Do you prefer Halloween or Bonfire Night?

[LilyAB]

YABU - Halloween 🎃
YANBU - Bonfire Night💥

Halloween.me and dh love horror films and ds loves sweets.Win Win.

Love both, but bonfire just wins for me - less commercial, I guess as it's just the UK who celebrate?

Have to have a proper bonfire, not as bothered about fireworks, also definitely need parkin. We also always have a guy, normally with the face of our most hated politician - apologies to the squeamish!

Bonfire Night.

Probably stems back to when I was a kid, we never did anything for Halloween, I didn't care for trick or treating and there was less emphasis on dressing up, "picking" pumpkins that are randomly strewn around a field, decorating the house. Whereas we always went to a local bonfire/firework display, had sparklers and fountain (ie non bangy) fireworks at home.

I do get the concern for animals (we have pets) and wish people would stick to the one weekend but I really don't get the hype around Halloween - I don't think it's that fun - so it's still about Bonfire Night for me. Besides given the active drug running gangs and wedding venues around us, fireworks are going off every two minutes anyway.

Halloween. I love decorating the house, love horror films and DS really enjoys the dressing up!

When I first moved to the UK, I found bonfire night to be quite a puzzling, but quirky tradition. I remember thinking there's nothing more British than celebrating somebody who fucked up setting fire to a building.

Nowadays, however, I hate it. We often have idiots nearby setting them off on other random days (I don't understand why this isn't policed properly?!), disturbing our sleep and I do think that people with pets have a hard time, which to me seems unneccessary. To add to my killjoy credentials, I also don't think the environmental impact of fireworks can be justified anymore.

It’s my understanding that Samhain was the start/origins of Halloween. The Celtic festival signaled the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, which they associated with death. They’d light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts and evil spirits.

My dad’s family are Northern Irish, we had turnips instead of pumpkins and always celebrated.

We don’t do much for Bonfire Night, it seemed more of a thing when I was younger, my DD goes to the same school as Guy Fawkes did in York. It’s part of the history of this country but I think celebrating it has had its day.

@MummyJ12

Yes - I agree about Bonfire Night. I get annoyed about the Americanisation of Absolutely Everything, and that's one of my objections to Halloween, but really, I can't say I'd keen on the idea of burning a human effigy or celebrating either a massive explosion (which didn't happen) or the hanging, drawing and quartering of the conspirators either! And Bonfire Night is my sister's birthday, so I do have happy memories of fab bonfire parties with treacle toffee/baked potatoes/gingerbread etc when I was a child (lived on a farm).

But a lovely harvest and food-themed celebration would be wonderful - basically, Halloween minus the zombies and bloody make-up etc and with a bonfire added in if possible.

I get annoyed about the Americanisation of Absolutely Everything, and that's one of my objections to Halloween

As an Irish person, pretty much everything we do at Halloween nowadays goes back generations, in some form or another.

This idea of 'Americanisation' seems vastly overstated to me. The Irish and Scot's took their customs over to the US as immigrants. They've been continuing them in their own countries ever since.

Hallowe’en. I’ve never been a big bonfire night person (don’t like the crowds and too many fireworks). And now I do Halloween a lot more I don’t have any energy by bonfire night anyway!

I get annoyed about the Americanisation of Absolutely Everything, and that's one of my objections to Halloween

Its Scottish and its Irish and the Americans (and English) copied us.

I was reading up on the first "American" style Halloween celebrations - apparently they actually started in Canada.
So blame them.
🇨🇦
😂

Trick or treat is not a new thing. I'm 33 and we did it as kids, so I don't know why people are suddenly annoyed by it.

My mother is 81 and went trick or treating as a child in Ireland. Admittedly the term 'trick or treat' wasn't used back then but they dressed up in costumes and went door to door collecting sweets (I think a lot of apples and nuts featured too) in exchange for a joke or a song.

I don’t do either although we did do bonfire night when the kids were small . Christmas is really the only thing I do with any relish and I’m already looking forward to having the tree up .