For not having alternatives for trick or treaters?

[mummydoris2006]

Last night we had lots of kids trick or treating and was very busy answering the door. It was lovely to see all the different costumes and all the excited kids but at around 7pm we sat down to eat our tea so didn't want to be disturbed.

I decided to leave a bowl of mini haribo and squashems out next to the pumpkins and also inserted some lollipops into a pumpkin too. I figured that way the parents could see they were lollies and could decide if their kids were allowed them and also the younger kiddies had already been earlier on in the night.

Around 7.30pm there was a knock on the door and I answered to find a woman and her son stood on the doorstep. She said she knocked to tell me the bowl was empty! I was a bit taken aback and thanked her for letting me know and said her son was welcome to help himself to a lolly instead, it was at that point she said he wasn't really allowed lollies so she'd knocked for an alternative!!!!!

I explained there was no alternatives if the bowl was empty, and she stomped off in a huff. Even though my DC is too old to trick or treat we still put out pumpkins and welcome trick or treaters but surely, we're now not expected to have a never-ending supply of sweets!?!

I did put a label on the lid saying when they're gone they're gone.

There's kind of an unwritten agreement in my local area that you only tick or treat houses that have pumpkins and/or decorations so if you rubbing of sweets you take your decorations down - of there is a bowl you certainly don't knock and ask for something else!

Bless, that's an adorable memory for an 18th birthday

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I don't like Halloween but went through the motions for my kids and now grandkids. I'd got in some little chocolate bars in case the local kids came round, but no sign of any so I went and had a bath.My daughter came in from work and several groups of kids came round.She couldn't find the sweets so gave them a bag of Tony's mini bars( bit expensive chocs) that my other daughter had given me after I'd had her kids at the weekend so she could meet her husband ( working overseas) in Holland. I ate the Freddie frogs instead.

It's only a poor estate here but I can't imagine any bad manners from crazy mums...what a cheek!

I'm absolutely snort laughing reading this thread - the CF brigade know no bounds!
We had a lovely evening on our little estate, we were very busy but all the kids were lovely & not greedy at all. I was panicking that I was running low on sweets but we had our last visitor at 7.30 then the heavens opened.
Shame I missed Babooshka's responses, she seemed to be on a roll!

I was going to do this but forgot to buy satsumas 🙈 my kids would have loved it! My youngest chose a pack of raisins at one house 😂

@FelicityBeedle I did this too! Thought it was a cute option to put out with the sweets,
I made them into little pumpkins. Mixed responses according to the ring doorbell footage, lots of kids actually liked them and took them instead, then there were a few who were actually moaning that I'd put an orange in the sweet bowl 🙄 little....darlings

We live in a predominantly Indian area, we buy sweets every year but no one comes. We now have a massive bucket of lollies.

When I was a kid in the 60's, there was trick and treating as we had many american servicemen with their kids as neighbours.
In those days, trick and treating was new to brits, but as a young british kid I went along with my US friends, but secretly felt that T and T was a real con. I do not think any adults accompanied us, it was children only.
The american family houses were all into it but the british homes greeted us with confusion but politely gave us cash as they had no sweets, cakes or drinks to give us. I found it was all very embarassing, but of course, was happy to take my 'cut'.

I have always disliked this strange american import. Americans really like Halloween and treat it as a great fun party day. I have spent it in the USA and there are all sorts of haunted house events to go to, and I really don't do gruesome.

I think that the woman at the door was very rude, she may have expected some cash for her little precious, and was acting as some sort of enforcer. She would have got a 'F* off' from me.

Someone stole our sweets & the pumpkin. Found it smashed further down the road next morning.

I have always disliked this strange american import

We exported Halloween to America, not the other way around.

Have you heard of Scotland? Ireland? NI? Northumberland? All places where Halloween has a centuries long history. When people started emigrating to American, they took their traditions with them.

I was in a restaurant on Monday and two CF kids with brass necks came in off the street, marched from table to table with their bucket barking Trick or Treat and then left. It was all done at speed, like those steaming robberies on public transport.

@Gingernan oh no, your posh chocolate! Although I wonder if the Freddos were just as nice...

It was not new to Brits. Might have been new to the English, is that what you meant?

Reply to WeepingSomnambulist.
Trick or Treat
No. As a child I had lived in london, Sunderland, an RAF base in Cambridgeshire, and then Godmanchester before I was 11. I then moved to an area with american families before I knew of Trick and Treat, which was very much an American family thing. Are you trying to say that it was common in Scotland, Wales or Ireland in the 60's? I find that difficut to believe. You may be right.

Well my cheeks are burning now - were you in S Lane ? We added satsumas to a bowl generously loaded with chocolate spiderman lollipops, sweets and chocolate bars and mr kipling halloween fancies as a kindness in case of some children having allergies or sensitivities or having parents who wanted options - cheeky ? They came out of our food delivery as a kind consideration - not next year now

Are you trying to say that it was common in Scotland, Wales or Ireland in the 60's? I find that difficut to believe. You may be right.

Well, I can't speak for Wales or Ireland (although I suspect I know the answer because they share many of our Celtic traditions) but I can absolutely assure you that Halloween is traditional in Scotland (it goes back for hundreds of years) and that it is not an American import. When I was young in the 60s/70s, we called it "guising" not "trick or treating", got dressed up and went from door to door with a song, joke or poem etc for which we got sweeties, peanuts and oranges etc in return. There were also fun Halloween activities like dooking for apples (trying to get an apple from a water-filled basin with your teeth), catching treacle scones hanging in front of you with your teeth, and carving lanterns out of turnips/swedes. It's a bit more American in flavour now here but still a Scottish tradition.

I do wish English people would not assume that England = Britain..

Im from North England and my mam never let me take part... everyone else did though.

I was once allowed to go bobbing with a club I was in, its very hard to catch an apple on a rope with only your teeth but fun lol.

It's been going on on Scotland for hundreds of years. I think the most famous reference is Robert Burns writing a poem about it.
We call it guising, as in "diguise". My great aunt used to talk about doing it when she was a child. My grandparents talked about it. My parents still talk about it.

It was a Celtic thing. Irish and Scots have been doing it for hundreds of years. The irish took it to america and Canada and they call it trick or treating.

Why do you find it hard to believe that people in scotland and Ireland and northern ireland weren't doing it 50/100/200 years ago? It came from us. We gave it to america.

*were doing it

My grandparents grew up in Northumberland and were out Halloweening in the early 50s when they were children.

of course it was in the UK before America and I went T &T once or twice in Scotland as a young child, plus there was a small school Halloween disco. But it was still relatively low key for the past few decades. I think the point is Americans took it and made it a far bigger and commercialised event that a lot more older kids and adults get involved with - - adult Halloween parties, front door decorations etc . It’s like they expanded and revamped it to suit their hyper capitalistic, “larger than life” culture and then exported the Americanised version back over here in which is the version that now dominates.

Yes, it was rude.
But, the "rule" is to shut the lights etc when you are no longer/not giving giving candy.

@Notwellatall yes the Freddos were much nicer, I feel a bit sorry for the kids but I'm sure they had a great evening!