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?

I always count the cost of what it takes to store something and have it in my home, and it's never viable if it's a few hours use per year. I'd rather just not use any candles at all.

You don’t have to use an LED tea light though. Small torches work well too and come in useful otherwise.

I get where you're coming from, but I just love real flames. I've tried LEDs and they don't have the same atmosphere, so I'll continue to use them. Always good to teach kids about safety and being careful around naked flames though.

The Claudia Winkleman incident directed me towards battery tealights for outdoor decorations. Real candles indoors only.

I agree with pp that kids clothing should never be flammable (wtf at 80%!) though. Shame on companies that make this stuff

After Claudia winklemans daughter I switched to battery lights. I have the same pumpkin and string lights that I use every year

Definitely tea lights there

This is exactly what got me thinking about it. Someone with a very small doorstep had placed a large pumpkin with about 5 tea lights inside and the top chopped off. My daughter had to stand right next to it and even lean over it slightly to ring the doorbell. She was not wearing a skirt or anything floaty but we’d just passed a couple of boys with these cheap skeleton costumes with floaty bits dangling down. If their parents had stayed at the end of the driveway they probably wouldn’t have noticed the danger.

Not ideal but can you understand what you’re proposing?

You have potentially bought a costume that doesn’t meet fire safety standards. You have let a child walk up to a strangers house on their own without any sort of visual risk assessment yet you are expecting the home owner to mitigate ALL the risk for you by buying a plastic tea light and batteries, which are bad for the environment and unnecessary.

If you’re not happy with the risk, get a better outfit, go up to the door with them first, or just don’t go trick or treating.

No that's not the case as they not classed as clothing but as 'toys for dressing up' so they do not have to meet the safety standards for children's clothing.
Claudia winkelman was campaigning to get the law changed after her daughter suffered severe burns. I don't know if her campaign was successful worth checking children's fancy dress labels to see if it says 'keep away from fire'

Claudia Winkleman's daughter got burned from this and they have to be fire safe.

Though doesn't stop markets selling dodgy stuff.

@Cornercandy They don't have to be fire safe.

The majority of the Halloween outfits sold in supermarkets etc over the past few weeks have only passed TOY fire safety tests, not clothing ones. After Claudia's campaign a select few retailers voluntarily added extra checks but still not up to clothing quality (and I wouldn't be at all surprised if these have been quietly dropped since the good PR died away).

I simply can't understand people who would take even the tiniest risk of a child suffering life changing burns on their doorstep when the alternatives of a) battery candles or b) no candles at all are so easy to achieve.

To those who prefer 'the look' of a real candle, are you honestly sitting out in the street or in your garden all night looking at your house?

All you need to do is put the top of the pumpkin back on and don’t have huge holes for the eyes etc. Even if a costume draped right over our pumpkin the candle was separated by the pumpkin top.

It's probably actually very sensible advice: I hadn't thought about it when I put my pumpkin out, with a tea light inside it.

But there is a massive problem with any kind of "sensible" safety advice like this, which can explain some of the hostile responses: we are subjected to relentless "safetyism" ALL THE TIME, with about a hundred years' worth of it dumped on us in 2020 and 2021, via expensive government campaigns, which the prime minister knew was bullshit, so he and his staff ignored it. Whenever I hear any sort of "safety" message, especially since 2020, my first instinct is always to wave it aside with "yeah, whatever", as it's yet another spoonful of safetyism from the nanny state. The constant bombardment of safety messages means they lose their effectiveness.

And also, where do you draw the line? While you can mitigate risk, you can never entirely eliminate it. Should we not give out sweets to protect ourselves? One little girl trick or treating actually stepped inside my front door, while her mum was on her phone. I shooed her away at once, but should I then have worried about being accused of abducting her? Should I worry about being sued in case children choke on the sweets I give them? Should I worry about being sued if children trip over on my front path? Will parents sue us for the cost of dental treatment from all those sweets? Should I worry about children losing a valuable part of their costume between the cracks in my paving slabs? Etc. etc.

But by putting out lit pumpkins and Halloween decorations you are effectively inviting children onto your property…surely it’s a good idea to make sure it’s reasonably safe for them? Lit candles around young children are always going to be a hazard. Add in flimsy, trailing costumes - which, let’s face it, you know they are going to be wearing - and the risk is increased.

You don’t have to eliminate all risk, that’s impossible, but this is a fairly obvious one that is simple enough to make safe, surely?

If you’re worried about the environmental impact of the plastic use fairy lights that you’d also use at Christmas, or a torch, or nothing? Or just put the pumpkin with tea lights somewhere safer?

Parents get things wrong sometimes. There’s no harm in having their backs if we can, to prevent a child getting hurt.

Why do people keep saying they're bad for the environment? I can't find anything via Google to back this up, with various links saying that they're environmentally friendly and "greener" than real candles.

They’re made from plastic, use batteries, and plenty of cheap ones around that are made in China etc. Often the cheap ones break or corrode, or people just keep buying new ones instead of replacing the batteries as it’s cheaper/easier.

I don’t use real candles in our household, I use the LED plastic ones but I’m aware they’re not the most environmentally friendly choice.

Someone down my road had pumpkin shaped lights which I have seen in the middle of Lidl last year cost about £4 uses 2xAA batteries. She just put them round the door with sellotape for a few hours last night. Plus on the windows to the side of the front door battery operated light up pumpkins window decorations.

The other lights probably cost £3 each. Works out cheaper than a pumpkin overall over 6-7 years.

Plus all that pumpkin flesh gets binned. Carving pumpkin can be used for cooking.

Toys have to meet strict criteria to get the CE mark. I think the same should apply for children's fancy dress items.

Saying that, I have seen adults wear shite from Temu, and you can tell that will set alight fast near a naked flame too.

I’m really not doing that. I’m asking people not to invite children to knock on their door by placing a pumpkin with real flames in it right next to the place where they will be standing.

The homeowner doesn’t have to put a pumpkin out at all, or they could simply move the lit pumpkin to the side of their path or on a wall/windowsill.

I imagine most people who put pumpkins out actually like the interaction with children and don’t want them to go up in flames!

Don’t go out trick or treating then. People are paying good money for sweets and giving them to your kids. All you can do is criticise them. You sound so entitled and rude. Hopefully you weren’t at my house.

I think the OP is making a very important point.

This danger is not something that will have occurred or been obvious to everyone.

Hopefully a few people will take note of what OP is saying now, and maybe a child will be saved from a terrible accident as a result.

You can be as defensive as you like but I guarantee next Halloween you’ll think of this and make sure you don’t put any children in danger which is really all I wanted from this thread.

OP is not criticising or being rude. She is not saying people are terrible for using real candles. She is saying they may not have considered this risk, please do consider it next Halloween and swap to electric.

You have no right to ask anyone to do something different on their property, if you dont want your kids to accept the ‘invite’ of the pumpkin then you as the parent are responsible for saying ‘we’re not going to that house’. Good luck with that