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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to give cakes instead of sweets?

96 replies

CharlotteCollins · 31/10/2014 17:41

They're homemade, too.

I didn't want to buy in specially, and I don't have sweets in the house. So I made cupcakes and decorated with bone sprinkles or spiderweb-style icing.

The children are going to hate me, aren't they?

OP posts:
cogitosum · 01/11/2014 22:44

My dsis is a teacher and we've always enjoyed homemade cakes and biscuits from pupils at end of term.

hollie84 · 01/11/2014 22:46

Isn't it lovely that we all have the choice of whether to eat food gifts or not?

PercyHorse · 01/11/2014 22:48

I'm some teachers must eat the stuff or palm it off onto relatives

cogitosum · 01/11/2014 22:56

She eats them too percyhorse ( if that was aimed at me) but she often has several tins of biscuits etc so a bit much too eat alone !

Hollie84 yes it's great to have the choice but there's something terribly sad about the idea of a child excitedly making something did a teacher they like to have that thrown away. Regardless of whether they know about it.

cogitosum · 01/11/2014 22:56

for

mathanxiety · 01/11/2014 23:03

It would be very rude to reject any offering on a doorstep. You just say thank you and wish them a Happy Halloween, and that goes for wrapped and shop bought things as well as homemade. When you get home you can unload/swop/give to grandad whatever you don't like and nobody gets hurt in any sense of the word.

'This is about people taking their children to knock on participating doors, asking for things, being given things, then refusing to eat them. What is the point in knocking and asking in the first place, if you are just going to throw the things in the bin (because they might not meet your 'exacting' requirements)??? Bloody rude, IMO'

You have missed the point of Halloween here if you think it's about cleaning your plate, so to speak, or feeling obliged to eat every last piece of candy.

No child needs a single piece of chocolate or packet of sweets, let alone a pillow case full. They are not going around asking out of need. No child needs to consume the amount of candy he or she will receive at Halloween, either that night or in the weeks afterwards if she paces herself. Back when I was a child in Dublin, no child would have needed the huge bag of apples and nuts I used to drag home either.

It's not begging. And there are no 'exacting requirements' either. Plenty of children don't like many flavours of sweets, or chocolate with/without nuts, and some will not be allowed to chew gum or anything they could choke on like gobstoppers -- what skin is it off your nose if you give those items, as long as the children are having fun in their costumes doing something completely different from normal everyday activities, are polite, say thank you, and all parties concerned move on with their lives? Do you know the ultimate fate of anything you give out at Halloween, be it shop bought or homemade?

What the children are asking you to do is participate in the celebration of All Souls Day/Samhain with the gesture of giving a piece of candy. The 'trick or treat' bit refers to an alleged American custom of vandalism (a trick) if a treat isn't given, but actually in Britain and Ireland the tradition is much closer to the Irish and Scottish guising, with no threat implied. Traditionally, the donations of apples, nuts or candy would go towards a community party around a bonfire or firework display. Fireworks were prohibited in Ireland when I was a child so it was always a bonfire.

sykadelic · 02/11/2014 00:05

It's a very very sweet idea and if you know the kids and their families then go for it, but for strangers... any good parent goes through their kids candy/bag and makes sure there's nothing dangerous in there.

"Dangerous" can mean old, unwrapped, razor blades, alcoholic sweets... etc etc. If someone thought it was funny to glue razor blades to children's play equipment at a local park (near me a couple of months ago) then I'm no longer surprised by how low some people will go.

kitnkaboodle · 02/11/2014 00:39

"any good parent goes through their kids candy/bag and makes sure there's nothing dangerous in there"

It would never occur to me in a million years that there would be anything dangerous there!! And I don't think that makes me a bad parent. If people are that scared of the risk then, I agree, why go knocking on strangers' doors anyway? I thought that was top of "The Rules of Halloween" (sorry - I seem to have missed that memo)

Glad to see that some sort of normality seems to have prevailed here and only a tiny few are stressing about razor blades and poison - and only one story actually emerging about a father who chose Halloween as a cover to poison his kid for the insurance (... if that actually happened Hmm

Please please can some normal people step up and tell me that they happily buy and eat cakes from cake sales?? even ones that have obviously, clumsily and lovingly been made by ... gulp ... children???

MrsCakesPrecognition · 02/11/2014 00:49

We buy cakes from cakes sales. To my knowledge there is no simple way to link cakes to bakers. There have never been any lists or anything, we just drop and run.
I've had some delicious cakes, some excitingly lumpy cakes and some madly decorated caked. Rarely have we been disappointed or indeed, poisoned.

kitnkaboodle · 02/11/2014 01:04

Hurrah for Mrs Cakes.

I'm getting the feeling that the poisoning fears + traceability of cakes list are American issues .... they bear no relation to the way anyone I know (in UK) lives their lives

Just off to get last night's sweets stash x-rayed at the local hospital just in case tho' ...

MrsCakesPrecognition · 02/11/2014 01:07

I have nobly sacrificed myself and eaten the most poisonous looking sweets myself . The DCs haven't noticed yet.

Idontseeanysontarans · 02/11/2014 01:34

Last year I ran out of sweets and ended up giving out small slices of MIL's Parkin... 3 parents asked me for the recipe the following day - I don't think the kids got a taste Grin

squoosh · 02/11/2014 01:38

I'm about to scoff a bun which looks like it might be harbouring a Gillette Lady Shave.

Pray for me.

MrsCakesPrecognition · 02/11/2014 01:44

I'm here for you squoosh. It's what any good mum would do.

CharlotteCollins · 02/11/2014 19:03

I notice squoosh hasn't returned to the thread.

Goodness. What a brave new world this Halloween participation is!

Fortunately, it was only halfway through the peak T and T time that I read on here about putting out a pumpkin if you want visitors. So I only had two groups come to the door, and I think I knew all of them (although in some cases it was hard to tell).

Razorblades on play equipment is mind-bogglingly awful. Quite glad for the quiet little backwater I live in.

OP posts:
BeGhoul · 03/11/2014 11:55

Happy to report that I survived the unwraped homemade delicious Florentine a complete stranger gave DC, and I ate, on Friday.

HighwayDragon · 03/11/2014 12:31

Every child got a gruesomely decorated homemade cupcake, 90% were scoffed before I'd even closed the front door Grin

squoosh · 03/11/2014 12:45

Did the cyanide kick in before they reached the garden gate? Wink

EvansOvalPiesYumYum · 03/11/2014 12:48

I notice squoosh hasn't returned to the thread

Oh, no! She seems to have been lost to the Gilette-een (Where's that pesky Scarlet Pumpkinel when you need him?

squoosh · 03/11/2014 12:50

The Gillette shaver passed through my system this morning, I'm a bit sore but otherwise unharmed!

HighwayDragon · 03/11/2014 12:58

Yep, just as they passed the bush Wink

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