to be annoyed at trick or treaters who get offended when I say "No I don't celebrate Halloween

[CwtchesAndCuddles]

I hate Halloween!!! As a family we have as little to do with it as possible which is our choice. If other people want to have parties etc that is fine, carry on and have your fun, I just don't want to join in.

I do not invite callers to my house, there are no decorations up, so please do not knock on my door and then verbally abuse me for not taking part!!!

Soggy - I thought the point was that if you didn't treat, you'd be tricked (egged or whatever) - not that them doing a trick was the 'trick or treat'.
Or saying trick or treat would make no sense at all? Or am I being thick?

Your mate in the US is full of it. It IS all about getting sweets in the states. I grew up there, lived there for over 30 years... it IS begging in fancy dress.

I was a dreadful hypocrite. I wouldn't allow our kids to go out trick or treating. But I was happy to decorate the house and pass out candy. The kids helped decorate and rig up stuff like "dropping spiders" and other ghoulish things to scare the trick or treaters.

You need to turn your sprinklers on, full blast.... Mwah Ha Ha

We live in a small village which is about 90% over 60s and 5% under 4s so not much trick or treating likely!

But I did have an offended woman on my doorstep the other day. I was in the middle of a big sort-out with piles of stuff everywhere and I answered the door to a woman who said "I'm collecting for the poppy appeal or have you already got yours?" with a hard stare. I always do buy one but I did bristle a bit at the idea that everyone HAS to have one.

I looked around a bit vaguely wondering under which pile of crap my wallet was located and she raised her eyebrows and said "Is this a bad time or something?", again as though there was no good reason for me not to buy one. I said yes it was as I was having a big tidy up and had no idea where my wallet was, whereupon she glared at me and turned and marched off without another word.

I have a vague idea it might have been the daughter of one of the elderly ladies in the village, so my failure to buy a poppy is no doubt going to be in the next village newsletter....

I'm in the US, if you turn off your porch lights it means you are not answering, not home, or ran out of candy already.
Just turn off the outside light and the kids don't knock.

The DC's are putting up the decorations now, well DD is.

DS3 is lying in bed cuddling a plastic skeleton.

I am weighing out ingredients for dairy, soy, nut free gingerbread Halloween biccies.

I have zombie flesh and fake blood at the ready.

Carving pumpkins tomorrow with the DC's.

Lights up in the windows.

And a new Johnny Depp DVD to watch tomorrow night.

What more can a Halloween lover do?

[hgrin]

I do enough for Halloween that people make a special trip to my street just to knock on my door. The neighbours hate it, even though they only knock at mine.

California - that only works for those with common sense. A rare commodity these days, I'm afraid. lol

Triggles, I had heard that Common sense had lost it's long battle with life.
RIP common sense.

You do sound a bit miserable though ....

When we lived in the UK I hated Halloween (another South Londoner, perhaps that was the problem). So on Halloween night I'd sit in my house with the lights off hoping there wouldn't be any trouble.

Now we live in North America I'm only sad on Halloween if we get no children visiting. However it's much more civilized here, and the whole thing is great fun. Houses competing about how dressed up they are - I have a neighbour with about 10 blow ups (monsters etc) and another with loads of spooky lights. We have mostly bones and spiders here, as they were cheap! Children only knock on the doors of houses with pumpkins outside as they are after the sweets and you can pretty much guarantee sweets if there are decorations going on.

dd is going as a masquerading goth and ds as 'the cloak' (I'm not sure who the Cloak is, but apparently he has an axe of capitalism).

My children are only allowed to knock on houses with some sort of decoration, it is all part of the fun for them, looking for a pumpkin or someother decoration. The only exception is my parent's house and anyone who has asked us to knock so Yanbu to think they should not knock if you have no decorations up. Once we do not want an more callers at our house we blow out the pumpkins, it usually works!

Wy are you making a point of it by answering the door? These are children having fun dressing up. I love Halloween but I don't have kids and I don't take part so rather cunningly I have devised a plan to just not answer the door. Of you may not have access to these techniques in your area.

Why shouldnt people answer their doors on halloween if they dont want trick or treaters? It may be someone I want to see at my door.

I just think people who go trick or treating should be considerate and not knock on peoples houses they dont know or those without decorations etc. I refuse to sit in the dark to make it look like I am out and not answer my door and miss someone or something I want to.

I will be sticking my poster up but I bet they still knock - they always do.

Try this:
fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/527392_10151063546596213_2088990078_n.jpg

My little black cat once did her version of Trick or Treat. She lurked on the porch and, being black, the ToTs couldn't see her.

When they rang the bell, she leapt onto one of them - you should have heard the screams

Tanith that is brilliant! Why aren't either of my cats black? WHY?!

We love doing pumpkins but we dont to TOT, so I put our pumpkins in the window with a sign that says "We hope you like our pumpkins! We dont take part in Trick or Treat but we hope you have a Happy Hallowe'en"

We get lots of kids looking at the pumpkins and taking photos, but they never knock. Works out well for everyone :)

PS We have a death star, a yoda and a rather dodgy looking Darth Vader this year. Was supposed to do a Harry Potter theme but Voldemorts face caved in mid carve and I figured HP wouldnt look very good on his own so I redid Yoda :o

No, OP you are not "miserable" nor are you a "party pooper". FFS, why should you be considered such, in your own home. Probably comments like that are from the doting parents that watch their children knock at the doors of strangers.

For my part, I always buy cheap sweets and usually have loads left over. Here, no-one really does decorations or any of that, so they usually just turn up at houses where they can see someone is in.

Trick or treat sticks in my throat, as far as I am concerned, it is guising and every one of the guisers who called at my house tonight did a "piece" before I gave them sweets.

and to be honest, most of them were wee tots and their little faces were shining with excitement, so much so that this old hard heart melted a bit. I also got some teens, but even they had made an effort and didn't look disappointed in getting a handful of Haribo .

And every single one of them said thanks. one of the Dads had even dressed up too.

However, I remember how stressed it made me a few years back, when I was literally living hand to mouth, and if I had bought sweets, they would have had to last DD for a month, not give out to random strangers.

I HATE people knocking my door when i'm not expecting company but in the last few years I have embraced halloween. I'm now actually disappointed if the candy dish isn't empty..which it hasn't been last two years. I love to see the little ones in their costumes, happy for a few sweets!

I don't like the teens who take the piss expecting money but we don't really get those anymore (we did when I lived on vair posh private estate). We live on a council estate now and I can honestly say we've never had any trouble with them at all. It's the unwritten rule...if you have decorations it's fine to knock, if you dont..move on. My mum was complaining that noone had been and I thought that was kind of nice in a way, they didn't bother her. I told her she needed a pumpkin!

Rain stopped play here. Hurrah for English weather!

Can I just say one thing?

Its NOT CANDY!!!

They are sweets!

As you were.

eh? The rule social norm in these parts is you only go to houses whose front light is on. When we have had enough we just close our curtains and turn off our porch light. No big deal.

Ok bogey, they are sweets ...runs off scared, like