To be a bit annoyed about all the fuss about halloween?

[Karlakitten1]

I've had childrn at school asking why they have to go to school on Halloween. I think this is ridiculous and although it's all a bit of fun on the day, I just don't see the need for a big fuss and think going trick or treating is like begging IMHO. Am I a miserable git?

i like halloween don't hate op

We love Halloween in my house
We usually decorate the outside of the house, and have a different theme for the front garden every year....we did scattered clown body parts last year, but probably best to avoid that this year
Trick or treaters are more than welcome at my door. I usually make some sort of spooky treat (did pumpkin shaped rice-crispy cakes last year) as well as handing out the usual shop-bought sweets.
Probably a bit different for us though because we live in military quarters, so know all our neighbour's and their kids that might come a-knockin'!

YABU, that said it's not helped by parents (can't really blame the kids as too young) not observing proper etiquette and not knocking on houses without decorations...particularly a lit pumpkin.

Demanding with menaces.....isn't it illegal?

Joking apart, we spend all our time telling kids not to speak to strangers, then encourage them to knock on strangers doors asking for treats. Pretty convinced that such actions could be unsafe in some circumstances. Of course some will say parents will be supervising and of course this will be done on doors of friends etc.

Why then every year do we get strange (not known to us) unaccompanied kids (some young and some teens) knocking on the door frequently after our youngest has gone to bed?

Sorry to be bah humbug but we close the curtains and do not answer the door to them. Naturally we run the risk of the "trick" element but so be it. IMO it is a highly commercialised event that is now bigger than Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night, which at least was traditional.

We always went around trick or treating as a gang of kids without any adult supervision. And even lived to tell the tale!

Where I live the children are normally off for Halloween because its half term

madparent my Grandparents were guising for Halloween as children in the 1920s and it was an old tradition even then.

Halloween is far from new. And if you say it's an American import all the Scots and Irish will start to froth at the mouth.

The only American part is the pumpkins. My Mum used to carve a turnip poor woman so a pumpkin seems much more sensible.

Sportinguista

When I did a year teaching there, there were generally parties held by schools for older kids and for younger kids, their parents took them trick or treating. If there weren't school parties, at least one person in the neighbourhood would be having some sort of big halloween party.

It seems to work pretty well.

DCs are already asking me when they can decorate the house with scary things so I'm giving in and letting them go mad with it this weekend.

I don't begrudge them it. We bloody hate bonfire night (DS2 doesn't like the loud noises and the animals are shit scared) so we go all out for Halloween instead. I always look forward to the GPs visiting and bringing strange Bulgarian foods that taste amazing but never taste the same when I try to make them.

I don't think anywhere else goes at OTT over it to the extent that we do, even much-maligned 'consumerist, commercialist' America.

I think that there is definitely some truth to this. In the US, there is much more going on from October through December than there seems to be in the UK where it's all focused on Christmas. We have a big Halloween, then Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Most people I know don't start thinking seriously about Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

And then we also have the big university historical rival football games that happen in late October, early November. They take on holiday proportions as well.

Yes, basically for us Christmas starts in September. But when I lived in the US, I didn't start seeing Xmas stuff until a week after Thanksgiving, so it was nearly December already.

I think having a lack of any kind of holiday between August and Christmas is why we go a bit overboard with Halloween. People like having something to look forward to and Halloween means we don't have to go 4 months hearing about Christmas, which ruins the magic.

'My Mum used to carve a turnip poor woman so a pumpkin seems much more sensible.'

I've carved a few turnips in my time. People these days don't know they're born with these easily scoopable pumpkins!

I haven't RTFT.

I'm from Canada, where Halloween is massive. Really huge deal. But even there, kids don't get the day off school. The whole point, and excitement of Halloween, is that it happens at night time when you should be in bed.

This being said, I'm really fed up with the Halloween grinches. My kids also have Indian heritage, and funnily enough I never read any gripes about kids dressing up for Diwali at school, which is always the same time of year. Well, my kids can wear Diwali clothes like the best Indian kids, but Halloween is much, much more important to them culturally. It is almost as big as Christmas- they look forward to it for about 11 and 1/2 months of the year. We don't impose on anyone, no tricks get played, but please don't reject it just because you don't know about the tradition. It matters a lot to a lot of kids. It's all innocent fun.

I have come to accept that my children love Halloween pretty much as much as they love Christmas. We have 2 sets of friends that we regularly have celebrations with - one the day before and one on Halloween itself, and we have a really nice trick or treat route near our home - with the rule that we only knock if they have a lit pumpkin outside. I'm learning just to go with it! Hell - it's a nice get-together - why not! My DD is still horrified when I tell her that there were no Halloween costumes in the shops when I was young - and if you wanted to dress up you just made a witches costume out of a bin bag!

Halloween is also the only time of the year that American adults have costume parties. The last one we were invited to had a theme: famous people from the Seventies. I was really stumped for ideas so I went to a local theatrical costume rental company and rented costumes for DH and me. We went as George and Martha Washington, pointing out to our hosts that they did not specify a century. By the way, don't try to get into a small Toyota with one of those wired pannier hoop skirt ensembles.

We went as George and Martha Washington, pointing out to our hosts that they did not specify a century.

Very clever!

I know Halloween has pagan roots but I love that these days that it's a non religious 'holiday' that everyone can get behind. It's very inclusive.

People that don't like having trick or treaters knocking, waking babies etc, why not but a bowl of cheap sweets on the doorstep and stick a sign to the front door asking them not to knock or ring the bell, and once the bowl is empty, it's empty! I did it when we were fostering a dog that went mental every time the doorbell rang and would wake next door's kids. Worked a treat!