Was Halloween a big thing when you were growing up?

[BiggyJ]

As in - did you carve pumpkins/turnips, go Trick or Treating, have themed parties etc?
I can't say I did, or can't recall it being a big deal as it is now for my own teen DCs.

(Born mid 70s so was a kid during the 80s )

I remember my mum throwing a Halloween party for me and some friends back in the 90’s but just once, I don’t recall it being an annual thing. We didn’t go out trick or treating.
I’ve had quite a few Halloween parties for my kids and their school friends but they’re older now so that’s stopped (thank god, Halloween is not something I really enjoy or wish to get involved in despite the parties which were something the kids asked for!).

Quite. There are always posters accusing people like me who grew up in 80s and 90s Englamd and didn't really have any experience of Halloween and see it as American of being ignorant of other British traditions outside England. I'm not in the least ignorant of these, but the Halloween we have in England now with trick or treating in supermarket witch costumes and serving pumpkins is all US TV/film Halloween and nothing to do with Scottish traditions.

I find it utterly bizarre seeing my village and every branch of the supermarkets turn into a little suburban US town for a few days and doing it makes me cringe myself inside out. It's so borrowed and nothing to do with me I find it too weird. Only had to go out one year so far and managed to get out of it again this year by timing a long drive home from my parents over Thursday evening.

This was my childhood hallowe’ens in Scotland too. All the local kids dressed up and went out.
monkey nuts and apples featured heavily.

I LOVE the smell of bunt turnip. Might need to buy a neep and get dh to carve it for me and put a real candle in it.

I’m 48 and trick or treating was not a thing. I don’t remember celebrating Halloween at all. Bonfire night was more of a thing, going to a display etc.

@RichinVitaminR I think you missed the fact that Halloween was very much a Scottish thing. And has been for a very, very long time.

Me too - Aberdeenshire, born mid 80s, cat costume (tail made out of one leg of a pair of tights stuffed with newspaper, eyeliner whiskers), neepy lantern. One year we tied a black bin bag around the dog so he had bat wings.

Yes, I can remember being quite scared of it in the mid 90s, our house got egged when we didn’t have any treats in!

Halloween wasn't a particularly English thing, but it's always been big in Ireland and Scotland. It's not American - it's based on very old Celtic traditions and festivals about respecting the dead, moving into the darker half of the year, and celebrating the shift. My dad was carving turnips and guising in the 60s in Ireland.

Forgot to say in my post earlier , North East of England, and it was a thing, but it is near Scotland, maybe that is why!

Yes forgot to add, I live in southern England. But I hear Halloween has always been an event in Scotland, Ireland and parts of northern England.

Ah my mistake, I’m actually Welsh and grew up in Mid Wales! I was aware of some links to Celtic traditions but have only ever seen the more American influence creeping in in the area I currently live in. I have little knowledge about the carving of turnips and guising but it sounds much more interesting that the Halloween traditions that I’m more familiar with (those that I assumed to be American!) 😊

Yes!!! Late 80's/early 90's. I lived on an army camp and it was amazing. We were allowed out trick or treating without adult supervision, kind of freedom I can't imagine granting my DC in our town. The adults would always dress up and be ready with treats. We were expected to have a 'trick' prepared though. We would always do a pumpkin and hand make our costumes. I loved it.

Moved away to the countryside when I was 7, middle of nowhere and no opportunity to trick or treat. Gutted.

Yes! But my mum is American and DOES Halloween. I love it, carved our pumpkins yesterday

That makes sense! I think lots of the American traditions are based around older ones, though there's definitely a lot more decor than we had back in the day. Then again, if you go back even further they had big bonfires and whole villages would decorate and have festivals! 😁 It's really interesting, sorry if I sounded a bit cagey there; every year I end up saying it a million times and seem to get myself into a mini tizz. 🤣

Have to say, I also love American Halloween! My best friend goes all out and it's amazing!

Modern day Halloween is adapted from the Celtic festival of Samhain which Scottish and Irish migrants brought to America.

it was always a big celebration growing up in Ireland, house decorated, carved turnips. Bobbing for apples, brack with a ring hidden in it, and a bonfire display with sparklers. We would dress up in homemade costumes as witches and ghosts and go ‘guising’ trick or treating’ around neighbours houses and you would have to ‘perform’ for either a handful of nuts or tangerines or coppers. ( 1 or 2p coins)

Our village still does a Samhain parade on the 31st and everyone brings their carved pumpkins for display on the beach.

80's Ireland. "Spooking" (never used "trick or treating") with siblings and friends wearing black bin bags or white sheets, masks. Then back to a neighbourhood house with our haul of monkey nuts and sweets for Halloween games. Most years there would be a nearby bonfire too. As we got a bit older we'd watch horror movies (Nightmare on Elm St, Halloween, etc) in the lead up to the big night. Loved it 👻

No not at all. If anything, we celebrated Diwali. I used to love making the paper lanterns to decorate the garden.

My first taste of Halloween was from an ex-pat New Yorker in my class who had a Halloween party. Even when we returned to the UK, it wasn't a "thing".

Yes. Carved pumpkins, went trick or treating every year, went to a couple of Halloween parties. Born 1994.

Born in early 70s and Halloween was a huge event in Scotland growing up. We all got dressed up, had Halloween games and dooking for apples and nuts. My mum always made Halloween treats such as treacle scones and toffee apples. We had sweets, but not really chocolate. Carved turnips and then pumpkins once they became more available as so much easier to carve! We went to neighbours houses and we always had to do a joke or a small Halloween song in exchange for sweets. We didn't call it trick or treating until I was much older. Lots of great memories.

Yes. I am Scottish and it was always a big thing.

There would always be a big brownie guide party around Halloween time. Then we would visit our grandparents for some Halloween fun. Don't would end up being a full on week of celebrations.

Halloween night itself we'd go out guising round all the neighbours with a carrier bag which would end up full of nuts, oranges, sweets and cash.

Loved the smell of the tumshie lanterns.

South Wales here. Born mid 70s and we went out in bin bags with a carved swede that my poor mother must have spent the entire day trying to carve. Definitely used to have a trick or joke to do for the reward that may have been sweets or small coins etc. We were only allowed to knock on the houses where we knew the residents.

Yes it was quite a big deal where was growing up in the North East of England in the late seventies and early eighties.

We dressed up, carved a turnip and practiced our Halloween songs and rhymes.

Dressing up was definitely more simple though. There were the five standard masks - Frankenstein's monster with the bolts on was the most coverted. There was the witches hat, green face paint and a bin bag or the classic ghost in a bed sheet.

When I was little, I remember trick or treaters coming to the house that my family moved out of in 1985, and then doing it myself a couple of times when I was a bit older (old enough for it to be me and my siblings alone, we didn't do it as very young children with our parents). We bobbed apples and stuff at home.

From the years I remember better, we'd always get a number of trick or treaters, but not loads. I've been bemused by the posts I've seen on twitter etc saying, "when did Hallowe'en become such a thing in the UK?", as from my own experience, it always was.

For Bonfire Night, I haven't seen a Guy since the last 80s though, but do recall that being a not-unusual sight on my outer London suburb high street. I rather liked that lots of schools had displays and bonfires, as there was always something not-too-huge to go to.

No. I remember having a couple of attempts at carving lanterns out of turnips. Because they're not hollow like pumpkins, they are very hard to carve. I don't remember seeing a pumpkin before I became an adult. Having tasted them, I'm now very glad we didn't have them.

Some neighbours used to have big parties for hallowe'en and/or bonfire night (very close together, so didn't usually have both) and new year's eve. I can remember falling asleep on the floor in the hall waiting for my mum & dad to stop boozing so we could go home. I have vague memories of bobbing for apples at hallowe'en parties and baking potatoes in foil in the dying bonfire at Guy Fawkes parties. Oh, and kids being allowed to drink Stone's ginger wine, presumably on the basis that if would be impossible for anyone to drink enough of the stuff to get drunk. In the early seventies, penny-for-the-guying was a much bigger thing than anything to do with hallowe'en, and I never heard of trick-or-treating until I was in my twenties.

I never did anything linked to Halloween during my childhood, no pumpkin or turnip carving or trick or treat at all.
Occasionally we would have homemade toffee apples, but it was an autumn treat, nothing to do with Halloween.
My Mother used to tell tales of going guising during her childhood in the North East, it sounded like fun!