It was at midnight that the game was played.
Even if the kids couldn't trick or treat because adults couldn't get their shit together, masks and distance couldn't ruin their Halloween fun. So they made up a game.
Spend the night at the old Winthrop house down the street. Creepy, quiet, they couldn't enter before midnight or the inhabitants would notice.
So they wore their classic costumes. White sheets over their heads, pumpkin masks, hooded cloaks. It was the safest way to hide from the nosey adults, the parents who would surely freak out if they saw them out of their graves.