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?

Ooooh... sparklers! Loved the smell of ‘em 😊

I’m 58. We had sparklers/toffee apples and a pumpkin. One only. We were poor. We never did door knocking, as we weren’t allowed out of the house, after dark. Ever.

It was turnips when I was young and I don't remember any Hallowe'en merchandise. Trick or treating wasn't something anyone had heard of in my part of the country, either.

I remember my mum organising a family apple-bobbing session! Apple-bobbing (I think) is derived from the practice of drowning witches but luckily my mum didn't tell us that because at that age I wanted to be a witch when I grew up

Halloween as it is NOW, with the mountains of plastic crap is a American import

I was born in 81, my mum was always too busy to bother much with Halloween but I do remember my grampa making us the spooky turnips!! The first time I came across pumpkins was on a visit to my cousins who lived next to a farm where there was a big field full of pumpkins, the nice neighbours let us take as many as we wanted and we took quite a few and had a wonderful time carving them!

My mum was always pretty good at cobbling together a pretty good costume from old clothes and stuff that was lying around the house, a skill I have not inherited!

These are hilarious! Actually LOL at a lot.

We lived in the north of Scotland in the seventies and very traditional events in autumn and winter to be had.

Remember the bin bags, need lanterns with the stump of a candle which you kept because lots of black outs in the bad weather. They were so hard to carve and you had to make one per child and an extra one. The extra one went on the doorstop so you knew whose house you could go to. My sisters used to go out. I was much older with a baby. Then in the eighties they would take mine out ( because as teens they didn’t want to give up the guiding)We always had a table full of games, homemade toffee apples, tablet and a bucket of sweets. No one ever consider go without learning “a piece” the better you were the more you got. Some were fantastic with verses of Halloween poems learnt or lovely Celtic or Gaelic songs. We had ‘apple dooking’ In the baby’s bath.😁
Weird and wonderful costumes all home made.
I laughed when I read about the stinky lanterns ...I swear I could smell it. As someone said never to be forgotten.

Then after about 8 o clock you could sit down and scoff some of the left over sweets or ‘share’ your child’s as they had 1/2 a carrier bag.

Then the next week it was Bonfire night and there was a small one in the village but we mostly trekked up to the nearby town where they had the most fantastic display and you had to make another neep lantern because there was a competition( which my son won one year) and the final fireworks were two tanks shooting at each other before displaying the words ‘good’ ‘night’ on them.

Then Christmas in December. New Year’s Eve where it was open house until about 4am. Following that you went to the next village when they had ‘ burning the Clavie’ which was where the men of the village carried barrels of burning tar around on half barrels through the streets!

Following that you went to the next village when they had ‘ burning the Clavie’ which was where the men of the village carried barrels of burning tar around on half barrels through the streets!

What is a Clavie? (I have never been further north in Scotland than Glasgow so please excuse ignorance) That sounds fascinating!

Neep! Guising! Bloody auto correct.

We weren't allowed to do anything for Halloween as it was "American".

Now Halloween is about me. I love decorating and eating handing out sweets. Some of the TorTs costumes are incredibly cute and the whole thing makes me happy.

Halloween isn't Halloween without the smell of burnt turnip, or the fear of walking about the neighbourhood with only a few friends in the dark while everyone's parents stayed in to answer the door, wondering if maybe there really would be a witch or ghostie (or a vindictive big brother) hiding down the end of a close in wait to scare an unsuspecting primary schooler.

I try and make the kids practice a turn for guising. They think I'm mean. I tell them they need to EARN those sweets.

Halloween didn't exist where & when I was growing up.

I think it's a conspiracy by dentists to drum up trade because of all the sugar consumed on the day.

Pelleas it is held on the 11th January and was to do with changing the calendar. The people kept the old ‘ New Year’ date. They now celebrate both. The main barrel is carried through the streets of the village and bits are left at the door of the older residents that aren’t fit enough to follow to bring good luck through the year. Others follow it to Doorie or Doonie Hill where it is put to burn out and people take a piece of burning wood or ember home. When I went our friends lived there ( I think two still do) and we had a party afterwards like New Year. Those days they had burning torches to light the way and a few smaller barrels.
It was pretty dangerous actually no H&S there as it’s tradition. It was a long historical event. There was evidence of the Picts and Vikings in that village. I think the Vikings used to raid it. I have a friend on Shetland whose husband and son take part in the the New Year there which is always later I think it is the twelfth I have forgotten but I have always wanted to see that...one day!

Good for you Juno.

I always ask and the kids look blank( now in the north of England) however last year a little lass in the village had remembered and she learnt ‘ a piece’ especially for me. 😁 obviously she got more sweets than anyone else! I made Halloween buns last year they went down a treat. The village my DS2 lives in are organising a trail for the kids. They have to ‘ collect’ items. They have a sheet of items and have to say which house it is from. I have persuaded him to join in by me decorating his porch.😄🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇

@Bowerbird5 Thank you, that's really interesting. It would be a shame if health and safety were allowed to stand in the way of these folk traditions continuing. We could do with some good fortune in 2021!

born early 80s, Hallowee'n was not a thing where we were in South Herts. there are normally a few kids roaming with parents round at around 5pm now a days, but. i think they just go to decorated houses.

Late 70s on an island in the north of Scotland here. If we wanted a neepie lantern we carved it ourselves (mother was not stupid).

We went out guizing around Halloween. Usually our outfits were from the back catalogue of the various fire festivals dad took part in. I can remember being a haggis one year and Hong Kong phooey another time

We would knock on the door, the folk had to guess who we were and then put small change in our sock (usually a farmer’s wellie sock). There was outrage one year when a new family from South moved in and they asked us to perform then gave us FRUIT - word spread very quickly, they did not get many more guizers

We also had a night round about the same time of year where we would go round and play pranks on people - stupid stuff like knocking on doors and running away, or tying their door handles together. You know, your basic low level vandalism

Bonfire night we always had a community bonfire and fireworks, and a supper dance with a fancy dress theme. It was brilliant, no costume was shop bought, all home made.

I’ve gone all nostalgic!

Oh @Piggypiggyoinkoink... I wish I were living on an island in the north of Scotland. I do envy you. Keep warm though!

@HowFastIsTooFast

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 🤷🏼‍♀️

Does anyone know when pumpkins became common in the UK, they seem to have come as late as the 90s/00s, I ceetainly never saw one before then. Do children have any homemade costumes for any event? The supermatkets seems to be awash with tack for every occasion. I recall our daughter being cast as the Nativity donkey, Your Daddy's very artistic dear, he'll be able to make you a head!

Bin bag witches costume or bin bag vampire cape was a classic here, although I'll never forget the girl at brownies who came in with a black T-shirt, black leggings and a pair of yellow marigold washing up gloves on her feet, she was a crow. Parental ingenuity

We always did Halloween guising here when growing up (late 80s, early 90s) but never had a pumpkin. I think we only had a turnip when we were old enough ourselves to choose risking losing a finger over it. I've never managed to do it successfully but love the idea of them.

Bin bag witch costumes were a rite of passage. The best thing on Halloween was if you were a bit too late to some older person's door, and they'd run out of stuff to give you, so you got 20p instead. Tangerines/apples and monkey nuts were accepted, but not relished.

I'm in Northumberland and we did turnip lantern (swede, but we called it turnip) and bin bag costumes. My mam would scored squares in the top of the turnip with a sharp knife and then we'd use a butter knife to pop out each square, it would ping across the kitchen and the youngest sibling had to find it and put it in the pan so the whole lot could be rinsed, cooked, and used as part of our tea. Once that layer was out she would score the next layer and we'd start again until it was hollow. One turnip between three of us as it was too much work to do more than one. It got strung onto a string for easier carrying, the candle would always blow out, and it had to be kept on the bedroom windowsill overnight facing outwards to scare away witches.

People mostly gave out money where we lived, only coppers but it soon added up by the time you'd been to a few houses and then we spent it on sweets at the corner shop. I remember my mam getting a couple of bags of loose change in 2ps and 5ps from the post office for Halloween. Some people would give out satsumas or apples and cakes or biscuits.

We had a little song we would sing at the doors which went: "the sky is blue, the grass is green, have you got a penny for Halloween? If you haven't got a penny then a half-penny will do, if you haven't got a half-penny then God bless you!"

Ah, that smell of burning turnip and melted wax. Happy days. I didn’t clap eyes on a real pumpkin till I was an adult. I can remember being confused watching Scooby Doo and asking my mum why they had pumpkins instead of turnips.

I didn’t come across tea lights till Ikea arrived on these shores when I was a student (or when I first discovered it anyway). In my Yorkshire seventies childhood we had a drawer of candles for all the power cuts, and they were also used for turnip lanterns and waxing sledge runners. It was always really difficult to get them to stay upright in the turnip lanterns.

Nobody really went trick or treating; the lanterns were just put on the doorstep to ward off witches. The bin bag witch costumes came out for Brownies though, where we’d do apple bobbing. It was revolting, a bucket of other kids’ saliva and apples with bites out of them 🤮

Yes to a lot of these memories, I'm also in Scotland.
We had to WORK for our guising money! We practised a skit/song etc, one year we even played songs on our recorders. Does anyone remember the following two songs? Shame I can't show you the tune!

There was an old witch
Believe it if you can
She tapped on the window
Then she ran, ran, ran
She ran helter skelter
With her toes in the air
Cornstalks flying through the old witches hair!

or

We're witches of Halloween wooooooooooooooOOOO!
The ugliest you've ever seen woooooooooooooooooOOOO!
We fly around at night
And give you such a fright!
We're witches of Halloween wooooooooooooooooOOOOO!

Yes to the black bin bag costumes. My broomstick was constructed each year from a wooden pole (old broom handle) with twigs and sticks collected from the local park, tied onto the wooden pole with garden twine. Hat made from black cardboard. Rice Crispies stuck to the face as 'warts'.

Yes to the turnip lantern. Pumpkins were unheard of as a kid in the 80s. Never seen one in real life I'm sure until the 90s.

Apple bobbing is called 'dooking' for apples here. With monkey nuts in their shells floating about in the water. Traditionally you would put your hands behind your back and shove your face in the basin (and avoid trying to be drowned by your bigger and malevolent brother!). The 'posh' people knelt on a chair and used a fork dropped from their mouth to spear the apple.

Lots of memories!

And guising is WAY better than trick or treating #justsaying

My parents neatly dodged Halloween/trick or treating by living in the middle of nowhere. So no turnip lantern for me.
Mischief night someone had to go and take my gran's garden gate in. Or retrieve it from the village bonfire the next day.
We did have cracking bonfire nights though.

We never really did the Halloween thing where i lived in the 80s. Did have Halloween parties at brownies which had all the best games - bobbing for apples, cutting up a bar of chocolate with a knife and fork while wearing oven gloves, marshmallows on strings hung up high that we had to jump up to try and eat.