Halloween... Do kids have it too easy these days? 😒

[Catsup]

In my day and age (many moons ago) my Scottish parents would balk at paying for a pumpkin. They'd then risk a finger (and several hours) hollowing out a turnip, bunging a stumpy candle inside, pulling a bin bag over my head (with head/arm holes), and setting me off on my merry way!... Aibu to really feel my kids with their fancy pants pumpkins and actual costumes haven't actually lived?

@pastandpresent

No, not the kids have it easy, parents have it easy these days. It's other way round I think. We parents can easily buy costumes from supermarkets, we don't have to make them. Even my local charity shop has many costumes for sale, for a few pound too. There are hundreds of easy craft ideas online to make it special for children without spending a lot of money.

My parents never got involved in making costumes. We were left to our own devices. The girls were inevitably witches. We'd have made our witches hats during arts and crafts at school. All we needed was to don a refuse sack and a sweeping brush broom and we were good to go. Occasionally one of us would make a ghost costume by cutting a hole in a sheet ("Don't tell Mam").

My brother would put some 'costume' together which usually revolved around Dad's work boots. One year he was a robber (woolly hat and some coal dust on his face). Another year he was a coal man (work boots and coal dust on face). And he might have been a farmer another year - dungarees and work boots but no coal dust.

@speakout

This is a Halloween turnip lantern- dried, and evidence of burning inside, found in Ireland and from the 1700s.

Evidence of Halloween being an ancient European festival

Those teeth are pretty good.

Somehow very creepy, but they also look sort of anatomically correct.

the large yellow fleshed vegetable is called a swede in most parts of England
Here in Scotland we call it a turnip

They are turnips here in the North East, too and we aren't in Scotland but really wish we were

That picture is chilling Oakleaffy.

Whoah speak out that thing looks like Worzel Gummidge's serial killer head

@ThursdayLastWeek

I grew up on a dairy farm situated up a long lane so we never had trick or treaters or the like.

However my Dad took great pleasure in selecting, designing and hollowing out a fodder beet from the fields each year.

He still does it now for my kids and it looks amazingly gruesome compared to the perfect pumpkins!

That sounds great.

An American friend said his Auntie who lived in the 'Boondocks" had a dish of 'Candy' for trick or treaters and no kid ever came by as so remote.

Binbags & a Tesco carrier bag for sweets for me in the 80s and I never carved a pumpkin (or any other type of vegetable) until I was in my 30s. No Halloween parties or month long 'spooky season', just one night where we'd trick or treat the neighbours 🤷🏼‍♀️

@motorcyclenumptiness

Whoah speak out that thing looks like Worzel Gummidge's serial killer head

Laughed out loud at this and shocked the dogs!

@SchadenfreudePersonified

Re creepy pic...{Steve Chasmar} ...there are lots of his floating about the net....I was really creeped when he showed me some more..

@BoudicasBoudoir

The smell of burnt turnip will live with me forever!

We always went guising and I remember, aged 10, being very indignant when told I was ‘begging’ by some English people who had moved to our village... I was performing a very beautiful tune on the recorder in exchange for my sweets, thank you.

I'm sure your recorder tunes were delightful

I remember the turnips, bin bag outfits, no sweets and swinging buckets of fire around our heads in an old paint pot!!

We used to have turnip lanterns. I did one for the children one year and found out why pumpkins are more popular

An apple corer is one of the best things for hollowing out a turnip.

But costumes were always hand made. I always find the train of uninspiring supermarket costumes rather depressing.

We hollowed out swedes too (London) and that removed food would be eaten. Once it was a potato! A sheet over your head or whatever black clothing you had plus a witches hat you made were the main costumes, but someone would be wrapped up in loo roll as a mummy.

@catsup Your OP suggests that your parents did the turnip hollowing for you - if so, you had it lucky! We always did our own, and I can remember the pain in the heel oh my hand, but having to continue to apply pressure to the painful part because it was the only way to get the job done. We used to compare bruises the following day at school.
But yes, that delicious smell of cooking / burning pumpkin as we wandered down our street! You knew it was time to go home when the pumpkin top, carefully fitted back in once the pumpkin was carved, cooked down to be too small and kept falling in to extinguish the candle.

One mum we used to call on (not allowed to go to random houses, although we knew a lot of neighbours so had plenty we could visit) used to give us baked potatoes with cheese as our treat. We went out entirely on our own, as did all the other local kids, so used to have loads to tell our parents when we got back to defrost our fingers round a mug of turnip soup
This was the north east of England in the 1960s. I'm always a little miffed when people claim Halloween as an American import. The paraphernalia round it now may be, and the use of pumpkins is, I think, but Halloween was a big event in our calendar in Scotland and the north of England way back when.

I loved the smell of a turnip lantern! Looking back, I remember how much hard work it was for my Mum to hollow it out (Dad never helped either). And yes, it would have been unthinkable to go out guising round the houses without a turn to do in return for the sweeties. I used to sing Frère Jaques and Sur le Pont d’Avignon. My Mum taught me - she couldn’t speak French though, so it was all phonetic.
I remember that costumes didn’t have to be spooky themed and were always made with things from home. My Mum loved thinking them up. One year I was. Japanese geisha in my Dad’s shiny dressing gown with red plastic knitting needles in my hair and talc on my face. Here’s my brother as a Viking with a pan lid shield and a sheepskin rug wrapped round him.

We did dooking for apples at Guides, usually the version where you knelt above the bucket in a chair and dropped a fork from between your teeth. Also they would tie treacle scones from strings and you had to eat them with your hands tied behind your back. Happy days.

@Witchend which is why I retrieved my apple corer from my exh, intention is to make a display in my front garden as they are doing a light trail this year (no sweets, parents are buying sweets for their own kids)

This thread has made me laugh so much!

@caughtalightsneeze plastic false face? - otherwise known as a mask!

We definitely only had turnip lanterns here in Yorkshire, which used to stink something rotten when the candle was lit. Outfits were always a bin liner and a witches hat made of rolled up newspaper painted black. Trick or treating wasn't such a thing then, we just danced around the neighbourhood thinking we were scary.

We used to sing Halloween songs in rounds (early 80’s) with a turnip on a string. One year dad forgot to Get a turnip, I had a big potato hollowed out, mortified.

They were always called a false face where I'm from. Don't remember people calling them a mask.

I lived in Germany (as an adult) for 43 years. In the early years, nobody had heard of Halloween and certainly not of trick and treating. I raised two kids there and there was not a peep.

Moved to England for ten years, moved back to Germany --- and suddenly Halloween is all the rage and kids walking around in witch costumes and people having to buy sweets to give them.
Customs spread quickly from country to country these days. And in most cases the USA leads the way.

It's not a good thing, imo.

The first time I bought a pumpkin 🎃 to hollow out with my young child I was dreading it, having done the swede-of-death wrist-knackering of old.

I was pleasantly surprised at the swift evisceration of said pumpkin and can totally get why the Americans got that sorted!

@speakout

. We used turnips (actually swedes) too in the South East of England.

Some confusion- the large yellow fleshed vegetable is called a swede in most parts of England.
Here in Scotland we call it a turnip.
The smaller white/purple vegetable we call a swede or an "English turnip"

I know the difference but if you call a swede a turnip in England people know what you mean. I don't think many people eat turnips now although I do.

Halloween certainly wasn't much of a deal when I was growing up - 70s/80s East Midlands. My parents thought it "common" to get involved so we weren't allowed. Mischief Night was a bigger deal but I didn't want to get involved with that (but also wasn't allowed, obviously!)

Bonfire Night was really special, though. With your big group of friends (as in family groups), you'd choose which local display to go to, the kids would probably get new hats and fingerless gloves bought, no proper dinner that night as you'd eat at the jacket potato van and after the display, back to someone's house for a few more hot drinks/drink drinks . Bonfire Night was always celebrated on the correct day, too, not the closest Friday or Saturday or, like it is now, spread out over two weeks.

Swedes are called turnip in Yorkshire too. There are other kinds of turnip too- like the little pink ones but you don't see those much- swede is variety of turnip.

Some confusion- the large yellow fleshed vegetable is called a swede in most parts of England.
Here in Scotland we call it a turnip.
The smaller white/purple vegetable we call a swede or an "English turnip"

Ah, now it makes sense as to the colour of "Neeps and tatties" !

It's actually swede... How confusing to all parties- this is a turnip, this is a swede. No actually it's the other way round

Is there anything else that is the opposite way round?

Please tell me shortbread in Scotland is actually a moist chewy delicious cakelike treat rather than the dry leaden bars that are so sugary they hurt your teeth that we get given in England?

MN is like the shops. They start banging on about Halloween way too long before the event as well. It's one night out of 365 but you'd think it was as significant as Christmas these days 🦇

That being said, if you do lose a finger or snap a wrist you won't have to fork out for a costume 👻

They were always called a false face where I'm from. Don't remember people calling them a mask

@caughtalightsneeze really? I always thought mask was the common name for 'false faces'.

This thread is making me want to make carrot and turnip mash!