To not like Halloween

[Lulushmulu]

Little children dressed as witches and devils, not nice.
Having to turn the lights off and pretend we're not in so as to not have to deal with the trick or treaters.
Supermarkets full of orange and black plastic tat.
I don't remember Halloween being such a big event when I was a child, is it a recent thing?
I don't want to be a killjoy but I do want them to have fun and enjoy dressing up! And Christmas seems so far off!

yabu

imo

You could always take the children out to the cinema, and let them dress up.

That way you avoid the 'pretending to be out' dilemma.

Well, there's not much you can do about it, whether you like it or not. Though if you hate the witches and devils thing you could turn the lights back on and answer the door dressed as an angel. That'd give 'em something to think about.

My dd (at age 5)went to a Halloween party dressed as a pink sugar plum fairy one year because she liked pink. Certainly stood out from the crowd of 'witches' etc
YABU
It might not have been such a big evebt when you were a child but no need to stop children enjoying it now just because you didn't have the opportunity to as a child.

yanbu
another way for the shops to get us to buy crap we don't need and for children to beg

Nobody is forcing you to buy it and I look on it as being an opportunity for neighbours to get to know each other a bit better, not begging. I suppose it depends how Halloween is in your area.

what i want to know is when did it stop getting called 'guising' and became 'trick or treating'.

when i was wee i had to do a 'party piece' to get my satsuma and monkey nuts nowadays if you ask the kids to do something they look at you as if you are stupid. at our last house it used to be the teenagers that came round in their school uniform looking for money - their faces were a picture given a mini twix or satsuma!!!

if you don't like it then you don't like it.

I can understand being peed off with 'plastic tat', I am having a party for DD and about 15 friends and some parents on friday night and DP was moaning about all the 'plastic tat' that was on sale in the shops, but like I said to him, we don't have to buy it, and we haven't, most of the things we will be using are homemade.
Anyone that doesn't want to join in, doesn't have to.
Is it really that inconvenient to write on a piece of A4, 'NO TRICK OR TREATING HERE PLEASE' and stick it on your door?

hallowe'eb is fine imo but you can have a special day without apsetting people- we ahve a few pumpkins in teh wondows, kid dressed up, will ahve a spooky tea- but they won't go trick or treating as there are too many people around here who don't like it, which is fine. they enjoy handing out sweets to the other locl kids anyhow.

Thereby unless somebody mortally offended by pumpkins in my window (in which case get a grip!) nobody hurt.

We used to trick or treat as kids- but TBH the only accurate bit was a treat- if someone said no we just walked away. And as we often got given koney, it went to the local old peolpes home

well I will let you know how many eggs are on my van/house tomorow.

what is Koney?
oh and ds used to do it when he was younger. I only hate it now. as I know the little darlings will egg us even If i hand out sweets to the the titches(goes off to watch for tot comming home from playgroup in his halloween costume..looks so sweet)

I assume she meant money 2shoes!

I think times are changing, I was horrified by British Halloween when I first came to UK (from USA), because it really was taken over and horrendously distorted by a Yob-element (not counting private parties, I dont' know anything about them accept what I read on MN). The archetypal mask-wearing teenage British hoody on the doorstep on 24 October menacing for money is disgusting beyond words, I empathise with anybody who hates Halloween if they've had to deal with that.

But then 7yo DS felt very left out when I told him 'No' to T-or-T, it's obvious most of his school mates are going out. So I've decided to give it a wee try. I think if we stick to decorated houses and otherwise adhere to norms of social behaviour, we can't bother anybody. There should be no restriction on type of costume, the "trick" part is not a genuine threat by either side , it's only for children under 13, you only knock on doors at houses that clearly want you to knock, etc.

yanbu - I don't like little children dressed up as witches and devils either

and it is hard to avoid frankly

agree with 2shoescreeping ... just another commercial opportunity

We sort of ignore it in our house - we have done a pumpkin but I don't make a big deal of it and the boys don't seem too bothered.

I lived in the US from the age of 4 until I was 8. Hallowe'en was BIG. We went to school in costumes and I still remember the joys of trick or treating and lying in bed the night before, scared out of my wits by my parents' talk of Gate night, when the older kids would cause havoc.

I walked into the big tescos store near here over a month ago and was dismayed at the massive floor to ceiling aisle of Hallowe'en tack. A load of plastic junk, made in huge pollution producing factories in China, plastic tack that will soon be taking up valuable space in the landfill sites. This is the side of Hallowe'en I hate.