What does Halloween mean/mean to you?

[FlouncerInDenial]

Interested in what others may say.

So, for me. I'm not a Christian, but went to a CofE school in the 70s.
I'm sure we were told that Halloween was a biblical thing. The day (night, probably) before All Saints Day.
This was before trick or treating was a "thing". Although we had begun to hear about that as being a thing in America.

So, what is it to you?

[Craftycorvid]

It’s Samhain for me and very important. I’m a Pagan. As pp have said, it’s the ancient Celtic new year, the time when we can contact those in the next world in whatever way is meaningful. I lost my DM this year so it will be quite poignant.

[FourTeaFallOut]

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

An evening of lying silently on the floor with all the lights off, ignoring the anyone knocking at the door.

A warm up for the Carol singing season.

[Hiccupiscal]

...for those of you sneaking around the house with your lights off...

Do you actually get your door knocked? I thought the sign to knock a door TOT was displaying halloween items/pumpkin?

Ive never been TOT, and my house is always decorated for Halloween, so I dont know, just thought it was a unwritten rule?

Do you get TOT even if your house displays no interest in taking part?

[TwoLeftSocksWithHoles]

An evening of lying silently on the floor with all the lights off, ignoring the anyone knocking at the door.

A warm up for the Carol singing season.

[AliceAforethought]

What do you call, what we would call, Turnips?

That's a good question. I don't even remember seeing those smaller white/purple turnips until I'd left Scotland for England! I think - think - they're just not so common in Scotland. Whereas as neeps are a national delicacy!

[MrsAvocet]

I don't like it and don't mark the occasion.
I grew up in a fairly strict religious household and we never celebrated Halloween. I remember doing a bit of Halloween related art at primary school, and I have a vague memory of carving a swede and bobbing for apples with my Mum and sister one year. I can only assume my Dad was away for some reason because he would have gone absolutely ballistic if he had known.
My ILs are really into it and decorate the house extensively. I have got used to it now, or at least better at hiding my feelings, but it still makes me uncomfortable. I know its harmless fun really but its hard to shake off ingrained attitudes from childhood.
In more normal times I do buy a a few packets of sweets just in case any kids come trick or treating but its very rare as we live a bit off the beaten track and there are no young children living on our lane any more. If any do come I would give them something but I don't really like it and never did it with my own children.

[Deadringer]

Growing up in Ireland in the 70s Halloween was an exciting event for my family. Shop bought masks and home made costumes (a black sack), calling to all our neighbours singing ' any apples or nuts' (we never got sweets) then going home and apple bobbing, cracking open and feasting on nuts and grapes, and enjoying the novelty of a coconut, very exotic! We always had bangers and mash, my mum would hide 5p pieces in the mash for us to find. Barm brack was a big favourite, and the excitement of who would get the ring. We would have sparklers and bangers too if we were lucky, and a visit to a local bonfire. There would always be a scary movie on tv, usually a hammer house of horror. It had no religious signifigence for us whatsoever. I still love Halloween and so do my dc and we carry on some of the traditions, with a few new ones like pumkins thrown in.

[Ilovelife321]

Absolutely nothing.

[Bikingbear]

@Ifailed

When Scottish folk talk about carving Turnips, the really mean what English folk call Swedes, yellowish inside

I know!
What do you call, what we would call, Turnips?

That's a really good question because I clarify them as "Turnips like Aunties" as the first place I recall seeing and eating them is in my Great Aunties garden!

[LaVitaPuoEsserePiuBella]

I also grew up in the 70s and 80s and it was never "a thing".
I loathe the plastic shit heading straight to landfill on November 1st.

[Ifailed]

When Scottish folk talk about carving Turnips, the really mean what English folk call Swedes, yellowish inside

I know!
What do you call, what we would call, Turnips?

[Bikingbear]

@Ifailed

I grew up in the 60s in England, Halloween was a thing, but no trick or treating. We'd cut ourselves carving a swede with a blunt penknife (never a turnip, they're far too small), there would be ghost stories, knock down ginger etc.

When Scottish folk talk about carving Turnips, the really mean what English folk call Swedes, yellowish inside

[Mokusspokus]

Change.

Change in the seasons.

End of summer. The dark winter to come.
A night to remember the dead.

Atmosphere...

[Taytocrisps]

Thanks for your kind words @JingsMahBucket and @Hiccupiscal - my only regret is that there are no photos of us as kids dressed in our Hallowe'en costumes. Or playing our games. My family weren't well off and we didn't have a camera for long periods of my childhood.

[Hiccupiscal]

@Taytocrisps thank you for sharing your memories, how lovely they are. I throughly enjoyed reading it all, and I think its wonderful the ending of your post, to say although times have changed, you still love the tradition and how it's celebrated now.

[PurBal]

Just that All Saints and All Souls day is about to happen. Think about the loved ones I've lost. Maybe light a candle and say a prayer for the deceased. This year will be special as it's the first since my grandma died. I find it a very spiritual time of year.

[Ifailed]

I grew up in the 60s in England, Halloween was a thing, but no trick or treating. We'd cut ourselves carving a swede with a blunt penknife (never a turnip, they're far too small), there would be ghost stories, knock down ginger etc.

[MrsKingfisher]

Absolutely nothing and happily this year the absence of feral teens banging on doors and generally spoiling it for others.

[KitKatastrophe]

Nothing, it's just for fun. Like april fools day or bonfire night (presumably nobody these days is actually celebrating the execution of Guy Fawkes, it's just fun to watch fireworks)

[CloudyVanilla]

I love Halloween. I love spooky stuff but although not religious the ideology behind it is important to me. Thinking about the spirits of the dead.

I grew up with parents who thought it was completely commercial and modern and from America so I never got to do much for it. It's a shame because it has ancient roots and I think they're important.

[mathanxiety]

It is a US imported marketing ploy like Black Friday and is solely for the benefit of retailers. We don't do it at all.


@PercyKirke
It's an old, old Scottish and Irish tradition that made its way to North America hundreds of years ago with emigrants from Ireland and Scotland, and came back to mischievously annoy the pants off certain sections of English society.
I've always thought "trick or treat" is a strange custom to teach children. It's basically extortion.


In the part of Ireland where my mother and all her ancestors come from trick or treating while disguised is called Vizzarding. A vizzard is a mask. Maybe it comes from the French 'visage' (= face). Vizzarding groups would recite a rhyme or a song and would be rewarded with food or money.

I grew up in Dublin where Hallowe'en (translation: the eve of All Hallows, or All Saints) was a big traditional Irish thing. We prepared for a full on celebration in fine pagan form (in a Catholic convent school no less) by making and decorating masks. The following day was and still is All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation (to go to Mass).

In ancient times, Hallowe'en ('Samhain') was a night on which the boundary between life and death became blurred, a liminal time, when the seasonal cycle of growth and harvest was finished and the period of darkness arrived. Cattle were brought down from mountain pastures. Animals were slaughtered for winter food. People left out food for passing souls and ancient beings such as the Sí; guising and turnip carving echoed the link with grotesque nature spirits and the dead. There were and still are rituals involving bonfires, divination using symbolic objects baked into barm breac and seasonal fruits and nuts - as a child, my friends and I used to go from house to house asking for apples and nuts, very typically associated with Hallowe'en customs.

www.thejournal.ie/readme/only-for-halloween-surviving-in-america-it-probably-would-have-died-out-here-3667762-Oct2017/

As the mother of American children I have fond memories and much photographic evidence of evenings of great fun trick or treating, and the lingering sweet smell of pillowslips full of candy which the DCs emptied out onto the sittingroom floor when they got home to swap favourites among themselves.

[Furries]

@PercyKirke - out of Interest, what year were you born in? Only asking as I see/hear this type of response quite a lot, generally from people younger than me.

I was born in ‘71 - we were all definitely trick or treating then. Plus, I have just a teeny, tiny feeling that the tradition goes back waaay longer than that. It’s definitely not an American import! (No offence meant to US mumsnetters).

I don’t have kids, so no trick or treating to do (in non-Covid times). And I’m semi-rural so no knocking at my door either. I don’t decorate the house (enough of a faff doing the Christmas decorations!). So, I guess I’d say it doesn’t mean anything in that sense - but it’s the time of year that I probably think more about those that are no longer in my life as, although they are no longer here, they definitely aren’t forgotten.

[BLASTPROCESSING]

"It is a US imported marketing ploy like Black Friday and is solely for the benefit of retailers. We don't do it at all."

🙄

[jennie0412]

Nothing important, just scary movies and toffee apples, and lots of fake blood if going out

[PercyKirke]

Nothing. It is a US imported marketing ploy like Black Friday and is solely for the benefit of retailers. We don't do it at all.