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 )

It seems to be almost a point of pride by some posters (not all, I think some people just don't know which is fine, and I'm always happy to share information) to say it. I don't know why because it just makes them look ignorant when it's been explained over and over again that the Irish and Scottish took it to America. (And I'll say again that I've got nothing against American Halloween either, for any of our American MNers who might read and feel like this thread is yet another attack on them.)

Fine if people don't like it, but literally denying history is just a little bit silly when all they have to do is simply Google "Halloween" or "Samhain" and it's all right there on Wikipedia.

No. All I can remember of my 1970’s childhood at Halloween is making witches hats at a friends birthday party (which must have been around this time of year and therefore had a Halloween theme) and some local trick or treating kids once. I disliked Halloween for years and still don't really love it, although I like the harvest festival element and the pumpkins.

Not like it is now. My dad hated anything Halloween (and Christmas)

I was never allowed to go trick or treating or carve pumpkins or take part in anything Halloweenish and we weren’t allowed to answer the door, my dad would shout piss off through the letterbox if anybody knocked (he wasn’t horrible in general, but he was a grump and very stuck in his ways sometimes)

I made up for it when I had my own kids. And funnily enough so did my mum when my dad died, she couldn’t wait to hand out sweets and carve a pumpkin.

houses decorated for Halloween that’s a recent thing

You'd have thought that the adults around you would have given you a heads up. Or, do you think that they were oblivious to it all too?

Yes, north west england, early to mid 80s.
Halloween party, trick or treating, carving turnips, homemade costumes :)

Definitely not in the 90s. No trick or treating. We got a Halloween party in the school hall if we were lucky and everyone usually wore the same costumes each year. It seems to have rocketed in popularity in the last 20 years into something really big now hasn't it.

Did it with mine in the late 80s early 90s.

Do t remember it at all in my house in the late 60s early 70s.

Agatha Christie' Hallowe'en Party was published in 1969 so it was a thing in some parts of the country.

Yeah, born 85 and our whole area got dressed up and went trick or treating. EVERYONE answered their doors and you'd get loads of toffee apples, tablet, sometimes money. Homemade costumes. School party every year. We didn't personally carve pumpkins as my mum would rather spend the money on fags and lager but all my friends did. We live South West Scotland.

No, not for us (Midlands, 1970s)

There did used to be more bonfires in the local communities - Scout Groups, Churches, Sports clubs etc running them.

No. Although I do remember green food dye being added to a tin of Heinz chicken soup.

The worst thing about Halloween in those days was having to eat the turnip Dad had hacked out to make the lantern. Boak. Not a fan of eating turnip.

The worst thing about Halloween these days are the comments from English people about how nobody ever celebrated Halloween and that it is a terrible americanised capitalist waste of money.

Yah boo sucks and all that.

My parents went guising in the 1950s. It isn't new.

I'm not being funny, it was absolutely a non event. It might have been mentioned but there was never an expectation that something would happen. It would have been traditional games like apple bobbing if anything happened at all. I don't wish to be unpleasant but it really wasn't a big thing. If we'd tried trick or treating our neighbours, (if we'd understood what it meant) we'd have been sent home, sharpish.
Why would my parents have mentioned Halloween? They would have thought it was silly. They weren't religious but just not that fussed about those kind of things. Guy Fawkes night was much more well known but most people had a few fireworks in their back garden. There just wasn't a lot of fuss. I honestly think, despite its Celtic origins, most people thought it was an American import.

Born in the 80s, we definitely went trick or treating. All of us in black bin bags with a witches outfit, then year I added a broom I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread!

I would go out with lots of my cousins and when we got back we would have to tip all our treats onto the big dining table and take it in turns of choosing an item until it was all shared out fairly between us.

Born in 61. Guy Fawkes night was the big thing, not Halloween which I hardly remember happening. I remember a witches event at Brownies, that was probably for Halloween, but that was it.

Having a big firework party with the neighbours on the green, pushing the guy round in a wheelbarrow asking for pennies, having toffee apples and hot chocolate after dark were all exciting to us children.

To add, we didn’t do any pumpkin carving or parties etc. I seem to remember that starting when my eldest was small so mid 2000s.

Halloween was definitely a thing. We usually met at someone's house to dook apples and eat scones or pancakes off a string (without using your hands!). Turnips were carved instead of pumpkins. We went out guising round the neighbours houses and they would invite you in to do a turn for them. This was usually a joke song or dance. They would give you sweets, peanuts and a wee orange which you put in a poly bag.

My costume was made out of a bin bag pretty much every year but some of my friends had really good ones their mum's made. No one really shop bought a costume.

For reference, I'm from the NE but grew up in south London.

My parents didn't even make an effort with birthdays or Xmas so Halloween wasn't a big thing in our house.

But, it was a big thing for others around us. Neighbours used to decorate their houses, have parties and I did go to their houses and also went trick or treating.

Born in 75, grew up in the North West. We carved turnips, did apple bobbing and apple on a string. It was always a house party rather than trick or treating.

Please tell me the rest of you NI lot spent ages every Halloween trying to hammer open a coconut??

No. But I grew up in the South and moved back there. Around us it's a ghastly American tradition. I need to shut down the house on 31st to make it is clear i am not at home. Some firework displays still going on for Guy Fawkes.

Those are my memories. Grew up in a cul-de-sac with an orchard at the bottom. We would spend weeks building the bonfire and making the guy.

🤣🤣

I remember my dad, his face like a beetroot, a coconut clamped to his workbench, trying to hack it open with a saw! BUT ... I can't remember if it was Halloween.

Because every year those who grew up in areas where it was a long standing tradition seem to have no concept that other parts of the UK had totally different traditions. Bonfire Night has been wiped out as a local tradition. In the South it is an American import.

Bonfire Night is still big in Sussex. I haven't seen children asking for a penny for the Guy for decades but lots of villages and towns have bonfire societies.

Different towns have their bonfire celebrations on different weekends so that other societies can join them. There's generally a parade (people in costume, many carrying flaming torches, drummers) to the bonfire and then a fireworks display.