Candles and Halloween

[Chimbos]

Out trick or treating with my kids this evening. I stay right next to them as they are quite little and on quite a few doorsteps there were real lit tealights inside pumpkins. I do realise that the chances are low but soooo many kids wear those super flammable dresses and it would just take a kid bending down near a pumpkin with a large mouth and a candle pushed next to it for the dress to go up in flames. Perhaps I’m being paranoid but AIBU to nudge people towards either using LED tealights or keeping the pumpkins out of reach of children?

@Miyagi99

Keep your kid’s flammable costumes away! I know what to do next Halloween!

I hope you're not implying what I think you are.

My mother was a nervous wreck during that time. Her mother died as a result of an accident lighting the open fire in her living room. It happened before I was born.

@mitogoshigg

great, if they're bumped tipping boiling hot wax onto heads of children.. fabulous! 🙄🙄

A couple of battery operated candles or tea lights that can be used for many years, is barely going to have an impact on the environment & expensive???? £4 for 5 in Dunelm & cheaper in discount stores.

How many more are going to mention Claudia Winkleman's kid?

It's odd how nobody gave a shit until the child of a celebrity got burn injuries.

Well you can use them year after year, all year round, so not exactly the worst thing any of us does to the environment.

@yeaitsmeagain they're a couple of quid for a few. Hardly going to break the bank if you can afford a pumpkin & sweets to hand out.

a tiny amount to pay to keep kids safe.

I find the 'well I'm not buying special lights' self-righteous attitude absolutely bizarre from people who are buying pumpkins (and going to the effort of carving them) and buying sweets to hand out to the kids they're tempting onto their property with the pumpkins.

Yes it might be a small risk, but it's a risk with utterly horrific consequences if it does go wrong, and a totally avoidable one.

As for people naively thinking that fancy dress outfits are fire retardant. Maybe some are. But online retailers such as Amazon sell all manner of stuff that's dangerous / not up to British code / downright unsafe. It gets reported, they ban it and the next day the seller pops up again with a slightly different description but the same product.

@Thepurplecar

well said 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

it's scaring my the bloody awful attitudes of some people.

I hope your friends child had a lovely time 🎃👻

@Appalonia

then you don't have very good recall.

plus a few candles in a home environment are much easier to be mindful of than candles set on the ground on a night where kids are excited and jostling around at the front doors of houses.

Do you not remember the 'safety clips' of children in nightwear near candles??

You think its odd that more of the public are aware of something after someone led a successful public awareness campaign?

Bless!

Another reason to not put a pumpkin out & encourage 'trick or treaters'

I’m surprised at the voting here too. It’s a genuine concern and one that’s occurred to me too. I always use LED lights in pumpkins for this reason. Why wouldn’t you?

Sure, real candle flames are nice, but they shouldn’t be placed anywhere close to small children.

There are some really dumb people on this thread. I bet they don't believe in using child car seats because
"I'm not spending money on those fings! People didn't use them in the 70s and we was all fine."

Trick or treat is essentially begging with menace.
If you want to attract kids following this American 'tradition' then do away with traditional carved swedes and use pumpkins, candles might be considered traditional, but pumpkins and trick or treating certainly aren't.
Pick your battles - if you want kids to do the trick or treat thing, put decorations out etc, but at least make it safe for the kids.
Personally, we turned all the outside lights off and shut the curtains.

🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm way too busy injecting drugs into lollies to go buy fake candles.

I’m on the fence with this tbh.

On one hand I think it’s a bit cheeky to expect people to use LEDs rather than ensuring children are properly supervised, or wearing outfits that aren’t highly flammable.

Children are exposed to plenty of hazards every time they leave the house. Take a children’s playground for example, kids could easily fall off a climbing frame and sustain a serious head injury if they weren’t careful. We don’t insist that climbing frames are ripped up because Janet can’t be arsed watching her child carefully. It’s up to parents to keep their children safe.

I’ve lived in quite a few areas, one that was very popular with trick or treaters, and we’ve never had “hordes” of kids squeezing past each other on paths so maybe my experiences colour my opinion.

FWIW, I always use LED lights anyway because my DC have additional needs and candles are just too dangerous. Anywhere.

So I do understand why people think they’re risky and why they prefer LED candles.

I think my issue is expecting home owners to alter their behaviour rather than suggesting that parents don’t buy flammable tat, and actually supervise their child properly.

We love Halloween and do pumpkins etc but we don’t put them out now as my DC don’t cope with people knocking on the door. Suggesting other people can’t participate in Halloween because you won’t properly supervise your child seems unreasonable.

Some people may feel unhappy at buying plastic candles from an environmental perspective. And yes you can reuse them…but every year I end up rebuying more as I can never find the ones from the last year! Not everyone will want to do that - and I think that’s their choice, tbh.

I wouldn’t dream of using real candles as they’ve never felt safe to me (but I’m also very fucking clumsy…). I worry about them being knocked over, blown over etc. But I think that’s my decision to make. I wouldn’t be impressed if someone told me that I couldn’t use what I wanted on my property. If you don’t like others using candles and don’t want to supervise your child, don’t let them go trick or treating. Plenty of other ways to celebrate Halloween 🤷‍♀️

😂😂😂

Just disguise a few pills as Smarties, much less effort…. 😂😂

(Obviously I’m joking. I wouldn’t waste my pills…)

Totally agree with this. I think it's irresponsible of people to put a real flame in a pumpkin, knowing that young children are standing so close in costumes. Of course I supervised my DC to ensure they didn't get too close but it's an accident waiting to happen in my opinion.

The vast majority of pumpkins we saw tonight had LED lights inside, any with tea lights were placed well away from doorways. But I think it's good to make kids aware to be careful around them just in case.

This. I've always used real candles, no dc have ever come to any harm.

Why is the onus on households to buy plastic and use batteries unnecessarily and its not for parents to buy appropriate clothing?

I’m both btw.

Please advise where you're buying this appropriate clothing, because all the Halloween outfits at Asda and Sainsbury's, for example, at £15 or £16 each are marked as 'keep away from fire and flame' and tested to TOY flammability standards.

Genuinely, if you know somewhere that's selling fancy dress costumes that are made up to clothing standards please let me know so I can buy them when my DS is old enough.

@RedHelenB And that's all well and good, until it's not. Have you ever seen how flammable fabric burns? It melts, and drips, and sticks and continues to burn, and you can't just pat it out or roll it out because of the melting and dripping and sticking.

The bottom line is that the law should change so producers and retailers have to apply clothing fire standards to fancy dress outfits, but in the meantime I find it quite bizarre that the hill people will die on is their right to put real flames around flammable costumes. If you don't want to spend £1 on an LED candle then simply don't take part in Halloween at all, surely.

I put a small torch in the pumpkin.

I do realise that the chances are low but soooo many kids wear those super flammable dresses and it would just take a kid bending down near a pumpkin with a large mouth and a candle pushed next to it for the dress to go up in flames.

If the candle is inside the pumpkin, the child would have to sit next to it poking their clothing through its orifices for this to happen.

If the dress is so super-flammable, should the child be wearing it at all?