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

[Excitedtoday]

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.

I enjoy it. We don't decorate the house, just leave the porch light on and they seem to turn up with adults hovering at the gate, usually.

Most of the kids only want to have their costumes commented on/do a twirl - although I've got in mini-sweets and satsumas/tangerines for the occasion.

(Pretending to be terrified when you open the door seems to go down very well with the little ones. )

I wouldn't automatically assume a house with a pumpkin in the window welcomes trick or treating.
I know a few people that love doing a bit of craft work which sometimes involves doing a nice carving on a pumpkin as they think it looks nice, but they wouldn't welcome people knocking on their doors.
I think that's why it's best to only knock on the door's of people that you know.

I don't think its a recent thing, my two girls are 22 and 18, they've always celebrated Halloween. We've had parties, decorated the porch and gone trick or treating since they could walk.

My girls have both left home now but I'm expecting the children who live close by to go trick or treating so have bought some sweets.

Open the door or don't (I think those that actually follow through with a 'trick' are a tiny minority) but why spoil the fun for others

I'd knock on a door if there was a pumpkin in the window.

allwornout it is a standard code - you put a lit pumpkin in the window, and it gives the go-ahead for trick or treaters.
Thought everyone knew that.

I wasn't allowed to trick or treat when I was a kid. I am 35. I don't decorate my house in any way but people still knock every year, so clearly around here no-one knows the rule of only knock if there is a pumpkin. There aren't any kids on mine or the connecting street, so they are not people we know. Usually i will anwser and give a mini choc bar or something. One year I didn't answer as I had completely forgotten it was Halloween and had literally nothing in the house to give them, and they egged my house with rotten eggs. That has left a rather sour taste in my mouth tbh.

I think if you put a pumpkin lantern in a window it's a bit silly to get aggrieved at kids knocking on the door.

Maybe they should put the pumpkin in one of the back windows.

I did it as a kid in the mid to late 80s but I have to say that I don't like trick or treating either. But that's just due to the area I live in, where it isn't cute kids dressed up but gangs of teenagers with one mask between them demanding money with menaces. The first year I lived here I carved a pumpkin and put it on the front door step. Some fucking oik put a firework in it which blew up the pumpkin and scorched my door. Hence why I hide upstairs for the evening.
If I lived in a nicer area then I would happily participate again.

Rather on a tangent this, but it takes well over a month for an egg to go rotten. Where the frigg do they get them? Do they put them by in September, slowly rotting in the cupboard, ready to lob at your house?

Good question!

Maybe there's en egg rotting expediting service.

No one should have to take part if they don't want to. Just make your house appear as if you're out and don't answer the door.

I'm quite shy but I have got into going along with it all as my DC love it, and it's a big event round here. If you are OK to be called on, you put a lit pumpkin out (I would not now put it on the doorstep, after what happened to Claudia Winkleman's daughter last year (her dress caught fire), but in a window etc). Some people go the whole hog and dress up and decorate their porch too. We have a bowl of small sweets and halloween trinkets (plastic spiders etc) and the local kids are very polite and just take one each.

While one of us stays in to answer the door, the other takes the kids round.

I have to admit if I didn't have DC I might go out for the evening as it is exhausting watching 200 kids' halloween songs and jokes. But it is a very community thing and makes people happy. Never any tricks round here.

I kind of worry about the sugar aspect but while my DC LOVE collecting the sweets, they never eat them all. They have a few on halloween night and then forget about them.

I', 41 and guising was a HUGE deal when I was a child. We would practise our routines for weeks beforehand and people would pay us whit sweeties or money to go away

My children don't knock on random doors, just those in streets roundabout with pumpkin lanterns. We live in a village where Halloween is very much the done thing.

Apart from in ET, I have never heard of anyone actually doing the 'trick' part.

I completely agree with you OP and don't allow my children to do it. We carve pumpkins, make pumpkin soup, we've done all the spooky treasure hunts at local attractions but If they want Halloween themed sweets I'd rather buy them myself than encourage them to go out bothering strangers.

pootles when i was a teenager the less sociable members in my form group used to buy their eggs not long after we went back to school in September.

Marsaday - wow! They may have been twats, but they were well organised twats.

Is anyone else now sitting eating the Halloween sweets and will have to go any buy more?

I actually wonder when getting home, putting your PJs on and not answering the door became a "thing"

We used to not answer the door at uni because we had no TV licence and the detector people kept turning up. Eventually we bought one a b&w licence for our colour tv and they left us alone.

With Halloween landing at the end of half term I think i may have to make a few trips to the shops to replenish the halloween treats.

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

Yes, and it reeked, particularly with a candle inside it cooking the turnip.

If people stick to friends' houses it's fine. I don't like the idea of knocking on strangers' doors or even neighbours - it feels intrusive to me, and I don't like answering the door to random teenagers askin for money, which happened once - thankfully they were nice enough when I said no.

Mine want to go, and we have a street full of children so it will be alright but I will only let them knock at their friends' houses. And I will leave sweets outside our door for their mates. I'm not having the doorbell on this year because ds3 goes nuts whenever it rings.

Just a personal view but why would you teach kids not to take sweets from strangers for 364 days of the year, but it's ok on one night and hey, we are actually going to approach them in the dark to ask for sweets...

I'm not very keen on Halloween full-stop, though.

Going around peoples houses trick or treating was definitely not a thing where I grew up on the Wirral in the mid 80's to late 90's. Nor was it a thing in the village we moved to in Yorkshire after that.

We used to beg my mum to let us go (too many American movies and tv shows), so one year she did and we got to house number 4 of bewildered people having their evening interrupted before we gave up and went home feeling awful. We never tried again.

Otoh, I would let my kids do it if it was a recognised part of the neighbourhood where we lived. Which it still isn't now (Devon).

YANBU. I hate it. Never answer the door that night. If people want to celebrate it then fine, do it in your own house without hassling others.