I'm the Halloween Grinch - do you follow the pumpkin rule?.

[Pancakeflipper]

I live on a small lovely street. Nice mix of ages.
The rule for Halloween on our street has been "pumpkin outside - knock here for sweets" . Allowing those not wanting spooky ghouls at their door to have a quietish evening.

Is this the rule near you?

In recent years our street is named on Facebook posts as the place to be.... (fucking stop it - we dont want everyone here) It's crazy on our street. Its no longer the local streets nearby - but driving miles for a fucking Chewit.

The pumpkin rule is ignored.
Guess its not a known rule..?

And that really pisses me off. There's lots of reasons why people don't want hoards of groups ringing their doorbell for the evening.

I salute my neighbour who diligently eats her Ferarocho chocolates, saves the wrappers, pops in cherry tomatoes and hands the box round.

Oh not this myth again 🙄

Halloween is not North American. It is Irish and Scottish. It predates bonfire night in the UK (NI and Scotland) by a number of centuries.

I am going to bonfire fireworks next week. They still do them every year in my town. Not sure where you are getting your information, but it is inaccurate

Yeah, I’m quite happy to let Bonfire Night fade into obscurity. I’ve never quite felt able to enter into the spirit of celebrating a failed terrorist attack by a persecuted minority that resulted in one of the most brutal public executions in our history. Give me ghosts and spiders any day. Halloween is much, much older.

I have no decorations, no lights, curtains drawn and I still have fucking kids knocking. Young kids, not tweens or above.

Just go away and annoy your own fucking parents.

I’ve lived in the UK off and on since the 1970s and moved here permanently in the mid 1980s and there was certainly no Halloween in our neighbourhood in London and then in Dorset.
Boys would make a Guy and it would be displayed in front of our local shop for a couple of weeks before November 5. Penny for a Guy was certainly a thing in the 1980s and before.
My children are in their late 30s and there was no talk of Halloween when they were growing up.

I lived on a known street once and people knocked regardless of pumpkins or lights. We always participated but there were so many people we'd run out of sweets so turn off the lights and people still knocked. It was annoying so we started heading out to a pub after we'd given all our sweets away which, being in our 20s with no kids, we were quite happy to do. Not something everyone wants to do, though. An Out of Treats sign might work, but I have some admiration for Ferrero Rocher lady!

You shouldn't have that happen. As PPs have said, the rule all over the place is that only houses with pumpkins/decorations are participating. If the kids are young, their parents must be there, so do tell them.

People only knock here if its lit up and there are proper decorations up. I don't know if people would bother knocking if there was just a pumpkin. Our estate is amazing for Halloween and people people travel here. We love it and go all out. I ran out of sweets tonight and had 200+. One of our neighbours made up little bags with sweets, stickers and temporary tattoos. I shall miss it a lot when we eventually move.

We had Halloween parties, dressed up, did trick or treating in the 70s and 80s. We lived in the midlands and it was very culturally entrenched there. I’d be very surprised if there was “no Halloween” in London or Dorset during that period.

Or it's not a real parking warden, just someone dressing up scary for Hallowe'en.

What if you live on a farm and have no neighbours?

Really known rule. We always do sweets and decorate. One year we all had a sickness bug and didn’t, we didn’t get bothered here atall that year.

That's a great idea!! Your neighbour's playing the game...😂😂😂

Honestly? Tough shit, life isn’t fair!

I agree, it's bonfire night that is bloody grim, not Halloween.

Ours used to be like that, but not tonight!! I have a rule that I don’t answer after 7.30.

Yes that's the rule around here.

Just had our last set of trikc or treaters, a group of teenage boys on e scooters with no costumes 😂 I've brought all the decs in now

Bags are so thoughtful! Amazing you did 150 of them. I would love to do that next year if I can work out how to do it without spending a fortune.

Decorated houses only in our area. This has snuck up on my Dad in his 80s and last year he wondered by he didn’t get any trick or treaters. I got him a pumpkin this year.

We were out tonight on an estate full of families, with a group of 5 kids all 2 or 3 (and 10 parents who did not collect sweets!). We only went to houses fully decorated and skipped all those that were dark or had no decoration. Some had put their wheelie bins in front of their doors. One house had a sign up asking people not to knock as they have a poorly dog, but they’d left two tubs of sweets outside 🥹

I wish it was a known rule here. Front of house is in darkness & the door has still been hammered a few times. We don’t answer but the dogs are going crazy. 😩

I am the same. Living in an American city in a neighbourhood that goes over the top with decs and haunted houses. We get so many kids from other (likely disadvantaged) neighbourhoods. Some nearby neighbours handed out 1,000+ sweets last year! I buy what I can afford to give, then lights out when it’s gone.

I just bought little drawstring bags from amazon, and bought variety bags of sweets from tesco to fill them. I made up each bag with a lollipop and a few fun size bags/bars.

I was a child in the 80s in the UK. We were an UMC family and always had a big Halloween party. We dressed up,.played Halloween games and decorated the house and carved pumpkins

Lots of people I knew in our village also went trick or treating. We always had a big bowl of sweets and apples to give out to anyone that came round and they always went .

Not in our neighbourhood. Fireworks sure but no pumpkins around here back then.