To think my MIL is wrong?

[Bluemonkey18]

I was talking with gf mother (61) about carving pumpkins and she said that they didn't have pumpkins back in the 60s and instead carved turnips. She said they would put a candle inside and run around, rattling bins and scaring people. And that trick or treating wasn't a thing.

Haloween wasn't really a thing when i was young (in the late 70s/early 80s). Didn't carve pumpkins or go trick or treating. Didn't carve turnips either though...

In Scotland they carved turnips

I remember my mum winning a swede ina quiz in the late 80's quite near Halloween and we carved that. It was quite difficult to buy pumpkins in those days.

Yes, in Scotland it was turnips and guising. My parents did it and they're in their sixties!

She's right especially if Scottish.

Do you know how hard it is to get the middle out of a bloody turnip! You need to start a couple of days beforehand.

I'm 61 and we did turnips too, in Lancashire 😁

No trick or treating when I was growing up in the seventies and early eighties. I don't remember pumpkins being in evidence,but for some reason I do remember making a lantern out of a swede or a turnip.

I am a child of the 70s and 80s. Used to carve swedes. Pumpkins were absolutely not a thing.
Trick or treating wasn't a thing. We used to do apple bobbing and eat a toffee apple.
What do you mean, you think she is wrong? That her own lived reality is not in fact true?

Yep turnips were used

How can she be wrong about her own life 🤔

If she was born in 1963 or thereabouts I’d say her memory of the 1960s might not be entirely accurate . The fact is that in that era Hallowe’en wasn’t such a thing but also it’s a fact that turnips are extremely hard and pumpkins are soft.

It was always neeps in Scotland! And it was guising, not trick or treating.

It depends on where people live, my mum said they carved turnips and put candles inside in the 1960's and we did too in the 1980's and 1990's in NI. Halloween was always a big event. As kids (and even now) we really looked forward to it and planned our costumes.

I’m 43 and it was turnips. Never saw pumpkins in the shops until I was an adult

No treat or treating for me, growing up in the 70s. Guy Fawkes/bonfire night was a much bigger celebration for us. We didn’t do anything for Halloween.

My parents (71 & 69) talk about carving turnips and when they knocked on doors they had to tell a joke / sing a song / recite a poem to get their treat from the household. (Scotland)

We used swedes! I was just telling my kids about it while we were carving their soft easy pumpkins! My mum used to do three and used to have a blister on her hand after. I’m mid 40s.

I’m 48, live in Northern England and it was always turnips.

She's right. We used to carve swedes. Or rather a swede because once you have done one you don't have the energy to do two. They ard rock hard. Pumpkins weren't a thing.
Bonfire Night was amuch bigger deal.

I only recall trick or treating starting in the mid 1990's in the south east.

I'm 46 in ne England and turnips were carved. No one had pumpkins. We used to dress in decorated bin bags and Halloween hats made at school.

I’m 44 and halloween wasn’t anything like it it today. We carved swedes as children. Literally never saw a pumpkin growing up!!

And yes there was no trick or treating

Agreed. Your MIL isn’t wrong, she just has different experiences to you. It was commonplace to ‘carve’ swedes or turnips and Halloween wasn’t celebrated in the way it is now.

In the Midlands we carved turnips.

Or Swedes, actually.

We certainly did do Halloween. Dressed up. Apple Bobbing, that cherry in a flour cake game, ghost stories, and ‘murder in the dark’ in the garden with torches. Kids had Halloween parties.

But big pumpkins weren’t a thing. They weren’t on sale. And it wasn’t called trick or treating, we didn’t do that, but my Yorkshire cousins went ‘guising ’.