How to Trick or Treat?

[DappledThings]

I have never been Trick or Treating. It wasn't a thing when I was growing up, nobody did it. I'm not Scottish, Irish or American and have no frame of reference for it other than TV and films.

DC have asked for a couple of years and I've refused (because it's weird to me. Because I have no experience of it and I never expected it to become so big that it would be something their friends were doing).

However this year DD has been invited to a Halloween themed birthday party after school on the day with the expectation they all head out afterwards so I can't really just take her home when all her friends are going.

So what do you actually do? Only knock at housed with lights/decorations. And then just literally "say Trick or Treat?" and get sweets? Is there other etiquette? Does anyone else do it and feel really uncomfortable about the whole thing?

Oh the irony! So you agree then? It may have been common for you, but it wasn't common for others. So your original snappy comments towards the OP not knowing much about it was unnecessary then.

'It's been a completely normal and commonplace thing in England for at least the last 30 years'

You could practise by sitting on a busy pavement with a sign stating "Hungry and Homeless

Yes, the lovely little kids to whom I voluntarily give sweets which I have voluntarily bought in order to voluntarily take part in a festival are definitely trainee beggars. It's ok to not like Halloween, but these 'begging' comments trotted out every year by po-faced pearl-clutchers are ridiculous.

my comprehension is just fine, thank you. However, just because it wasn't commonplace where you grew up doesn't mean the same is true of other parts of England.

lol! bit of an own goal there 😆

It's not some recent American import as you seem to imply OP

Where did the OP imply these @Bookish88

this

Go with the friends, they will guide you! The main rule is to only approach houses with pumpkins and/or Halloween decorations. I always think 8pm is the cut off point, I put my pumpkin in the back garden tgen so I'm not disturbed

Oh and for any novice Halloween home decorators, we just do a pumpkin, and we baked bat cookies last year, I also had a box of gluten free macaroons just in case, it made one little girls day who was Coeliac, I also had satsumas I could offer. We have primary aged kids all the way down and they are already expecting good treats

We are also going to try trick or treating this year for the first time (I'm probably a similar age to you and it wasn't really a thing when/where I grew up either!).

I don’t get the ‘we never did it growing up, so I know nothing about trick or treating and I’ve refused to let my children do it for two years because I have no experience of it and it’s weird to me’ mentality.

For one thing, do you need to have experience of something in order to do it with your children? This isn’t mountaineering or contract bridge or indeed anything that requires any skills or knowhow, you’re literally hovering in the background as your children and their friends call at neighbours’ doors in costumes, your role only (depending on age of children) to say ‘Not that house — go to the one with the pumpkin’, remind them to say thank you if needed, and prevent them from eating their body weight in Haribo/Celebrations.

Join up with friends or your children’s classmates if it’s that far out of your comfort zone?

One of DS’s Year 1 classmates had just arrived from Pakistan the summer before, and his mother definitely hadn’t ever encountered Halloween in the flesh before, but was gamely out with her son.

Bloody hell, lighten up. It was definitely a thing in Cumbria and the midlands in the 80s. Along with penny for the guy and carol singing. We did loads more knocking on doors back then.

It's really easy and simple and it's just a bit of fun. Only knock at houses with pumpkins and decorations. Say thank you.

But it isn't? The OP was implying that trick or treating had "become a thing" as if it didn't previously exist. But it did. Just not in her narrow sphere.

I have already said it isn't a big deal and First time for everything and lots of things are mildly intimidating the first time.
so not sure I'm overreacting much as you're implying.

Goodness me.
Do you also tell small children that Santa's not real, their Mum does the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny went in a stew?

@DappledThings
Did it with my kids in the 80s & 90s.
If you watch Meet Me in St Louis there's a huge Trick or Treat scene, and that's from the 40s.
Many of the things we have are imported; what's the issue? Don't these haters eat bananas?!

What's intimidating or confusing about this? I didn’t grow up in a country that did halloween but presumably you knock on a door, your kid says trick or treat, they get given a sweet and you move on, repeat for 45 min

It can be quite localised though. We used to do it at my grans house with cousins, just a few neighbours there all with kids. Then we moved house, same town but an older part. We brazenly went around and almost every house owner looked bewildered, didn't know what was going on. That was late 80s in Ireland.

Although Halloween is a Celtic thing and said to originate in Ireland, it was frowned on by the Catholic Church as its a pagan festival. Even when i was young schools didn't acknowledge or celebrate it. I remember one teacher saying she would be upset to hear if any of us were celebrating it, but by then most parents laughed it off as being old school. People had parties and dressed up but from what I know the trick or treat really kicked off in 90s or later. Was it possibly the same pattern in UK Catholic communities, I wonder?

You'll find a lot of people enjoy it. We went last year for the first time, and most of the houses were either people with kids themselves or people who just liked seeing the kids dressed up and enjoying themselves as their kids had grown up and left home. Your kids will love it 😊

But it isn't? The OP was implying that trick or treating had "become a thing" as if it didn't previously exist. But it did. Just not in her narrow sphere

I agree - absolutely not an 'own goal'. Trick or treating was definitely commonplace in England in time 90s, but, as has been pointed out many time, not necessarily everywhere.

Great memories of trick or treating in the 90s in my Midlands village 😀

It’s been a thing in the U.K. for decades, not a big a thing as it is now but I ‘m 75 and remember my older brother and sister (17 and 15 ) taking me, aged about five or six, pushing an old pram with a Guy in it, knocking on doors with a hollowed out turnip with a candle in it for a lantern, saying “ The sky is blue, the grass is green, have you got a penny for Halloween, if you haven’t got a penny a ha’penny will do, if you haven’t got a penny then God Bless you”. It was to get money for fireworks.
No pumpkins though, in north east England it was a hollowed out turnip.

Now I'm even more pissed off about the whole thing. It's my day off so amongst other things I'm getting what we need for tonight. DD wants some kind of bag or bucket, DH says we need something for outside our house rather than just leaving the porch light on.

But you can't buy stuff today. Because shops don't let you buy stuff actually up to the time you might want it. It's already all Christmas stuff. For fuck's sake.

The forcing everyone to do everything early infuriates me.

Is this you just getting in character?
Is DD going as snow white?

Really? Shops are still full round here. Any bag of fun size sweets will do for giving out. Collecting bag: leftover party bag? DD went out with a fairy bag from a party she’d been to last year. Get a butternut squash if you can’t find a pumpkin, or just cut a ghost shape out of paper and stick it in your window. It’s not as difficult as you’re making it!

Round here it's guising, and you're expected to do a rhyme or poem or joke or song before being offered a sweet . It feels slightly less begging, but not much🤣.
Me and another mum were also a bit nervous about it, but I'm glad we took the kids and are heading out again tonight.
I'd just trust it's definitely OK and let your kids enjoy.

We have sweets to give out. It's the collecting receptacle and the display of availability that needs to be visible from the road. I assumed I'd be able to get some kind of battery operated light up pumpkin or something. I'm not carving anything.

Ha. Did Snow White's mother die of supermarket timetabling rage? That would be a twist I wasn't aware of!