How old is TOO old to go trick-or-treating?

[stubbornhubby]

that's it really, how old is too old?

Would say up to about 12/13 unless accompanying younger siblings, then any age ok. I remember being about 15 & accompanying my sis (her friends didn't recognise me & whispered 'who is that you're with?' [hgrin] I was dressed as Freddy Krueger & hardly recognised myself when looking in mirror [hgrin]

I'll happily dish out the haribo to any polite teen who's got properly dressed up.

No to mardy gits in jeans and Scream masks, whatever the age.

I don't approve of trick or treating for any age group. Isn't it at best begging and at worst a form of extortion?

The only reason it's over here (i.e. was imported from USA) is because it's a very lucrative money-spinner for all the distributors/retailers of cheap confectionery and tacky decorations. It must be worth billions! It was invented in USA as a way of getting the population to spend money on rubbish!

I believe it's a corruption of an old Irish tradition, when the children of poor families would go out begging All Souls' Eve and would be given small treats in return for prayers for the dead.

we get them asking for money. they get nowt.

but if made an effort then any age,

Think it is sad at those that think an 11 year old (or 14 year old at that rate) is too old. They are still children. no wonder they all grow up to quick in this country with attitudes likje that.

LOL at Does that alter your plans for Sunday?

I'd say 17/18 so long as they only expect sweets and do it with humour. Older and wanting cash is extracting money with menaces

Halloween is lovely where we live. I don't see it as begging at all - it's a big, highly social community event.

Lots and lots of housesholds on our estate decorate their houses - including young sharers and couples, and older people too. In fact the three most impressively decorated houses belong to women in their late 60s+ - who dress up themselves as witches.

They put spiderwebby stuff all over their front gardens, carve pumpkins, set up cauldrons, spooky green lights, all sorts. One even had some dry-ice affair going on. It was fab.

A few households go to great effort to choose interesting treats - one witch lady gave all the dcs little torches last year, bagged up in black punches with sweets. And not in a show-offy way - I think she really, really enjoys it. She reminds me of my mum - it's the kind of thing she would have done.

The rule is not to knock on doors of houses with no Halloween paraphenalia on display. Any house with a Jack O'Lantern on display is fair game.

I think it's just got mixed up with Mischief Night, which IS an old English tradition. Up here in the grim north and also in other yokelly parts of the country. Purists may scoff but it's fine with me.

(PS we used to trick and treat when I was a kid and I am 40 so its not just a very recent phenomenon)

I think once they hit about 15 they are too old. We used to go out when we were 14, but we did make lots of effort to dress up and never asked for money.

Off to Google Mischief Night.

We're in the south west. And a bit yokelly.

Might explain things [hgrin]

fwiw I wouldn't care if it was a US import. It's fun.

45

If they've got 'teen' in their age, they're probably pushing it.

Primary school

any older and they are bigger and more scary than me

1
I hate it
I stopped doing it a few years ago, I realised I wouldn't know if I was giving stuff to the shits who have been harrasing us.

Well I'm 35 and feeling resentful at having to dress up with the DC. I feel too old for all this goofing around. They won't even let me go in normal clothes but am hoping to get away with black jeggings and a witches hat, or maybe ditch the hat and just have baby DD in a cat outfit as my accessory to being a witch.

We will be a group of DD age 1, DS age 7 and his 7 year old friend, DS age 9 and his 9 year old friend and DD 10 with her friend who is 12. I think my friend's daughter who is 13 is still keen to join us but she is not AS keen as last year and I think will definitely prefer to loiter round McDonalds next Halloween. That is probably for the best.

I do also think that older boys are unfairly less acceptable to elderly folk then older girls. Especially if their voices have broken or they have hoodies.

Ds1 thinks he's too old now at 14. he was also "officially" too old last year at 13 but as he had friends aged 12, he went out with them.

It is NOT an American tradition, it's a Celtic tradition.

I disagree. Trick or treating in its present form is definitely an American import.

It's called guising (sp?) in Scotland and like some ppl have said, it's a long-running tradition. I think it actually got imported to America from Scotland/Ireland/wherever did it, and then commercialised. Yes, the rule is, no costume, no sweets. We actually also used to have to do stuff, like sing a song or recite a Halloween poem before getting the treat. One year when I was 9 or 10 we learnt the Three Witches' speech from Macbeth - not just "double, double, toil and trouble", but whole chunks of it. I can still recite it to this day! I think in ye olden times, like when I was young, there wasn't an issue going and knocking on neighbours' doors, because you knew all the neighbours anyway. My parents never had to come - we lived on an old farm, so there were about 7 houses and hardly any traffic, and we all knew each other.

80s have a look at this thread [hgrin]

What my children do at Halloween in Ireland is exactly what I did as a child in Ireland and I'm 41. There are two differences. We used to say "Nuts for the pookies" which I thought everyone in Ireland said but after talking to friends it would appear this may have been particular to my village. The other difference is that we got nuts and fruit, nowadays they get mostly sweets with a few bits of fruit

But otherwise it is the same.

And we did have costumes but we mostly made them ourselves apart from the masks.

If they are in a costume then why not. It is not hurting anyone and why not enjoy being a kid while you can.

My 70 year old father goes- with his grandchildren, their friends and dog- all dressed up. They only go around to his friends house and finish by walking up the haunted hill to his house( his house is on edge of village- he 80 year old neighbour dresses in a sheet and stands in the field with a torch) frightens them all - every year.

I've just come across some adorable babies all dressed up and ready to trick or treat who are definitely not too old [hsmile]

bit.ly/c54xh2

The spider is my favourite!! This year I am dressing my 2 year old as a pumpkin and we are trick or treating on a few houses on our street. Last year we had a problem with hoodies. They are scary but pulling up a trackie hood does not constitute a costume. They then ran wild throwing eggs at all the doors and windows so i called the police who came out and broke up the crowd.

A trio of 18 year old girls turned up on my doorstep last year. They'd really gone to work on their saucy outfits and they all recieved a lovely treat from me. Its possible I may be mixing this up with a dream I had though.