Do You Do Much For Halloween?

[MarmaladeSandwich7]

We didn’t do a lot when I was growing up but always carved a pumpkin & DBro & I went trick or treating with our friends. Sometimes we had a mini party with apple bobbing, ghost stories etc. DD16 has been trick or treating every year & will have a horror movie fest this year instead. I work in a well known store & folks are splashing out on all sorts. People decorate their houses inside & out. It seems to be as big a deal as Christmas.

No, i used to do parties when ds was to young to go knocking on doors. Nowadays its just decorate the house & trick or treating. Its not a massive thing in our house.

Not now the kids are older. They used to love decorating the house but they’re not even here on actual Halloween this year, they’ve got a much more grown up party to go to! Round here trick or treating is very much seen as for primary age kids. Mine are 16 now and they haven’t been for the last few years.

Anyone else?

Not any more thank god!
Used to have little parties for the dc when they were younger and interested but I have to say last year was the first that we didn’t have smelly pumpkins to carve and I was so bloody thankful 😂
We just watched the Adams family and relaxed by the fire, opening the door periodically to give kids sweets.
Will be aiming for the same low key vibes this year.

Absolutely nothing.

Growing up we weren’t allowed trick or treating but dressed up, carved a pumpkin, boobed some apples, had some sweets and had a few friends over.

now I have my own children we decorate the house, do some Halloween games, bob apples, dress up, go trick or treating, have some sort of easy dinner and sweets all evening while watching a kid friendly scary movie. If there is a free event on we go to like a free disco etc. when the kids are a bit we will probably go to a haunted house event or ghost walk

No. DD is an adult and has left home now.

She loves Halloween though and will be doing something. Isn't Halloween just for children really?

One of mine is off to a party, the younger teen is going trick or treating with two friends.

I think they're coming here first to decorate my house then get ready together and I'll feed them a chilli before they go out. I'm manning the front door this time as we get loads of kids, mostly littlies, but some teens. People only knock on doors if there's a pumpkin out.
I know most of the kids as I work at the village school. Last year I think I had about 50!

As a child, it wasn't much of a thing. I wasn't allowed to go out trick or treating, but we'd carve a pumpkin and give some sweets out if people knocked.

Never did anything as a child and have done nothing since.

Nope.
Americanised commercial cr*p that will almost certainly go straight to landfill.
Plus I dislike the fundamental sentiment behind it.
Fully aware I appear to be a miserable sod!

Guising was originally a Celtic tradition where poor people used to go door-to-door in costume asking for food or money in exchange for prayers or performances. It evolved in the US to what it is today, so it isn't "Americanised commercial crap that goes to landfill". Carved pumkins and turnips can be composted and the sweets get eaten.

DD (25) loves Halloween and keeps her Halloween decorations from year to year, just as we do with Christmas decorations.

Agreed.

We did similar to you when I was a child - carved a pumpkin, trick or treating, perhaps once in my childhood actually had a halloween party.
Now I have a child of my own we do a little more - visit to a pumpkin patch (but this was more to spend time with a friend and there was bouncy castles, a maze, a tractor barrel ride, etc), and we are also going to a children's Halloween party with a friend. At home, we don't decorate- just a few pumpkins we picked up at the patch that will advertise that we are a trick or treat house.

Retired with no children and love Halloween. Not all the commercial, plastic tat, but the twinkly, light in the darker months atmosphere. To me it's a celebration of autumn, the pumpkin harvest, the colours of the trees, the clocks going back and the hunkering down for winter.

I always carve pumpkins, have fairy lights and candle lanterns and love the cheery little kids in fancy dress coming to the door for treats.

@HotTiredDogtake it you are English ? Halloween comes from a Celtic festival at the end of the harvest

I decorate the house a bit but nothing crazy at all! I have a little projector outside the house etc.

It was actually invented by the the Irish…but ok.

I make a pumpkin pie and watch the Charlie Brown special.

Many years ago when I was a child, I went ' guising ' .

One year my mother made me a hiawatha ( female red Indian ) outfit with a papoose baby carrier on my back for a baby doll and I had to learn and recite a ' party piece ' i.e. little poem or something similar in exchange for a handful of sweets from neighbours ( no strangers homes visited )

so treats but no tricks.
( and no shop bought dressing up outfits, every child was in something lovingly made by a relative )

Ooh forgotten about pumpkin pie - love it! 🎃🥧

Some misinformed posters on this thread who hate anything American (or not American in this case).

It was hardly a Thing at all when I was a child, though there was the odd party with ‘apple bobbing’* etc. There was no Halloween merchandise in the shops, plus pumpkins were rarely available, unless you grew one in the garden.

Bonfire Night was the really Big Thing - I feel a bit sad that it’s been largely eclipsed by Halloween - which I’m sure is largely due to all the tat and ‘spooky’ sweets in the shops.

*IIRC Agatha Christie wrote a Halloween murder - some very inconvenient child who’d been bragging about having seen a murder, drowned in the apple-bobbing water!

I'm a Spooky pagan witch so live the Spooky life all year round. This is reflected in my home and life. I meet up with my coven and other Spooky babies during September and October, and celebrate Samhain over several days. I observe all the Sabbats and regularly attend pagan moots and meets. Although today, I'm meeting my sister and my niece & her son to go pumpkin picking. Got to start them young 🎃🎃🎃🎃

Fully appreciate your view @RampantIvyand if the wider public did what your family do, and for the real reasons, then my argument would be null and void.
Unfortunately that’s not the case - this year the theme seems to be giant cobwebs, skeletons hanging from windows, inflatable moving figures, scream-masked ghosts etc etc. That’s what I’m against!

Sure - it’s mayhem around here as I live between three primary schools within walking distance. I don’t go overboard but I have pumpkins out which I’ll carve the day before Halloween and three ghosts that light up will be in the flower pot next to the door, and an autumn wreath. Inside I have some autumnal decorations in the mantle and across the back of the house but not specific to Halloween. The Halloween stuff comes down the next day. My kids are at uni and one lives on his own but I’d feel very odd not participating as I know the neighbourhood kids enjoy it so much.