How do you balance TOTing with Haunting?

I'll probably sound like an old grouch, but, here goes...
TOT with the kids is severely overrated.
I last took my first two kids out until our son was 8, our daughter 7. Oh, yeah, it was fun, don't get me wrong. But nothing "Special", no indelible Kodak Moments, no precious memories. In fact, it was pretty lame. We started haunting in earnest the next year, and within three years, the kids didn't even want to leave the house on Hallowe'en! Our place was where it's at, why would you go elsewhere? Anyway, the first two grew up, left for College, and I found myself with a new wife, and we now have two girls together. I've NEVER taken them out for Trick or Treat. We do the obligatory Commercial Haunts, cruise other peoples' haunts on the nights leading up to it, and they go out and do the TOT thing. But Papa's got some serious scaring to do at home on that night...

But everybody's different, wilbret, you choose for yourself, buddy. And don't let anyone criticize that choice.

We'll be facing this dilemma in the coming years. Right now our daughter is 3 and our son will be 11 months at Halloween. Last year we thought we'd take our daughter to a few neighbor's houses but we never got around to it. I think we're a little lucky because besides doing a yard haunt, we have a sort of open-house on Halloween where friends & family come to hang out, eat, sit by our fire pit in the driveway and have a drink. So my husband and I could both take the kids to a few houses on the street and someone would be available at our house to give out candy while we were gone. I think as the kids get older, we can either take turns walking them around, we could both go out for a little while & then someone heads back home, we could ask other local family members to walk around with our kids, or we could let them walk around with friends when they are older. But, I also think that our kids may want to be at our house too. I could be wrong but I would be surprised if our kids want to TOT all night rather than being involved in some way with our haunt. We have the bonus of visiting family members & friends, so I think they'll want to be here.

Any chance you could invite a family member or friend over, maybe someone who doesn't get many TOT'ers at their house? They could sit at your house for an hour or something while you go out with your kids. Just feed them some pizza & candy and that's a great deal!