Creeping Americanisation bothers me

[luckymumandnowluckygranny]

I know it’s silly to care, but creeping Americanisation bothers me. I love the differences - it makes going on holiday over there so exciting - like being in a film. But I don’t like it when it erodes our traditions - we don’t want everywhere to be exactly the same, do we?. And it’s even worse when they take our ideas and claim they were theirs all along. Anyway, I quote from this week’s Sunday Times - “the formal dance at the end of the the school year used to be a solely American rite of passage” They go on to say that it is now a “staple” of the British school experience. One mum quoted says it is an inevitability of the Americanisation of our culture.
Well, perhaps that is true in England, I don’t know. But in Scotland the school I attended in the 1970s and the one my children attended in the 1990s - 2000s, and the schools my friends went to, have held “Leaving Balls” since at least the 1950s (perhaps earlier but I have no-one left to ask). It was all arranged by the Ball Committee which was elected at the beginning of the school year.The girls wore ballgowns , not “prom dresses” and boys wore dinner jackets, not “tuxes”, and they got together to get ready and do hair and makeup. The dresses were bought in Debenhams or John Lewis or local independent dress shops, who kept a note of which schools the girls came from to avoid duplicates. You did not need a date, as all the leavers were invited, and no outsiders were allowed. There was no Queen or King. And I know that only last week as term ended our local schools had Leaving Balls, not proms. So what’s American about that?
Same with Halloween - this was huge in Scotland - we dressed up and went out guising - we performed a song or poem or dance in return for sweets - no threat of “tricking” was involved. We had bonfires and fireworks and clootie dumpling, treacle scones and dooking for apples. And I know this goes back at least 100 years (in fact having looked it up it goes back to the 16th century) . So I ask again, what’s American about that?
Yet I hear complaints that folk don’t like Halloween because it is so American.
And don’t get me started on Hogmanay…
So let’s celebrate our own traditions and pick up some fun ones from other cultures, yes, including the USA.
Thanksgiving, anyone?

Can I ask how old you are? Because I grew up in England and I'm in my fifties. Trick or treating was absolutely a thing when I was growing up, and I had a "sixth form prom" when I left school.

So there may well be an American influence but it has been going for a pretty long time!

Well Halloween didn’t involve trick or treating - that’s American and a huge part of Halloween now - Halloween has become more American . It used to be dressing up and a party with mates not roaming the streets on a hunt for sweeties - we have lost out Halloween to the American one. Even the use of pumpkins not turnips for the lanterns - American ( although perhaps an improvement - turnips were hard)

Your experience isn’t universal.
Halloween was absolutely roaming the streets when I was a child. Nothing lost to America, what a pointless statement.

You’re wrong. We didn’t call it ‘trick or treating’ (we called it ‘going round the houses’ or ‘going on the pooky’), but we were certainly roaming the streets knocking on doors for sweets in the 70s in Ireland, usually wearing home-made masks and cardboard witches’ hats. Probably the main difference was being required to sing or dance or say a poem in exchange for sweets.

@luckymumandnowluckygranny , I love hearing the difference words and customs that you have in Scotland. It would be nice if they spread south. Do keep them.

It 100% involved trick or treating when I was a kid in the 80s and we called it trick or treating aswell. You knocked on the door, said trick or treat and got given sweets or biscuits. We also did apple bobbing and that weird game where you have to eat doughnuts hanging from string. We dressed up (usually as a ghost or witch as they were the easiest costumes to make - I suppose that is a difference, we made our costumes not bought them but that change is due to consumerism not Americanisation I suspect). We also carried turnips instead of pumpkins but being honest, I’m not sure I ever saw a pumpkin in the greengrocers as a kid. I grew up in NE England.

I think this is a bit muddled, but maybe it reflects how cultural exchange can be. I think it’s not Americans who are going around saying they invented these things it’s often others who don’t know the origins or for them in their part of the country it’s due to American influence that something has changed. In countries around the world the recent adoption of Halloween has been due to American culture influence even though that’s not its origins.
I like American culture but do wish it wouldn’t have such an influence in making things homogenous. I liked the name guisers and that children didn’t just say “trick or treat” when going around houses in Scotland. I hope that stays but maybe in a few generations we’ll just be indistinguishable from others celebrating Halloween. I always mean to try make a traditional jack o lantern but pumpkins are better 😂

I don't know how that name change happened at all as far as I know that was just my eBay name. I always intended to be luckymumandnowluckygranny. I will contact Mumsnet

Totally agree. I'm American (may God forgive me) but have lived in the UK since a child.

It always bugs me when the pile on starts on slagging off Americans. Have a go at the politicians by all means but leave off with the generalised 'I hate Americans/Canadians' etc for whatever spurious reasons. 🙄

Sadly, you're wrong.

Hallowe'en in Irish tradition stretching back hundreds of years of recorded history absolutely did involve traipsing from house to house in costumes (obv very rustic back in the day) and begging for and receiving food. That is the origin of trick or treating, along with certain traditions from continental European RC settlers in America.

Even in pre Reformation England, soul cakes were part of the festivities associated with the feasts of All Saints and All Souls.

Americans think they invented everything! They don’t consider the history of imported culture because it becomes American.

Just for reference us dreadful English didn’t ever see a pumpkin in the 60s. Never would have carved one. Halloween came and went. We sang “For all the Saints” on November 1.

No one but no one had a school prom! Private schools had a leavers ball. We wouldn’t have known what a prom was - until Grease! We celebrated Nov 5 by making a guy and burning it on our bonfire. Don’t see many guys these days. Or maypoles. Maybe they are American too now? I’m staying in my English cultural bubble!