AIBU to feel sick with some of the kids costumes for Halloween?

[IcingandSlicing]

Whatever is happening with this celebration? It seems like every year the costumes are getting nastier and nastier and they don't seem appropriate for kids IMO
Most of the proposed "themed" foods are just gross so to say.
And the decorations - holly hell!
AIBU or is the whole thing moving too fast for me from year to year?

Well, a threat.

I'm from belfast and our children sing! Very non-threateningly.

Steff I'm jealous, that sounds amazing! I would love to live in America just for Halloween! We holidayed in California last September and I loved seeing all the stuff in the shops getting ready for it. Like you I love decorating, I take the day off work so I can make cup cakes and cookies to give out to.

You'd lovd my DS' costume last year tgen. I opened up his wardrobe, saw denim dungarees and red check shurt and immediately thought: Texas. Made a brown foam mask (he wore for about 2 seconds) and a very accurate-looking foam chainsaw and went as Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

He was 2yo.

There was no blood, no bits of bodies lying around, no gore. Trying to think of a costume this year is difficult.

When we were kids, you knocked on doors and sang, or recited a poem while dressed in a sheet. Those thin, brittle plastic masks of Frankenstein's monster or whatever were for better-off families than ours. The onus was on the child to entertain the adult. Then you'd get monkey nuts or an orange (or wrapped chocs that smelled of mothballs from one elderly neighbour, but choc was choc when we were young )

There's something neighbourly and community-spirited about it still. I love seeing little witches and vampires trudging around and it's often an excuse for their mums or dads to stop for a chat. There's nothing threatening about my kids friends and the grandchildren of my neighbours calling to my door. And we live in a "nice" area too...

I agree. Tesco has horrible costumes for kids, and severed arms and feet, gravestones etc as party 'decorations'. Horrible masks too. Just yuk.

And while I agree that Druids etc. celebrated All Hallows' eve, they certainly didn't do it by buying trashy decorations and horrid masks - so the commercialisation of Halloween is certainly an American thing, I think.

When I was wee, we did guising (Scottish ) in home made costumes, turnip lanterns, ducking for apples. That was it!

We didn't do it all Cocktail - we did Bonfire night and enjoyed fireworks, bangers ,sausages and toffee apples.

Children dressed in Texas Chainsaw Massacre outfits

I don't do the zombie, blood and gore stuff either.

Totally unnecessary.

I quite like Halloween as it is a chance to connect with the spiritual world and the deceased. In Mexico they have the day of the dead and zombie walks as mortality rates are so high due to drug trafficking.

We went to a zombie walk two years ago in the uk. It was completely misjudged as dd freaked out.

I think traditions and festivities simply evolve with modern times.

Christmas and Easter certainly have from when my mum was little and that has nothing to do with America.

I agree that the overblown gore is too much.

No need to be rude Nicesoap, I'm sure elQuinto didn't send her 2 year old round to threaten you or anything.

So what about the older kids??

It's not all about cutesy 2/3/4 year olds you know....

I quite like Halloween as it is a chance to connect with the spiritual world and the deceased.

You see, this is why I hate Hallowe'en. It seems rather feeble-minded.

I think one can remember/honour the dead without a gorefest, mountains of candy [sic], or commercialised decorations.

like everything else surely you just choose or make the costumes u want..

Halloween is fantastic imo. great for kids all ages.. going round knocking to 'help the Halloween party', apples on a string, ducking for apples in basin of water, barm brack with ring, pea, match stick, coin etc. fireworks and bonfires.

I don't think I was rude tbh.
Rude would be telling elQuint that I think he/she is a fuckwit for dressing his/her child in such a horrible costume for Halloween.
I didn't do that I just said I had no comment

You mean like this?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-29651749

OP I'm with you. I shouldn't have to explain fake severed, bloodied hands to my 3-year-old while doing the supermarket shopping.

Hmm in one way I agree , earlier a women from where I live posted her 3/4 yr old In a chucky costume ( really authentic ) holding a bloody knofe with a quite his so excited he loves chucky !! How and why does you pre schooler even know who chucky is ???????

Gosh Ir1na that's hilarious.

I bet the girls version comes with a tutu.

I love halloween but for me it's witches and vampires and dark candle lit nights, not gore.

I love Halloween. It's much lower key since I moved to England where a lot of the things that I associate with an Irish Halloween happen on Bonfire Night, but we still do dressing up, bobbing for apples, pumpkin lanterns (so much easier than turnips), barm brack, trick or treating, sparklers, dressing up and other fun things. In my street, you only trick or treat the houses with pumpkins outside.

I love Hallowe'en (and I LOVE the picture of the stream )

I have done a gravestone in the past.
This year I'm planning a Hallowe'en Tree

We do dress-up but only home-made costumes - witch, vampire, Grim Reaper, Gothic Bride, Evil Doll type.
With blood

I hate the gory costumes in Tesco too.
When I was in the US once at Halloween I didn't see gory decorations at all, just pumpkins everywhere, orange fairy lights on houses, and costumes were superheroes, fairies, and Big Bird passing through Grand Central.

Stef13 we don't have haunted houses over here really, I know a family farm did an evening event that had some scary actors and I think Thorpe park (theme park) had (or has) one but other than that I've never seen one or known someone visit or work in one. How common are they in America? Online gives the impression every teenager goes to one! Are they only around the Halloween or year round?