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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to really hate the idea of trick or treating and wonder why the fuck it's become a 'thing'?

389 replies

Excitedtoday · 26/10/2015 11:40

I find trick or treating really quite anti-social. Why is it acceptable to be rocking up at someone's house on a dark evening basically begging for food? You don't know who lives there or what the effect of you knocking might be. For example, an elderly or disabled person who can't get to the door easily or someone who, for whatever reason, feels vulnerable in their own home.

Perhaps it's just because an anti-social cowbag and I hate people knocking on my door that I'm not expecting, especially at night.

And I also wonder how recently this has become a 'thing' that loads and loads of people do? When I was younger, I'm 25, no-one went trick or treating but over the last few years I've noticed my friends who are parents and family doing it as a matter of routine and I just wonder when that happened?

Is this just me being an anti-social bastard?

BTW, no children and never answer my door after dark whether its Halloween or not.

OP posts:
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Original poster
Excitedtoday · 26/10/2015 12:58

Pootles We also have massive problems in our city on race day. No, it shouldn't be cancelled (although I would love it if it were) but the race course should pay more for the extra policing that's needed and the clean-up afterwards.

OP posts:
LatriceRoyale · 26/10/2015 12:58

I'm 38 and went guising as a child so not a new thing to me, just changed format a bit. Pumpkin instead of turnips now.

OstentatiousBreastfeeder · 26/10/2015 12:59

You've been able to buy loot bags and buckets for at least as long as I've been alive.

harryhausen · 26/10/2015 13:00

Im 43 and I went Trick or Treatin. Halloween was a big deal for us. I have found memories of Halloween parties, treacle toffee and apple bobbing.

I live in an inner city and I love getting dressed up children round. I've never had anyone ask for money and never once has anyone had any trouble. It's a huge community event. Last year there were so many children and parents out it was like a street festival. Some elderly neighbours had baked cakes especially and they went down a storm.

I really don't get the misery and angst about it every year. If you don't want to partake just don't answer. The chances are they won't knock anyway as you won't have decs up.

FyreFly · 26/10/2015 13:00

It's certainly not a new thing... My grandmother (Barnsley born and bred) remembers going in the 1920s! And then the week after they'd go round doing the penny-for-the-Guy spiel Grin

I think it became a "thing" in the medieval era, if you must know. We didn't really start calling it trick-or-treating until the last 50 odd years or so.

LisbethSalandersLaptop · 26/10/2015 13:00

well maybe I only just noticed it Ostentatious...
Anyway it does seem that there is far more crap for sale at Halloween than there has been in the past.

WorraLiberty · 26/10/2015 13:01

I spend £2.97 on 3 bags of sweets from the 99p store.

Last of the big spenders here Grin

KondosSecretJunkRoom · 26/10/2015 13:01

Did anyone else have a turnip lantern? I can't work out if I was the only kid in a bin liner dress, a witches hat and a hollowed turnip with a string handle and a burning tea-light - or, please god, it was a thing?

squoosh · 26/10/2015 13:01

I quite like that Halloween is a bigger thing these days. It seems quite inclusive in a way that Halloween and Eid for example aren't.

squoosh · 26/10/2015 13:02

Christmas and Eid (duh!)

LisbethSalandersLaptop · 26/10/2015 13:03

but you know what is funny, certain parents spend an awful lot of time and energy telling their children not to talk to strangers, and certainly never take a sweet from them, not to annoy the neighbours, yet on this one night, children are actively encouraged to bang on strangers's doors demanding sweets!
Something of the spirit of Carnival I suspect...

harryhausen · 26/10/2015 13:04

Kondo, we used to have turnip lanterns. I remember the turnipy smell on the string.

squoosh · 26/10/2015 13:05

Kondo I made turnip lanterns (kids these days don't know they're born with pumpkins!) but wasn't trusted to carry one around. And I spent many a year dressed in a bin liner. A witch in a bin liner or a punk in a bin liner.

Such a versatile garment the bin liner!

Summerdiamond · 26/10/2015 13:05

Black bin bag costume & hollowed out turnip here too.
YABVU OP & while I don't mind swearing I think your posts are a bit OTT
It's a Saturday night this year, maybe go out with friends & chill out a bit?

OstentatiousBreastfeeder · 26/10/2015 13:06

Bin liner dresses were most definitely a thing if your parents gave you a WTF? HELL NO! look when you asked to buy a costume to wear for one night, like mine did

Never heard of the turnip though. Isn't it difficult to hollow out?!

FyreFly · 26/10/2015 13:06

Kondos we don't have them but my grandma taught me to make one when I was small! I don't know if they had pumpkins in 1920s Yorkshire, but a turnip is definitely the more traditional of the two!

MrsJayy · 26/10/2015 13:08

Yeah we all had turnip/swede lanterns pumkins were not really a thing i loved the smell of hot turnip and candle wax

squoosh · 26/10/2015 13:08

Very difficult Ostentatious, but losing a finger makes you appreciate its warming glow all the more!

KondosSecretJunkRoom · 26/10/2015 13:08

Ahh, well as long as I wasn't the only one. Yes, I remember that it stunk and the string would dig into my hands - what where they thinking letting us swing fire round in turnips?!

Ilikedmyoldusernamebetter · 26/10/2015 13:11

My sister used to have Halloween themed birthday parties as her birthday is almost on Halloween, and she's in her mid 30s... There were traditional Halloween games such as trying to eat sugary doughnuts off strings without using your hands or licking your lips, and of course apple bobbing.

The egging etc. sounds like a cross over from Mischief Night which is an old regional tradition which seems in some areas to have got mixed in with Halloween, but really you can't think you live in a "Naice" area if people are turning over cars in the street - as somebody else said presumably the police are called once they start trying (unless everyone is locked away in dark houses behind the Somebody Else's problem field furiously ignoring anything outside in case they should have to call the police in their nightwear).

LagunaBubbles · 26/10/2015 13:11

Why on earth would you condone this? Any other time of year they would be little shits but on Halloween it's OK, they are just kids following a tradition. Bollocks to that!!

It is not a Halloween "tradition" to egg peoples houses, cars etc. No-one is saying this anti-social behaviour is OK.

Greenkit · 26/10/2015 13:12

I agree Mrs DV it has just become another marketing thing to make parents buy stuff. You can even buy special little 'trick or treat' buckets!

I guess the same way Easter and Christmas and Firework night have become. I would rather have Halloween than the fireworks going off for a month either side of the 5th, scaring the pets half to death.

MrsJayy · 26/10/2015 13:13

My mum is a tiny wispy feeble looking woman but my god she attacked that turnip with a sharp knife and super strength she was like a woman posessed carving turnips

bruffin · 26/10/2015 13:15

I grew up in London in the 60s and nobody did Halloween, however we did do penny for the guy. I haven't seen a Guy in years now.

LisbethSalandersLaptop · 26/10/2015 13:16

" I would rather have Halloween than the fireworks going off for a month either side of the 5th, scaring the pets half to death. "

hmm but it is not either/or is it?
When I lived on an estate near Brighton it was basically firework season from mid Oct through to December...
Mind you you know what they are like in Sussex , they do like their incendiary devices..Grin