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

Hard to avoid when even if you have no decorations, your doorbell is rung 20 times.

@Meowandthen

There's been guisers at my door with neep lanterns tonight.

Every kid has done a party piece or a joke for their Halloween.

At a Halloween party last night there was dooking for apples, treacle scones, dipping for donuts and other traditional games and bannocks to eat.

Maybe it's American in your part of Little Englandshire but it's pretty traditional in my bit of Scotland.

Turn off the doorbell? Don't answer the door?
I thought MNetters standard position was not to answer a door after dusk anyway 😂

I like the celebrations, and have no problem with lots of pumpkins (though can't see the appeal of a muddy field). Halloween disco raises money for school and kids love trick or treating (only to houses with decorations).

But I wish people would think of the environment. We have homemade decorations (sheet ghosts) and costumes from vinted, but looking around at piles of plastic tat really depresses me. All the fake cobwebs trap birds, and plastic tat that will end up in landfill etc. I wish people would consider the environment more but most people don't seem to care.

I’m always surprised when people say they didn’t have Halloween as kids, we definitely did. We got dressed up and went trick or treating and had parties every year, with apple bobbing and spooky food and games. This was in the early 1980’s.

As for my own kids, now teenagers, I have spent maybe £50 on it in the last decade…. there is definitely more tat in all the shops, which you can just walk past. You don’t need to spend a lot for children to enjoy it.

I have used those fake websites for the past 5 years. Inside only, so no wildlife is harmed. They are good for draping around pictures and sticking plastic spiders to.

We've had a lot a of Halloween fun, carved pumpkins, put up decorations, gone trick or treating. We're not hard up and I'm happy to help out the economy in exchange for my children enjoying themselves.

We used to do duck apple, trying to get a bobbing apple with only your mouth and snap apple, apples hanging from a string and grabbing it, no hands involved.
Trick or treat was unheard of. I didn't know what it was until I watched E.T.

I said this today. Lots of
plastic tatt to fill the gap between summer and Christmas.

I wish everyone else did. The amount of discarded plastic on the road in the estate near us is shocking.

I've never participated in it and when my kids were small, I refused to allow them to participate in it either.
One minute I'm telling them not to accept sweets etc from strangers, the next I'm encouraging them to demand sweets or money with menaces.
No thanks.

YANBU

the consumerism, crap and shite for one minor one evening event is beyond ridiculous

I am glad my kids are teens so I can just ignore it entirely.

the endless plastic crap is depressing though

EVERYTHING is more commercialised these days. Just compare Christmas now to when your grandparents were your age, I'm sure you spend more, decorate more, socialise more. It's just the way of the world.

I didn't fall for it 🤷🏻‍♀️

I am 50 and we did guising, apple dooking , turnip lanterns but it was in no way comparable to all the crap there is now!

I wish everyone else did. The amount of discarded plastic on the road in the estate near us is shocking.

This is sad, the decorations we have were either made by the kids or bought, but we like seeing them again each year. But then some people change their Christmas decorations with the wind as well. I love our mismatched tree with all the special baubles that everyone has chosen or made.

We love a pumpkin patch but they only cost £2-4 each and you get to cut the pumpkins off the plants that are growing in the ground. They're the same farms that do sunflower fields in the summer, so we get to see the young pumpkin plants too.
We reuse decorations, make costumes from things we already have, carve the pumpkins and then make them into soup.
It doesn't have to be overly commercialised.

Yep. They never learn 😂 and yes it was turnips and binbags when I was a child but I don't begrudge mine a costume and a pumpkin.

I remember us spending half a school day every year with a turnip and a Stanley knife from the age of 7 on 😂 We brought our own turnip, the teacher handed out the knives.

Who cares if its changed...Celebrations and traditions evolve... how long was Christmas celebrated before the Christmas tree became a thing?

Your friend spent £100 on Halloween?! Wow!! That’s her choice but not the norm. I took my son to a pumpkin patch and spent £10 on a pumpkin, hot chocolate and a decoration. He enjoyed having pictures, pushing a willbarrow etc. We save decorations for the next year. He dressed as hulk in a costume he already had one.
He loves Halloween and no one is forcing people to spend money!

Historically, Halloween has been celebrated in Scotland for centuries.
It is a bit of fun in the dark nights.
We have had delightful children call tonight. All happy, delighted to get their cupcakes or sweets or fruit. Very grateful parents too.
We have a pumpkin and some decorations my kids made out of cardboard and sugar paper years ago.
It is a bit of fun.

I grew up in NI. We went to town on Halloween every year.

Back to 2023 and we've just hosted a party for the kids and pretty much everything we did was in line with what we used to do 35 years ago. I
see no issue. Traditions are important

That's exactly how I feel about it!

I’m in the US and it’s very different here. In the UK, it seems like just an excuse for teens to commit antisocial behaviour instead of a fun community thing like it is here.

The little kids are so cute in their costumes and the only other people who do it are college students/young adults who go to parties or planned events at bars.

My DC have had a great time, they absolutely love Halloween so we make quite a big deal of it. The only money I spent this year was on sweets to give out. We grew our own pumpkins and reused all the costumes and decorations.