...to want to send Trick or Treating back to America?

[onedamnthingafteranother]

I want to relax in my own home of an evening, not close all the curtains and turn the lights off and pretend to be out (or actually have to go out) because this whole imported idiocy turns up all evening (we are near the centre of town and get inundated) at my doorstep once a year.

Grumble grumble, I'm a grouch - also an introvert in a people job who wants to pull up the drawbridge at night. Thinking of leaving a bucket of chocs outside with a "don't knock, just help yourselves" notice. Trouble is, door opens straight into the pavement.

yAbU - it's not American, the Irish immigrants in the 1800's took it to USA AND it is much older than that -too - it's the old Celtic new year eve With NOV 1st being the new year. It's pagan, hence the whole Jack o Lantern thing - in Ireland and other countries they carved out turnips. In the US they used pumpkins for the jack o lanterns which we do now that we have pumpkins - much easier to carve than turnips or other veg!
Put a big no trick or treaters sign up - you"ll find those on the internet. Or put out some sweets if you can be bothered. Or maybe get into the spirit of it because basically it's young kids dressing up, having some fun and actually inter acting with their neighbours...

Did trick or treating in London in the early 80s. Don't remember anyone saying back then that it was an American import. We normally dressed up as witches, wizards, ghosts and so on and played apple bobbing and stuff like that. Nothing sexy, of course.

I have a book by Iona & Peter Opie, published in 1959 that says the following: "When darkness closes in on the vigil of All Saints' Day, Britain has the appearance of a land inhabited by two nations with completely different cultural backgrounds. While the young of one nation are employed with their homework, the children of the other are wildly celebrating one of their major festivals ... The frontier between these two peoples appears, in the second half of the 20th century, to run from somewhere around the mouth of the Humber south west to Knighton, and then southwards along the Welsh border, counting Monmouthshire in with Wales, and then - although this line is less certain - south again through Dorset. Further, it may be noted that the children of the north and west are kept company by children in Ireland, and in parts of the United States, in fact by most English-speaking people who do not, five nights later, rejoice over the death of Guy Fawkes".

So, south and east England = Guy Fawkes. Everywhere else = Hallowe'en.

The book has nothing to say about trick or treating, only guising. There was also something called Mischief Night, a few days later, which sounds absolutely hair-raising. I remember my grandmother telling me years back about things she did for Mischief Night in 1920s Manchester and all I can say is that the behaviour of Mancunians has got no worse over the years.

I now live in NZ which genuinely has no tradition of Hallowe'en, and genuinely has only begun to observe it as an American cultural import. I don't think other places with large scale British migration, ie, Australia and South Africa have one either. In my opinion, Hallowe'en doesn't really work that well in the southern hemisphere as it just isn't dark enough at the end of October.

I do not like Halloween and trick or treating because I did not grow up with it. We do not get many kids trick or treating and unfortunately the majority make a bad name for it.

Not a US import - rather the US took European traditions. Guising - going round houses in costumes - has been a part of Scottish tradition for hundreds of years.

It's one night of the year.

A friend shared this with me earlier on. SAUIN - HOP-TU-NAA - OIE HOUNEY - HALLOWEEN - SAMHAIN

On the Isle of Man, Hollantide Eve was an immensely popular festival originally celebrated on 11th November but since the New Style calendar reforms, is now moved to 31st October.

It is celebrated from sunset on 31st October to sunset on 1st November and today is mostly referred to as SAUIN (meaning summer's end) or HOP-TU-NAA, the latter being the name of a very popular ditty sung by children. There has been debate that HOP-TU-NAA means 'tonight is the night' or 'this is the night' and is a form of announcing the coming new year which commenced during Sauin; for the evening and the morning were the first day, and the evening was the beginning of the day (Celtic days began at sundown).

The festival marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter and is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. It is suggested as having pre-Christian roots and was the time when cattle were brought down from the summer pastures and livestock were slaughtered for the winter.

As at Beltane, the May festival, (Manx 'Boaldyn') special bonfires were lit. These were seen to have protective and cleansing powers and there were rituals involving them. Sauin was, and still is seen as a liminal time, when the spirits of the dead and Otherworldly creatures (fairies, witches, bugganes, glashten and Phynnodderee etc) could visit this world. In homes the souls of the dead were beckoned to be present and a place set at table for them; for it was a time of feasting and a time to remember and honour the Ancestors.

It was also a time of reunions as family and friends were reunited with the return of their seamen, travelling artisans and craftsmen who had been away for months. The settling of any disputes was required and bonds were strengthened.

Divination also played a prominent part, especially ‘love divinations’ and girls would bake SODDAG VALLOO (dumb cake). Every woman was obliged to assist in mixing the ingredients, kneading the dough and baking the cake on glowing embers. When sufficiently baked, they divided it, ate it up, and retired to their beds - backwards - and without speaking a word. In the course of the night they hoped to see images of the men destined to be their husbands.

Mumming was part of the festival too and involved people going door-to-door in costume (or in disguise), often reciting verses in exchange for food. Perhaps the costumes were a way of imitating or disguising oneself from the Spirits?

Today it is time for carving moots (turnips), placing lit candles in them and going about the houses shouting and singing. There are various local versions of the HOP-TU-NAA song and this one is from Manx Ballads (1896):

? This is old Hollantide night; Hop-tu-naa!
The moon shines bright; Trol-la-laa!
Cock of the hens; Hop-tu-naa!
Supper of the heifer; Trol-la-laa!
Which heifer shall we kill? Hop-tu-naa!
The little speckled heifer. Trol-la-laa!
The fore-quarter, Hop-tu-naa!
We'll put in the pot for you. Trol-la-laa!
The little hind quarter, Hop-tu-naa!
Give to us, give to us. Trol-la-laa!
I tasted the broth, Hop-tu-naa!
I scalded my tongue, Trol-la-laa!
I ran to the well, Hop-tu-naa!
And drank my fill; Trol-la-laa!
On my way back, Hop-tu-naa!
I met a witch cat; Trol-la-laa!
The cat began to grin, Hop-tu-naa!
And I ran away. Trol-la-laa!
Where did you run to? Hop-tu-naa!
I ran to Scotland. Trol-la-laa!
What were they doing there? Hop-tu-naa!
Baking bannocks and roasting scollops. Trol-la-laa! ?

(spoken)
If you are going to give us anything, give us it soon,
Or we'll be away by the light of the moon - Hop-tu-naa!

---------

(source: various bit.ly/12ckpqe; bit.ly/1aC94Pn; photograph bit.ly/HeR3O3)

Ooh HopTu Naa tonight.
Will be out singing and teaching dancing at our Hop tu Naa party.
I have hollowed out my turnip.
Our children are expected to sing the song before being rewarded with sweets.

This must be the 89th thread on this topic - the evil import from Ametica that is trick or treating. It's truly bizarre. The same discussion over and over - if it's not English it must be American. No matter how often it's explained that its Celtic in origin, there seems to be a view that if its not English or not American it doesn't exist. It has to be one or the other.

They're little kids. It's one night a year. Is it such a terrible burden to just smile and give them some haribo

The ironic thing is that the things that people hate are teenagers in half hearted costumes, trick or treating on wrong night, asking for money and knocking on the doors of strangers who clearly aren't participating.

None of the above seems to be particularly american.

I want this pumpkin

The "no pumpkin.no trick or treating" rule is the right one but Unfortunatly too many ignore that.

Halloween isn't an American import AFAIK but I think the term trick or treating is. I seem to remember my peer group going "halloweening" wonder how the two differ in practice.

I do think that trick or treaters should only go to people who they know won't mind and not knock on random doors.

Our whole estate goes out and the small ones love it.
Put up a sign saying sorry run out of sweets.
I had to do that last year when we ran out and no one bothered us.
Where my sister lives children only go to houses with pumpkins outside.

I can't stand trick or treating due to the 'grabby' nature of it. It's fine when young children knock at participating houses for sweets but not fine when Tweens run around the shops shoving a bucket in your face and obviously demanding cash! There are always some that ruin it for the rest

"Tweens run around the shops shoving a bucket in your face and obviously demanding cash! "

I have never seen that0- where do you live?

It happened last night! Not even the right day. I live in the north west.

There was trouble with a group of teens at some shops near here last night. I am guessing was done under the guise of "mischief night"

toad can I ask which of the Opies book that is. I love their books.

sovery- but if that is the area you live in then it is to do with the people who live there. Bad people will do bad things - you can't blame it just on Halloween.

My nan didn't answer to door the year my grandad died. She woke up the next morning to find her house covered in egg and flower thankfully she has CCTV on the house and the offenders were caught and arrested but she spent the rest of her life dreading Halloween

There is a definate tradition in the UK, but it died out in England more or less, when the Protestants religion took hold, as it was seen as a Catholic tradition. Scots and Irish Catholics who emigrated to the US took the tradition with them and it developed into Trick or Treat, which has now come back to these shores.

YABVU. Here in Ireland we've been trick or treating since the 1970s. It really is your problem if you're so introverted that it makes you act like an oddball and then have the neck to blame others! I'm sorry, but there's always one who sits in the darkness with their curtains pulled...everyone knows they're in there and they're regarded as weird and a bit crazy. Is opening the door to excited kids on one night of the year so terrible that you'd rather be regarded as an antisocial oddball?