TW...to think celebrating Halloween and horror is outrageous

[Mamabear04]

TW for talking about the tragic accident that happened in Edinburgh yesterday evening.

I just don't understand why people celebrate Halloween or indulge in horror when the reality of it is just so awful. I mean there is enough horror in the world why would anyone want to celebrate violence and death? I know a lot of people will say that you can celebrate it in a happy way with nice costumes with songs, poems and sweets but at the heart of it, it does celebrate death and gore otherwise why would all the merch be skeletons and ghosts etc? That poor man in Edinburgh and his poor family and all the people who thought that the horrific incident was a Halloween prop. Why are people so disconnected from the reality of what it truly represents? I'm pretty sure hardly anyone celebrates Halloween as in the true sense of Samhaim as with other cultures with similar traditions. Everywhere I've looked for the past month just seems gore and death. Lots of people I follow on Instagram posting dress up of their kids in horror centred costumes and then in the next story it's about how awful all the death and destruction in Gaza. It just seems to bizarre to me. AIBU to just think with all the news, images, films at our finger tips that people just don't have a sense of the reality of things? That people are so numb to it?

Right like Easter isn't creepy, a man returning from the dead?
How about Valentine's Day - named after St Valentine. Do you know what happened to him?

Humanity has always been morbid- Halloween is a fairly healthy way of processing morbid curiosity.

Poor that man! I hope I'm never decapitated, but if I am, I don't want anyone to stop celebrating anything on my account. There's enough actual doom and gloom in the world (as you quite rightly pointed out OP), without stopping the fun things which provide a little respite.

Save your anger for the murderer perhaps?

The Catholic church wasn't limited to the British Isles in the 9th century, so how do you explain that?

There are loads of festivals all over the world that are basically a temporary reversal of the normal order of things. Humans like novelty and boundary-breaking, especially the types where everything will be safely back to normal in a few hours....

Explain what?

Why do you believe the universal church changed a date to fit with a specific British isles/celtic festival, why do you think it was all about here? Catholics are in many countries.

As a child in the 80s in England I appear to have had exactly the same experience of Halloween as you. It was definitely a thing.

Halloween was also huge in the US well before the Simpsons. Think about the film E.T.!

I think they possibly would have.

I had that unfortunate bad luck to witness a similar incident many years ago. Someone passing came very very very close to picking up a body part as they thought it was a prop from a play or the like.

They vomited a lot when they realised it wasn't just a very realistic prop and, tbh, have never truly been completely the same since.

Well, I believe it because it is is universally believed by historians.

The Catholic Church wanted to convert pagan populations and, as the Roman empire spread, it aligned its holidays with pre-existing festivals celebrated by the local populace.

Why do you think the Church moved All Saints Day from its original May 13 date?

I wouldn't get drawn in. This poster also believes those celebrating Diwali should just light a candle until Bonfire Night and enjoy thr fireworks for a completely different festival then.

They're either ignorant or stirring the pot because they're bored. Don't waste your energy.

And Bonfire Night too!

Ah, thanks - I suspected they were trolling but it's hard to tell.

I appreciate the honesty of Bonfire Night. Everybody is upfront about the history.

Unlike certain Christian holidays.

It is. Some very offensive things posted tonight tbh, I'm surprised they're still going. Obviously got an axe to grind, which is a shame because it's an otherwise interesting discussion.

@SpoonHeader

Wait till you find out about Christmas.

Less traumatic than Easter 🤣

I think you’ve tried to shoehorn a tragedy into a Mumsnet thread under the guise of something else, so you weren’t called out for wanting to gossip about it. Which is pathetic really.

This. OP What you've described sounds like a massive fuck up for those involved.
Halloween is mainly based around kids. It's fun and harmless. It always has been for kids. They're not going to pick up a decapitated head and jolly about with it.
Also, some of us adults enjoy the spooky season. Which is equally okay. We're not summoning Hitler on Ouija boards.
This example was vile and unusual. Things like that don’t happen every year.
Again, it's mainly about kids dressing up, trick or treating and having decorations up.
Can you not separate the two?
There are teenage or younger balaclava'd idiots wreaking havoc up and down the country on a daily basis for a very long time now - smashing people's windows, physically attacking adults in the streets, intimidating, stealing, even setting houses on fire and the police won't come out. Now that is fucking scary. You can't draw a line between one thing you've posted about given the weight of the rest of life.

Also this exactly

It was an accident

Wrong.

One thing that gets on my wick is an ignorant foreigner talking about someone else's culture, and getting it wrong.

The secular aspect of Halloween is from the Irish and Scots (guising, kids going from door to door). Souling is the religious practice (once done by the English).

From The Irish Times:

"When the Catholic Church arrived they were keen on stamping out all the old Celtic traditions, so they changed the festival name and called it their own. Samhain became All Soul’s Day or All Hallows Day, and the day before became All Hallows Eve, which eventually shortened to Halloween.

On this now Christian holiday for honouring the dead, poor people would go from house to house begging for the delicious sounding ‘soul cake’ in exchange for prayers for deceased relatives. This was known as ‘souling’.

A few decades later a practice called ‘guising’ was in full swing in Scotland and Ireland. Short for ‘disguising’, children would go out from door to door dressed in costume and rather than pledging to pray, they would tell a joke, sing a song or perform another sort of “trick” in exchange for food or money."

Guising is what every kid does at Halloween. The phrase (or interjection) said at the door is then added on top of guising.

And using a pumpkin rather than a turnip (which I had used) is a minor substitution. The practice of carving scary faces on a vegetable is the custom.

I didn't realize there was any suggestion of murder?

Fun for kids but personally don't like it.. skeletons coming out of coffins ..horrible and that white cotton wool stuff peeps put on their gardens can trap birds & insects..

Feel it's migrated from America and is all about 🤑

The Edinburgh incident sounds truly appalling, I'd not heard about it.

I like the old fashioned halloween - ghosts, pumpkins, apple bobbing, tricks or treat.

I dislike the 'horror'ification of it ie gore, chain sawed heads, dripping blood etc. I hate windows decorated with fake blood handprints and 'help me' written in blood etc. Too close to real events eg Joseph Fritzel etc. My dc are young and it's frightening. My eldest dc won't look at the Halloween aisle in the supermarket with scary costumes on it. All too much.