When did you start 'Trick or Treating'?

[Kimura]

I feel like I'm seeing more and most posts from MN'ers saying that they never did 'American-style' trick or treating when they were young. I'd always assumed these posters would skew towards the older age brackets on here, but this year I'm noticing people around my own age (early 40s) and younger talking about knocking on doors for sweets etc like it's a new US fad.

I grew up in the North of England in the late 80s/early-mid 90s and I have many memories of going trick or treating as a young kid, then taking my younger sibling when I got older. I've never known it not to be a thing.

My late grandmother used to tell me about doing 'Penny for the Guy' on Guy Fawkes night when she was young...so while I don't disagree that it's become commercialised, I don't think stuff like this is new or 'American'.

Curious to know how far back other people remember doing it!

I'm 52 next week
And my memories seem to have combined Halloween and Bonfire night ,I think o remember wearing a witches outfit at bonfires 🤔
I dont remember knocking on doors but I remember Halloween lantern, s made out of turnips not Pumpkins.

I'm 60 and from the Midlands. We did Trick or Treat to our neighbours, but that was because we had seen it on Scooby Doo, and because the neighbours were more like family - all 'aunties' and 'uncles'. But it was all very mixed up with penny-for the-guy. We'd drag the Guy with us, and carry hollowed out turnips (no pumpkins in those days).

Then the Guy would come out again on Bonfire Night to go on the fire.

I remember doing penny-for-the-guy and not doing trick or treat, but not the other way around.

Hallowe'en is a really big part of our culture in Ireland, so I dressed up and knocked on doors in the late '70s and early '80s. We didn't call it Trick or Treating. In fact, we didn't have a name for it really. Everyone would just say, "Are you dressing up for Hallowe'en?", or, "What are you dressing up as for Hallowe'en?".

Like pps, our costumes were all hand made and mostly involved a black refuse sack. So, mostly a witch then . Or maybe a ghost if we wanted to risk Mam's wrath by cutting holes in a sheet. My brother borrowed Dad's work boots and dressed as a farmer or coal man or something like that. Our parents didn't get involved in our costumes in any way - they just left us to it.

We'd knock on doors and say, "Please help the Hallowe'en party". We'd get a handful of monkey nuts and maybe a small apple or a few grapes. We never got sweets at the doors. The only person who gave us sweets was the local shopkeeper who would give us a tenpenny bag for free.

Mam always made colcannon for dinner and she wrapped up coins in tin foil and hid them in the colcannon. So we did have sweets, but we paid for them ourselves. And we had the aforementioned sweets from the shopkeeper.

The local kids (well, the older kids) would stash wood and tyres for weeks beforehand and they'd build up massive bonfires. There were several bonfires in the area and the sky would be lit up with fireworks. I still remember the shiver of excitement that ran through me when I'd step out of the house into the smoky air, to go knocking on doors. With fireworks whizzing and banging all around us.

When we got home, we'd play Hallowe'en games with my Mam and Dad - bobbing for apples and so on. And we'd eat barmbrack and there would be great excitement about who might get the ring. We also had toffee apples and pomegranates (I think we called them wine apples) and coconuts and other exotic things like that - I don't know if they were only sold at Hallowe'en or if we only ever bought them at Hallowe'en. But in my head they were very much associated with Hallowe'en.

My only regret is that I have no photos of our magical Hallowe'ens. My parents weren't well off and we didn't have cameras for long periods of my childhood. I guess it was expensive paying for a camera and flash cubes and then the cost of getting the photos developed.

I just loved Hallowe'en as a child. In fact, I still do as an adult. And I have passed on my love of Hallowe'en to my DD. I reckon she loves it even more than I do.

Very similar, we'd often do both. Re-useing the turnip lantern or a Halloween mask as guy's head a few days later and go again. My poor neighbours would have us turning up any time over about 2 weeks for one or the other (we didn't just stick to the night,), then get us carrol singing again a month later. In retrospect we were definitely CF

Never. We went guising and my children go guising. Scottish folk have been guising for centuries.

Yep guising here, as a matter of principle. My only memories of it as a kid were getting money rather than sweets though. I get a feeling like at that time it was more of a thing that your parents would have done every year, whereas we just did it sometimes as older kids for a laugh. I lived rurally though so maybe kids with more neighbours were doing it more as a matter of course.

Do kids in England not have to tell a joke for their sweeties?

We went trick or treating in the 80s. Costumes were green face paint, a witch hat and a black bin bag. We only went around our own street and knocked on doors of people we knew. When we were teenagers in the 90s we went a bit further round more houses. I remember our 'trick' was spraying people with a bottle of Opium our auntie gave us because she didn't like the scent.

We had loads of kids knock last night and not a single one actually said 'trick or treat'. They all said 'happy halloween'. That seemed oddly American!

Sometime in the 90s, maybe I was 7? I was young enough to need a parent with us for a few years, then when we were old enough we went by ourselves.

Small village in the Yorkshire Dales but we had a ton of Americans living in the area so perhaps it got influenced from them?

As a young teenager I would go to my friends in the next village where a few of us would just go round the American estate who were obviously set up for the occasion.

I’m 40 and didn’t go as a kid, my mum didn’t like it.
My own dc went a few times when they were little with their cousins to houses we knew and stopped by the time they reached about 10. We also had some Halloween parties for them.

I'm late 30s and DH is 40 and we never went as kids (SE parents thought it was American and tacky!). I do remember bobbing for apples though). DS is 4 and quite shy so didn't want to go but quite enjoyed having people come to the house. We might go next year as we live on a very family friendly estate in a village.

Very interesting about the regional difference! A Scottish friend said when she was a child they had to learn a poem or do a skit in exchange for treats.

I think it's harmless fun for kids but I do hate how social media has made everything so OTT!

My DS has always had a Halloween joke or a riddle ready, but that was from me teaching him to. I don’t think the majority of the kids that visit us actually understand they’re saying ‘trick or treat’, I once asked a very confident young witch ‘what if I choose trick?’ and she was baffled!

I’m Scottish so have always gone guising (in the 80s and 90s), and my mum did in the 60s. It’s always been a thing here!

I remember going trick or treating back in the 80s from when I was about 7 with my older sibling. Lots of kids did it where we lived, mostly without parents.

When my own children were little, we did a Halloween party and invited friends as no one really does it where we live.

42, never ever went as a child. Would choose for my children to not go, but they insist.

We still do. It’s generally Halloween themed jokes but I’ve had groups of singers, dancers and occasionally groups of kids with instruments (only if it’s a dry night!)

No sweeties without your party piece!

The tiny kids getting their joke wrong are adorable every year.

I am nearly 50 London child absolutely went trick or treating from age 7-8 ish so 1983. I think the fil ET popularised it in England. DM is Welsh though so may comethrough some celtic tradition. We were also Catholic so had all souls day off school for church.

I’m 47 and it wasn’t really a thing when I was growing up (Wales), certainly my own dm was dead against it - seemed to think it was disrespectful to the dead and felt it was “begging”

after a lot of upset I was eventually allowed to go, once, it would have been around 1985 but it was round a friend’s cul de sac when all the families had already been consulted and agreed!

it’s a reasonably big thing where I live now but it still broadly passed me by until I had my own kids

@PegDope has it!

Born 1972 and I went trick or treating, probably from age 5. I remember my last when I took some younger kids out and I was 14.

I am 40 next year.

I have never gone round houses begging for anything and neither have my children.

Grotty behaviour

Oh lighten up it's lovely. We must have given out a hundred treats last night, it's a great community event, teaches children not to be afraid of the dark and how to talk to adults. The children who came round were aged about 4-14 and without exception polite and charming.

We didn't do it (born 80s) but we did drag a fearsome old dolly about in a buggy for about a week before Bonfire Night. We dressed it up in different outfits and sang songs. And we had bobbing for apples.

One year we made an elaborate papier mache head, which was our best effort and burned well.

🤪😂

Born in the 70s in the north of Scotland, we went guising dressed up in home made costumes, lanterns were made of neeps (didn't see a pumpkin until my 20s) and we were all expected to do a poem or a song or something at the door to earn our sweeties. Often we were given fruit or monkey nuts, sometimes money, but best of all was if someone had made toffee apples. 🍎 😋 We used to trade intelligence with other kids about which houses had the best goodies.

And they don't get those things any other way? Come on now.

Take your kids out for nightime strolls
Take them to other more appropriate community events
Don't teach them to knock on doors and talk to strange adults.