Halloween Judgement- keep your views to yourself

[HappyHalloweenWeenies]

I'm not religious and love Halloween. I have always celebrated it and my dp celebrates with me. Nothing too scary or out there because our kids are young. No chainsaw Massacre figures in garden or dripping blood, just the usual pumpkins, ghosts and witches, food and pre agreed trick or treating with neighbours. Our kids love it too for dressing up and have been taught in a fun way and not a 'celebrating evil' way.

Anyway, sil and mil invited themselves down this week. I didn't invite them and made it very clear to dp that as it was half term I would be doing the usual Halloween stuff so kids don't miss out. Dp fine with this and we arranged a few activities like pumpkin picking, carving etc. Sil and mil here the whole week. Both kids going to the village party but no expectation for either mil or sil and kids to attend, just one evening.

Anyway, sil been fine. A few questions about it, nothing phased rudely. Politely declined Halloween party, which we offered with the caveat if it's not her thing that is fine no judgement. Sil is a fairweather Christian, eg church for marriage and getting into schools so we weren't sure if we should ask or not but thought it would be rude not to.

Mil has been making a few snide comments. Kids watching ridiculously sanitised Halloween songs on TV (think cocomelon) and scoffs things like 'how can they have a 'happy halloween' with all those ghoulish characters? Trying to dissuade kids from their own pumpkin designs and do ones she approves of etc. It's all been very low key so I haven't mentioned it to dp but aibu to think that as she knows we have conflicting views and she invited herself down knowing full well we celebrate it she needs to keep her views to herself? It's starting to grate on me as I don't want my kids to start seeing evil in perfectly innocent dressing up etc.

I feel it's a bit like if we invited ourselves down at Christmas and then made snide comments about going to church.

Aibu or is sil approach better and mil is engaging in weird power games?

I think this is an example of overthinking and over sensitivity, and to have started a thread at 3 o clock in the morning. Yabu. Your poor mother in law hasn't done anything wrong, and quite odd to refer to what she said as power games.

And calling people (behind their backs) fair weather Christians sounds fairly judgemental on your own part.

Yanbu. Your MIL doesn't have to enjoy it, but she had every opportunity to stay away or be an adult and say nothing. If you say something like, "it's just harmless fun" you'll probably trigger a rant so I would say nothing. Limp through the week and at the end as she is leaving say, "I'm sorry you didnt seem to enjoy our Halloween stuff this week. The kids really love it. Another year you don't need to come, and we can find a better time for you to come and stay with us."

In my house, Halloween is a huge creative festival - making decorations, planning and making costumes and make-up, deciding what food to eat. We always have a houseful of kids and k absolutely love it. Obviously we don't play up the occult angle - no one does! It is just load so arts & crafts, silly cheap thrills, a walk around in the dark with dozens of kids in our neighbourhood, and lots of sweets.

It has about as much to do with "evil" as the Easter Bunny has to do with the Crucifixion.

We take the tooth fairy more seriously than Halloween in my house (the fairies are demanding and don't cough up the cash unless a tooth is properly clean and - oh yes - once left a note to explain the tooth only earned 10p due to poor dental hygiene since the last visit).

Perhaps, being up at three is because I am on shifts though and struggle to sleep after.

I said fairweather Christian to highlight the difference between her and churchgoing mil, but realise now I didn't explain that in op.

Ultimately though is it not a bit oversensitive of mil to feel the need to comment uninvited?

I think Halloween has become very Americanised in recent years - it wasn't a thing when I was younger - it was more about bonfire night and penny for the guy ! (Showing age!)

To me Halloween is another commercial opportunity for selling stuff - how many pumpkins get carved and wasted ? Banners and costumes ? Having to buy sweets for the inevitable tick or treaters?
If you enjoy it - great ! Fill your boots . But please do t expect everyone to buy into yet another commercial con .

We take the tooth fairy more seriously than Halloween in my house (the fairies are demanding and don't cough up the cash unless a tooth is properly clean and - oh yes - once left a note to explain the tooth only earned 10p due to poor dental hygiene since the last visit).

Stealing this!

We eat out Pumpkins. Pumpkin soup, curry pie, seeds. It's a really versatile vegetable. We reuse decorations and mostly craft them anyway.

I don't see what's offensive about that? Same approach for Christmas too.

Never said it's offensive! Calm down love. !

But most pumpkins sit and rot - I use lots
Of butternut squash in my cooking but I would wager 90% pumpkins sold for Halloween get wasted .
It's just got bigger and bigger and it's fine - it's fun - if it's
Your thing !

Caveat is if it's not
Your thing - that's fine too !

I'm sure some.people waste it. But we don't, happily get through the ones we use so it's a moot point.

I mean, I don't agree with overuse of plastic Christmas Tat but wouldn't bring that up to someone who had decorated their house like that. I would be wrong to anyway as most people reuse stuff for years.

I feel it's a bit like if we invited ourselves down at Christmas and then made snide comments about going to church.

Not comparable to bring your mother-in-law's religion into it. You both celebrate Christmas.

She doesn't celebrate Halloween, but you clearly celebrate your own highly commercial version of Halloween. I don't think it's insensitive to offer an opinion on that.

@unibrand People who turn up to Church only on high days and holidays ARE fairweather Christians, arent they? ir "culturally Christian" as opposed to practising Christian. They turn up for sentimental reasons eg Christmas tradition, wanting nice wedding photos, giving their kids "proper" godparents (who then do absolutely nothing toward fulfilling the true role of godparenting). Not because there is any real intent to live a life in faith.

I feel it's a bit like if we invited ourselves down at Christmas and then made snide comments about going to church.

Not comparable to bring your mother-in-law's religion into it. You both celebrate Christmas.

She doesn't celebrate Halloween, but you clearly celebrate your own highly commercial version of Halloween. I don't think it's insensitive to offer an opinion on that.

How is dressing up in second hand, reused or homemade costumes and having a pumpkin per child highly commercialised?

@HappyHalloweenWeenies - I am not a fan of pumpkin but I did make pumpkin soup when DS was younger out of the middle bit. And when they are young I don't see any harm in a day when they can do a bit of dressing up and have my very badly baked bat biscuits. I think most grow out of it very quickly & where I live most ( and it only if the house is decorated ) go trick or treating with parents.

I am not sure I see why Halloween nowadays is anti Christian - it's a mainstream ( and yes commercialised ) thing but if it an excuse for young children to have a party or do some decorations - well my view is just do it. I did some pumpkins and decorations for Ds when he was young - I even made him a vampire cloak out of an old velvet skirt. Not once did we conjure up the devil. 😊

Oh come on! You not seen all the costumes in Tesco? The pumpkin picking? The decorations in the shops? The sweets at 4 x the normal price ? You can sit and say your Halloween is lovely homemade and ethical but the majority isnt - it a about plastic tat , fake cobwebs that kill insects and birds , and wasted pumpkin. Don't pretend it isn't !

It certainly sounds that way from your posts; parties, sanitised version, TV, and so on. Sounds different to our more Samhain-like local village celebrations.

No you don't sound over sensitive at all, OP. My mistake .

But all that applies to Christmas too, so I do not see why it is relevant, especially as mil objection is not to commercial aspect.
It's a straw man.

I'm still 100% with you OP. We find it far less commercial than Christmas or Easter - kids take a single sweet and seen as very poor form to take more (although have seen a few older ones swiping a handful).

We have our boxes of "Halloween tat" in the attic similar to Christmas except for Halloween it is mostly home made. My favourite is the string of paper pumpkins DD1 made age 3, i cut them out and she drew wobbly little faces on them. As my DD is now older we do have some decs she has purchased with her birthday money.

Most years we save large delivery boxes so we can craft some big decs for the garden, which go soggy and get dumped.

I'm hopeless with pumpkin recipes to be honest though. Weird nothingy vegetable but I persevere - this year have a promising recipe for a garlicky lentil pumpkin soup and I think I'll try and make some kind of dhal or curry too.

I have tried to avoid the waste by growing my own but omg having a pumpkin patch is like inviting the Triffids to stay. I was out doinking flowers at dawn to pollinate the useless things. And then they rewarded me by romping all over the patio. My best two grew into the ornamental borders... DH unimpressed by lack of garden discipline. This year I bought them from Lidl.

Samhain is not the celebration of evil. I doubt any village halls are doing anything more radical than treats, lanterns and disco music.

Halloween is a traditionally Celtic pagan festival.

Midwinter/Solstice also had a festival.

The church decided to adapt the winter solstice festival into the celebration of the birth of Christ. Who was born at another time in the year.

So I do think there's a comparable comment about Christmas possible. And it's relevant in this case. I'd not both making it though because I can almost guarantee it not going down well.

MIL should keep her mouth shut if she didn't want to be around you celebrating something you said you'd be celebrating. SIL is probably a bit jealous and fascinated because she's probably never been much involved in Halloween.

Ignore the comments and enjoy your fun!

PS love that you use the pumpkin. True it's American (in Scotland we used turnips - try fatiguing one of them!), but you're not leaving it outside to rot on the front doorstep like most in my neighbourhood!

Pumpkins (the larger variety) do need a lot of space to grow, in my experience.

@feindVicarInATutu you don't happen to know if fake cobwebs will kill the Box caterpillars in my front garden do you? (Unexpected bonus)

@MrsMinted that sounds.lovely about the pumpkin strings. We have similar.
I think buying pumpkins is safer anyway as I read if home grown can get a disease that makes them inedible!
Persevere with the pumpkin recipes, curries work really well because coconut milk adds a sweet creaminess that really compliments it.

Yep everything has been commercialised to fucki g plastic tat death for sure .

But Halloween wasn't a thing here - as thanksgiving isn't.

Yku asked for opinion to be kept to oneself but then post on Mumsnet ?

My opinion is do what you like - but it's a cheapo plastic tat filled extortion akin to Valentine's Day , it's a
Commercial wet dream . It's not a
Celebration of anything. It's a tacky Americanism and if you enjoy that fine - but do t expect everyone else to .

I do buy the overpriced sweets and I do
Answer the door but I can fully appreciate why some people sit in the dark and dont want 50 random kids knocking for sweets or money .

I think those posters critiquing the op are worse than the judgemental mil.