What did you do for Halloween if you were an 80s/early 90s kid?

[90skid13]

If you were a child in the 80s/early 90s, what did Halloween look like for you?

Did you go trick or treating, carve a pumpkin? Was there a school disco, Where the houses decorated where you live?

We didn’t really celebrate Halloween but when I was a teenager it would be scary films and ghost stories.

Nothing! We had a lot of Americans in our community as we are near an airbase, they always had a party/trick or treating but us locals never joined in. First I remember Halloween being a thing was a Halloween party about 2005, but that was a couple who love fancy dress!

In the late 70s/early 80s I went to fancy dress parties and bobbed for apples.

Ok but I grew up in the north west of England, born in the 70s and it was a thing to trick and treat. It might not have been in your immediate area, but most people I know in their late 40s and early 50s do talk about going trick or treating, even though my friendship group grew up in various parts of England.

(but not pumpkin carving. That does seem to be newer.)

Carved pumpkins, had pumpkin soup and ...... that was it.
Carving pumpkins went back to my mothers day so not entirely new.

Trick or treating.

nobody we knew had parties or did anything else.

This was in Manchester area, early to late 80s.

Halloween parties with a few groups of family friends, we’d all dress up and kids would play halloweeny themed games (passing around items in a dark room and saying “here’s an eye” (lychee), a hand (rubber glove with jelly inside), seaweed etc.
Apple bobbing, pin the broomstick on the witch etc.
Basically party games Halloweened up (two of our mums were primary school teachers 😁).

We used to have some trick or treaters but not as many as today, and we were allowed to knock on doors of people we knew and sing Halloween songs for “treats”. I don’t think we carved pumpkins but they were definitely around.

Definitely carved pumpkins at uni onwards (late 90s).

We dud that game too
Heres an eye ( a grape ) i think
Hair a floor brush
Aleo greater manchester circa mid 80,s.

80s. No trick or treating. Carved a swede not a pumpkin as it was cheaper and more useful for food.

Agree. And it was British settlers who took the swede/turnip lantern tradition to America, where it became pumpkins because of the climate and growing conditions.

I really like that the costumes have become more general fancy dress now. The churches are less bothered by it, and it is a lovely evening round here. It's so nice to see teenagers dressing up and behaving like kids again for one night. They only knock at doors with the lights on/decorations out, or where they are known, and the egg/flour/toilet paper nuisance hasn't been a thing for years, maybe decades round here.

We called it Halloweening. We dressed up/ turnip lantern/ bin liner dress/ bit of a song. It was 50/50 whether you'd get money or sweets. Bobbing for apples. Quite similar to now but without house decorations.

Edit: 80s, North East.

The coin in a plate of flour was great, because we would play it immediately after bobbing for apples,so you would get a 'crackerjack' effect of dipping your damp face into the dry flour, and having the flour stick to your face afterwards. We would have the coin placed on the peak of a 'mountain' of flour and everyone took turns to slice some away with a knife. The person whose slice caused the mountain to collapse would have to dip their face in to retrieve the coin.

I'm pretty sure that was a youth club game actually because the plate was on the floor of the hall with newspaper spread out to contain the mess!

I had forgotten about the terrible hard plastic masks but we bought some blank children's masks to paint for an art project earlier in the year and I was surprised how comfortable they were, with holes in the nose and mouth as well as the eyes. Kids today don't know they are born! 😂

I think this is the exception rather than the norm. Possibly a northern thing? I grew up in the south and it definitely wasn’t a thing. You might get the odd teenage chav terrorising the neighbourhood and trying to get money out of people under the guise of ‘trick or treating’, but respectable parents certainly wouldn’t allow their kids trick or treating.

The North isn’t “the exception”….

Northern childhood here too, but friends in Wales/Bristol &Avon way had similar traditions. With generally less expense than nowadays and based around families/friends/youth clubs.

I was a mum of youngsters then and we didn't do anything really. We sometimes carved a pumpkin.

Oh, how niche the North is! Twat.

Nothing really - firstly because it was "American" and secondly my mum said that trick or treating was begging. She'd turn off the lights too so that no-one would knock on the door. I don't remember any of my friends doing much either, there was once a party with bobbing for apples but that's pretty much it. Bonfire night was a much bigger deal.

I would say for the 70s/80s children round our way there was probably a bit of a social divide in how/where Halloween celebrations took place. BBC viewers (Swap Shop/Blue Peter) could be a bit more snobbish about 'wasting food' and letting their kids go 'begging' as it was sometimes called. Tiswas viewers (yay!) who were accustomed to phantom flan flinging on Saturday morning were possibly more enthusiastic about Halloween shenanigans generally. But all kids joined in with youth group or school parties and 'respectability' was more about parents chipping in what they could afford by sending plates of food for parties, kids thanking people for having them round, and older ones making sure sweets were shared fairly with the little ones

Noone was called a chav untill the 00s and never by a truly respectable person!