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?

Bin bag witch one year, bin bag cat another
There was lots of inventive use of inner tubes from toilet roll and cardboard boxes and if you were lucky and there was a curtain or bedsheet going spare you'd get something sewn with varying degrees of success. Oh and you had to do your "piece" too, a joke or song or something to get your treat.

I still love Halloween and wish I had half my mums creative and imaginative skills looking back!

Yabu only insofar as you say kids have it easy these days yet all the 80s kids I knew carved pumpkins and had trick or treating with outfits and we weren't that well off. More elaborate outfits are a bit more commonplace in supermarkets now though - there were masks and brooms and witches fingers and fangs and capes etc but not so much of the full on bits. I think that's maybe due to more dual working parent homes now and seemingly mpre availability of these sorts of things so cheaper pricing

Ah, the bin bag witch costumes... good times! I’ll never forget the Halloween when my father nearly lost an arm trying to hollow out a turnip and then nearly lost an eye the following year trying to pry open a coconut because they had them in the local shop for the first time and we nearly died of excitement. The yucky barrels of apples for bobbing in that were probably swimming in other kids’ spit. Those were the days! And you only got treats if you earned them by dancing a reel or singing a song or something. Ah the memories...

@thelegohooverer 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.

The sainted Mary gave you a bum steer?? Is nothing sacred any more?

I'm a Halloween baby so we did make more fuss as a child in the seventies than was probably the norm. Singed turnip was a distinct smell lol. But Bonfire night was a lot bigger.

Not all Americans go trick or treating. I'm fifty, and we would only go to a few friends and relatives. I went trick or treating once as a child.
Homemade costumes are also common here. Since my godfather had a gas mask bag, I went as a child refugee once. Another year, I was a Roman with sheet toga and rhododendron wreath.

I’m a 90s baby and definitely had pumpkins but bin bag witCh every year Although we did have fake with fingers and a fake witch Nose and we had a witches broom I did have a highly flammable witches outfit aged about 10 but that would’ve been well into the 2000s we did apple bobbing never went trick or treating as apparently it was American and my mum always thought it looked dangerous I went trick or treating when I was about 12 old enough to go out by myself it was round A dodgy south London estate didn’t get any sweets but was just happy to show off my out fit I live in central London and had my first trick or treater in years lAst year sadly didn’t have any sweets to give them which is strange cos I live on a very family oriented street but trick or treating just doesn’t seem to be done . I’ve abslloutely loved this thread though thank you op feeling very autumnal now