To think Halloween is just another massive marketing ploy we've all fallen for.

[Blwean]

Reading this article today https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/30/halloween-boo-basket-useless-clutter?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1HhG1J-mqf1zU7ss8lxMCkNwsMJVTKudjgEt4auGVFrS8qwKuIUUUBmQc#Echobox=1698686636

Apparently Halloween spending is set to surpass £1bn in the UK this year for the first time and shops have been making a concerted effort since 00s to introduce more products and use social media influencers to push them.

Then there's pumpkin patches. Basically fields where people place pumpkins as there's none actually growing there and people pay silly prices to go and take pictures for Instagram. A friend of mine paid £50 to take her and DCs to one of these places then she's shelled out £20 on each of them for costumes and over £30 on decorations. It's her business what she spends on but just last month she was complaining about cost of living.

I'm all for celebrating Halloween but it's just about spending more and more money each year. The Instagramisation of it has ruined it and everyone just blindly spends loads on costumes they'll use once and other meaningless tat. Its the shops cashing in and we're all just like sheep who follow the marketing and influencers so we spend more

My parents were guising 60 years ago, in costumes with carved turnips. It's absolutely nonsense to suggest it's a recent Americanisation and shows a total level of ignorance.

I'd like to try but don't want to risk losing a finger 😥

to me it’s just plastic shit going straight to landfill and hardly helping with childhood obesity

Patronising much? Read what I actually posted.

My Dad (*Swede Carver General) would have fallen to his knees in thanks for the availability of a pumpkin. I think it was his most hated job of the year.

*I know there is a swede/turnip regional divide in terminology.

No, it goes in the loft, like Christmas decorations and kids don't get fat on one evening eating sweets

It's origins are Celtic ( that's Irish, Scottish and English)
Americans and Canadians have adopted Halloween in a big way, but Halloween traditions actually come from 16th-century Ireland, Scotland and England. The tradition of Halloween on 31 October comes from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.

The bah humbugging starts earlier every year. 🤦‍♀️
There are already moaning threads about Christmas.
Take part or don't.
Can we stop adding miserable sentiment?
🤷‍♀️
I think, especially after the peak of the covid pandemic, we all deserve a bit - a LOT - of fun and frivolity.
FWIW, of course.

You only knock on doors with pumpkins or decorations obviously

this is weird. I have the Nella Lasts War Diaries from WW2

she made such a huge song and dance about loving Halloween and grieving it when the war came and ruined plans...

she describes all sweets, parties, music, decorations etc etc

It's all done to celebrate the time when Frankenstein and the Witch rode on a ghost to Transylvania and had the little baby Pumpkin. We bob for apples because they were the gifts the three wise werewolves brought when they followed the magical bat. It's why men dress up as the characters in the story, and women dress up as cats because it takes the least effort and you can still look quite sexy.

Our village looks magical at Halloween with candlelight pumpkins and beautiful candles in all of the windows. Almost nicer than Christmas.
It is special especially for the children. There is not a blow up ghost in sight.

It’s not so magical in Asda I guess with more plastic destined for land fill.

Use one of those potato peelers that don't swivel. You can dig out chunks with the pointy end and then use the blade to shave out the inside. Much safer and easier.

The pumpkin patches don't offend me. It's a good way of farmers to make extra cash, pumpkins are biodegradable, you can eat them, the pictures on Insta are harmless.

What DOES offend me is the acres of plastic tat in the supermarkets and places like Home Bargains, and the idiots who put that fake cobweb on bushes despite warnings about how bad it is for birds. And they don't care because it's about "making memories with the famalam".

People spend money which is good for the economy and it's a bit of fun when it's started to get cold, miserable and dark.

My granny was buying me a Halloween cake (had little trinkets wrapped up inside it like a button/bell) and we had doockin for apples and pretending to fly on the kitchen brush (I’m laughing remembering it now) and that was 46/47 years ago. It’s just ended up more commercial because there’s more disposable tat to buy now but it’s always been a big thing for me since I was a kid, I love it!

I have no problem with people like farmers profiting from Halloween. There is too much plastic tat but I hope that it's reused the following year and costumes recycled to younger kids. I think ToT developed into a nice community activity- I'm at the stage of doling out sweets rather than going out with young trick or treaters and I've been lucky to only had polite kids knock.

I can't get too worked up about it. People spend their money on all kinds of non-essentials I would consider a waste, and I'm sure many would disagree with a good number of my purchases too. The important points for me are that it isn't forcing someone into debt, it is bringing them joy, and it isn't going to end up in landfill shortly after.

We spend around £20-25 per year on Hallowe'en. I usually buy costumes second hand in a size up for £5-ish, so DD1 can get 2 years out of it before passing it down to her sister, but this year spent £11 on a pair of skeleton PJs (still sized up!) instead as she needed some more and can use them for their intended purpose after tonight. I spent approx £7 on sweets this year, and usually spend £5-10 after Hallowe'en on discounted decorations to add to the collection for coming years. Some years DH might buy a pumpkin at the supermarket to carve, but this year he grew them. All in all, it definitely brings more than £25 of joy, so I'm happy to spend the money.
Easter is a similar cost FWIW: £8-10 egg x 2 DCs plus about £5 on tiny eggs to hide in the garden. If DH has been good (😬), I might get him a smaller token egg for under £5.

There is too much plastic tat but I hope that it's reused the following year and costumes recycled to younger kids

If that's the case, who is buying it new each year? There wouldn't be aisles of it in shops if it didn't sell. And things like those godawful fake webs cannot be reused.

Bobbing for apples, the sheet/torch/wet sponge game and scary sardines cost nothing.

Just turn the light down in the house and play spooky games. You don't have to buy any plastic tat at all. We get the same stuff out every year - a homemade broomstick (twigs obvs), homemade decs out of card and old material, bones and skulls we've found on the beach, a 'dead toe' I made out of wax and some of my hair.

The old homemade stuff is loads more scary. We've even got a brain in a jar that horrifies the kids (just a bit of cheap mince moulded into a ball)

You do know that you can reuse all the decorations, yes?
It’s been a delight here - happy, giggling children and meeting lots of local parents.

Traditionally it isn't. You can mark the traditional holiday or not.

Yes, fu*k the kids - don’t let them have any fun.

Meanie.