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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to be completely pissed off with Halloween?

186 replies

inabizzlefam · 28/10/2016 22:05

Since when did we (the UK) start "celebrating Halloween?
Isn't it some weird american tradition?
I get Bonfire Night, fireworks, Penny for the Guy, etc, but all this Halloween shit everywhere (TV, supermarkets,etc) is seriously pissing me off. As if we don't have enough on with christmas decorations in the shops........in October, FFS.
To cap it all I now find myself being nagged senseless by my DCs to take them Trick or Treating, which I loathe. The joy in traipsing round the neighbourhood in the dark, freezing cold, bored shitless, knocking on peoples doors, "begging" sweets off them is ludicrous......I could buy a huge tub of sweets for my own DCs and get to sit in my nice warm house, not pissing off my neigbours....everyone's a winner. Neighbours get left in peace and DCs get to stuff themselves full of crap.
Apparantly, I am being a killjoy and "not entering into the spirit of the celebration".
What celebration? It's a bloody american celebration. What next, Thanksgiving? (TBH I have no idea what thats all about either....2 christmas dinners?

OP posts:

JustCallMeKate · 28/10/2016 22:13

Since when did we (the UK) start "celebrating Halloween?

I'm actually getting really fucking irritated with these threads now. I have always celebrated Halloween/Samhain.

For us, we have friends round, each person brings a dish of food as we celebrate the end of the harvest and the beginning of the darker nights. It's not hard to understand FFS.

iloveredwine · 28/10/2016 22:14

I am the same as you until the children were able to have a voice of their own I hid in lounge with door shut and in darkness and ignored any doorbells. Now its all about the trick or treating and costumes! I am glad when it's all over!

JustCallMeKate · 28/10/2016 22:14

Furthermore, it's not always been an American tradition. 🙄

JenLindleyShitMom · 28/10/2016 22:14

I'm 30 and it was always celebrated in my house as a child. Halloween was always a thing for us. (We are in NI)

leccybill · 28/10/2016 22:16

I'm all a bit over every shop, cafe, pub and library being decorated for Halloween- just more stuff to buy and have hanging around the house isn't it?!
Bored of it and it's not until bloody Monday.

gunting · 28/10/2016 22:16

Pretty sure Halloween has been celebrated for my entire lifetime and long before that.

Stop being so miserable! It's loads of fun.

WindInThePussyWillows · 28/10/2016 22:18

How is a holiday which originates from the Celts and their celebration of Samhain an American thing?

DoesAnyoneReadTheseThings · 28/10/2016 22:18

Didn't Halloween originate in Ireland? I live in England and have always celebrated it regardless.

Why is it a problem to 'adopt' celebrations anyway? If America celebrate something and we can also celebrate it, why not? Same goes for any country. Surely anything joyful/fun/happy we can incorporate into our lives and community the better...

soundsystem · 28/10/2016 22:18

YABU

And a bit ignorant.

Hallowe'en has been celebrated in parts of the UK for a long time.

As justcallmeKate says it's not that hard to understand.

If you're not a fan fair enough, but it's not a new/American thing.

Mollymoo78 · 28/10/2016 22:18

It actually originates from British end of samhain harvest celebrations - our immigrants brought it to America.

autumnintheair · 28/10/2016 22:19

I think it depends where you live, if your neighbor all decorated and entered into the spirit of it - its really lovely much nicer way to spend an evening than stuck in doors. but if your area is not into it - and there is no where to knock really its a bit flat.

Lionking1981 · 28/10/2016 22:19

Yes YABU. I remember celebrating in the 80's so it's hardly a new thing. If you don't want to go trick or treating, don't go. If you don't want trick or treaters, don't put a pumpkin out and don't answer the door. It's just a fun thing others enjoy - don't get het up about it.

StormyLovesOdd · 28/10/2016 22:20

I agree with you. I'm getting the same nagging from my DD.

Halloween isn't the same as samhaim surely? The OP is talking about how hallower has been comercialised the same way Christmas has, it's just another excuse to get us all to buy endless decorations and tat that we don't need.

HirplesWithHaggis · 28/10/2016 22:20

Hallowe'en and guising have been celebrated for generations in Scotland and Ireland, it's not some weird American thing. Emigrants took it there, it's crossed back with some variants. Meh.

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 28/10/2016 22:21

Stop being so miserable! It's loads of fun.

Just because someone doesn't like something it doesn't make them miserable!

Cluesue · 28/10/2016 22:25

I've done it all my life and I'm 40 so hardly new,decorating the house is,which I could do without but I do it for my dds as they enjoy it

MaryField · 28/10/2016 22:25

I'm 60 and my mum used to put two carved swedes on the mantelpiece every Halloween, this would have been early 1960s. Pumpkins have only been easy to come by in the last couple of decades, hence the swedes I suppose. I married in 1979 and decorated our flat that year with cardboard skeletons etc that were obviously for sale back then. Our children, mid-twenties now, lived for Halloween! They also used to white up to go 'souling' with the local church. Is this the same day as Halloween? I can't remember now, it was all part of the same celebration as far as the children were concerned.

Original poster

inabizzlefam · 28/10/2016 22:26

Yes, it's the comercialisation and endless nagging from DCs to buy into this crap that I abhor.
It's bad enough that christmas has been turned into a 3 month long fest, but Halloween is catching up.

OP posts:

Mindtrope · 28/10/2016 22:28

My gran was born in 1890, and celebrated Halloween in the UK, including dressing up as something scary and going round doors for sweets with a turnip lantern.

jelliebelly · 28/10/2016 22:29

YABU it's fun to carve pumpkins and kids love dressing up - trick or treat in our village is a real family affair and most enter into the spirit of it.

JustCallMeKate · 28/10/2016 22:30

It's bad enough that christmas has been turned into a 3 month long fest, but Halloween is catching up.

You do know some religions celebrate it for a reason don't you? probably not

RebootYourEngine · 28/10/2016 22:33

What i dont like about halloween is that people think that its ok to knock on my door and ask for sweets when my house is not decorated for halloween and my lights are switched off.

KathArtic · 28/10/2016 22:33

Nearly all kids love dressing up and pretending to frighten everyone, and getting few tonne of sweets. But if you hate it so much and can't make a little effort then it' a shame for your children.

ThatStewie · 28/10/2016 22:34

Ah, October on Mumsnet: when huge numbers of Little Englanders display their complete ignorance of the history and customs of the rest of the isles. Then backtrack when their lack of historical knowledge is pointed out with some good old fashioned prejudice to bolster their whining about the whole world not being English. August with its 'you must be forrin if your kids are back at school now' is almost as tedious.

Ellieboolou27 · 28/10/2016 22:35

I'm with you op!

I'm trying to work out which is the most "fun" part of Halloween, could it be seeing other peoples darling children dressed up in costume? Or The constant knocking on my door which makes my dog bark, which wakes the baby, or maybe it's all the plastic shite and fake spiders that is available to buy at every shop.

It's fun if your pre teens, it's a fucking chore if your a parent of a pre teen

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