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?

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?

Sorry, no, shortbread is crumbly and a bit crunchy. That’s what “short” means. If you want some that will really hurt your teeth with sweetness you should try “tablet”, it’s insane.

It really wasn’t a big thing in early 80’s where I lived, there certainly wasn’t any trick or treating and the only thing it meant to me was the following day was All Saints Day and it was a Holy Day of Obligation and a mass at school.
When trick or treating started it was dismissed as begging and a nuisance- we certainly weren’t allowed to do it!
Dressing up was also dismissed as an American thing, and going to a catholic school there were no Halloween discos or parties!

And in my case, Irish. Although Northern Irish so possibly influenced by Scotland.

Southern Ireland here and we used turnips too. (The real turnip, the one with the yellow inside, your “neep” I think, not the swede.) Costumes were bin bags all the way too. And we used to play the traditional Halloween games.

Growing up in Manchester in the 1980s we didn’t have pumpkins but Halloween was definitely a thing. We had bin bags and a rigid plastic mask, we also did apple bobbing.

Bonfire night was much bigger though. I remember doing penny for the guy like a Victorian urchin outside the local pub😮...can you imagine kids doing that now. A packet of sparklers and the small box of standard fireworks were a party waiting to be had...with Parkin and treacle toffee.

How disappointing@CheetasOnFajitas

@FreekStar

*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!

This explains “false face”.

I imagine"false face" is an echo of what the guising was really for? i.e. you wore false faces on the night that demons were abroad in order to fool them so they couldn't take your soul?

I was thinking about this this morning.

I was wondering if you could make trick & treating fairly covid secure.

This was my thought:

1. Invite friends' dcs rather than open invite
2. Have them text when there (so no doorbell cross contamination)
3. Prepare treat bags 48 hours plus ahead of time.
4. Hand them out with a mask on
5. Use dd2's prosthetic hand to pick up and hand out bags

All so sensible until point 5.

How many households have a spare prosthetic hand hanging around?

They get sweets these days,,,we were lucky to get an apple,,,.ans you gut half drowned in the process

I'd forgotten about False Faces! West of Ireland child here and bin bag and monster masks with a turnip light was as fancy as it got. My aunt was American and always grew her own pumpkins rather than attack turnips with a drill which was DM preferred method.

Love this thread. I grew up in Lancashire in the 70's.
"Penny for the Guy" anyone?
I remember making an average of £12 a night which was a huge amount back then.
Haven't seen kids doing that for years.They would probably send SS round these days.

I’ve only ever bought a pumpkin once for my son.

We carved a couple of triangles in it for eyes and a half moon/ rectangle for a mouth. It looked like a really shit shape sorter, so we’ve not bothered since.

I've never thought about the term false face before. I'd probably use the term mask these days, but that's partly because they're different now, being all stretchy and pulling right over your head. The rigid plastic things when I was wee, face shaped and with a bit of elastic, were always called a false face where I'm from. Obviously they may have been called a mask elsewhere.

@haba

All so sensible until point 5.

How many households have a spare prosthetic hand hanging around?

I've got about 20 of various sizes.

You could use a litter picker equally well, but I thought for Halloween the hand would look better.

@Al1Langdownthecleghole

Did you not alternate the witch costume with the ghostly sheet?

I mean we had choices people. It’s just that they came in Black & White.

One of the few times my dm smacked me was when she caught me trying to make holes in a sheet egged on by Mary Fitzgerald.

@OrangeGinLemonFanta

YANBU, the terror of the sparklers catching on your binbag and melting it onto your skin was very character building

You’ve ignited a childhood trauma I’d completely forgotten! Ah the days before health and safety!

There was no bollocks of sticking it in a carrot then! You held on for dear life and stuck it in the ground when you were done!

@Serin

Love this thread. I grew up in Lancashire in the 70's. "Penny for the Guy" anyone? I remember making an average of £12 a night which was a huge amount back then. Haven't seen kids doing that for years.They would probably send SS round these days.

Bloody hell, this too! We used to drag the neon blue sledge out the garage and my Dad would drive us out to the countryside for grass and hay (we absolutely did not nick it from farmer’s)

There was no trick or treating just mild intimidation of the elderly from eight year olds turning up on their door step in the pitch black demanding petty change.

God, could you imagine now?!

We went guising round our wee village. Happy times

Awww the memories, a bin bag for a costume and hair backcombed with talc in it 😂

Haven't people been saying this for 100 years? Ever since child labour laws were put in place and the concept of teenager was born in a lot of cultures, people have been struggling to navigate both how to teach the young ones responsibility and let them have nice childhoods.

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!.

Don’t know about today’s kids having it easier but it certainly sounds like your parents had it easier than todays parents!

We went guising in Scotland in 70s, we had to do a poem or dance or tell jokes to get the treats though. Everyone practiced at school before.
At friends houses we tried to eat treacle dripped scones hanging from strings with blindfold on, then, covered in treacle, now with hands tied, tried to root boiled sweets out of a bowl of flour with our mouths. Now caked in flour and treacle we dooked for apples. You didn’t want to be last in line.
Burning each other with sparklers for bonfire night, hiding behind Or climbing trees and getting as close to the launch area as we could. Collecting the spent fireworks and trying to light them again with sparklers. Id die a death if my kids did a tenth of the stuff we got up to...!

In my Day pumpkins weren’t sold for Halloween, it was a turnip or nothing. I don’t think pumpkins came in until the late 90s.

What happened to the cardboard witches’ hate you used to get? Worn with a false face?

And trick or treating was called Halloween rhyming.

I’m a 90’s baby but my parents hate Halloween so I’ve never even been trick or treating, the only time we did anything was when we went to a couple of family parties and my mum made my costumes out of tights and an old dresses.
My parents never decorated the house, never bought pumpkins or anything to carve, it was just another normal night for us though I watched nightmare before Christmas and hocus pocus every year.
I had a could of Halloween parties as a teenager but my first time carving a pumpkin was when I had my own children!