better weather than that of October. I’m told people enjoy plundering the earth of its wares, like apples and pumpkins, during this period. Many seem to relish the opportunity to meander through corn mazes.
I, however, find October to be the premier month for curling up with a good book. The air is crisp, but not so frigid you can’t leave the windows cracked while you hold a nice cider in one hand and a little Edgar Allan Poe in the other. October is a month for stories, mostly spooky. Everything about it is perfect—right up until Halloween.
For that is when the fires of hell rain upon your doorstep in the guise of small costumed children, demanding tribute from you in the form of highly concentrated doses of sugar. Heckuva holiday, folks: get the kids all hyped up on junk, let them get bossy, and set them loose on the neighborhood. Meanwhile, I’m pulled from my annual rereading of The Graveyard Book to screech, “Double, double toil and trouble/fire burn and GET OFF MY LAWN” at a bunch of kids on my doorstep. (I’m mostly kidding.)
But we devotees of the written word are industrious, resourceful, unyielding. We should have a few tricks up our sleeves to limit the disruptions on All Hallow’s Eve (read: ensure the fewest number of trick-or-treaters come knocking). Sure, you could always turn out the lights (but for your reading lamp) and shut the blinds, but what would be the fun in that when you could also:
Answer the door as Miss Havisham.
A couple repeats of you dragging your carcass to the door looking like a melting bridal caketopper and word will begin to spread: stay away. The line your Miss Havisham look must walk is that between “Halloween costume” and “lifestyle choice,” so the youngsters will be unsure enough of your relative sanity to steer clear. Especially when you start dropping old cake chunks into their pumpkin buckets.
And speaking of unwanted treats…
Hand out bookmarks to trick-or-treaters.
To you and me, a free bookmark is a hallowed treasure. But to the sugar-fueled hoodlums banging on your door and expecting edible sweets, a bookmark might as well be a court summons—they’ll take it because they have to, but their disappointment will be palpable.
Of course, it could be worse…
Deploy a well-placed “blood”-stained hanky.
Remember a few paragraphs ago when we were all cuddly and cozy with Poe’s canon? Take heart and seize the inspiration. Next time a pack of Elsas and Annas shows up, make sure you’ve got a pristine (almost) white handkerchief at the ready. Give a polite cough, then accidentally drop it at the snow boots of the little candy grubbers. Then let your “consumption” do the work of driving the doorbell-ringers away for you. At least, that’s how I think it worked in “The Masque of the Red Death.” 
What? They’re the ones who said, “Trick or Treat”!