Boo boxes

[CrispieCake]

I know someone will be along in a minute to say you do you, no need to participate if you don't want to, yada, yada, yada, but I've just seen these in a shop window and
...wtf?!!!

What fresh parental hell is this?

I think the problem with stuff like this it starts as a cute idea but then as the kids get older it turns into something else where they are suddenly saying can I have an Xbox game in my boo box or instead of my boo box can I have money. Its like Easter we only ever do eggs but I know people who are buying their kids clothes or giving them money its ridiculous

Halloween is one day, why would you need a boo box?

which shops are selling these?

My 13 year old keeps sending me videos of these.. I keep telling her it’s not a thing!! Jog on 🤣

Halloween is big in my area, my dc do not need extra sweets/chocolate

We have done Halloween things during half term before eg ghost walk, scare maze etc.

Halloween wasn't even on my radar as any kind of event as a child. My kids now know about it and want to go trick or treating which makes me cringe myself inside out but I do it for them. The idea that it's now yet another event where people are expected to buy presents is bonkers.

I don't do these, but also can't stand the outrage people express about them. Same with Christmas eve boxes.

I do them, I think it’s cute and a bit of fun. Typically give them at the start of the October half term and it’s full to new things to do - Halloween sticker books, painting, some of his favourite snacks, Halloween cup cake mixtures. It’s things I’d get him anyway but just nice to make it fun 🤷🏼‍♀️ I do the same at Easter (although a lot more chocolate!) and Christmas - just different themed activities.

Trick-or-treating, dressing-up costumes, pumpkin carving, fairy cakes with orange & green icing and dangly skeletons cut out of copier paper and stuck on the windows not enough for you?😂👻

As do we... we do trick-or-treating, maybe have a little Halloween party, go pumpkin picking.

But more tat and presents 😫.

It's the cumulative effect. I do elf-on-the-shelf and my kids do get a Christmas box. Before today, I would have shared that sentiment.

But "Back-to-School" gifts, Christmas Eve boxes, Christmas stockings, New Year's gifts, Valentine's day gifts, Easter gifts, summer holiday gifts.. And now "Boo Boxes" as well.

There must be some children in the country who never go a couple of months without being handed a new pile of stuff 😂. Where do people put it? They must have bigger houses than me!

When I was a kid long ago the only thing I remember about Halloween was being bought a toffee apple in Sainsburys every year, and my dad valiantly attempting to make a jack o'lantern by carving out a swede with a Stanley knife. I think he tried it once, and then grew some pumpkins the following year which turned out not to be big ones, but knobbly little ornamental gourds with stripes & spots. They were no good for carving either. My mum arranged them in a bowl and after about a month one of them exploded in the middle of the night. 😁

I remember i use to get told off because id eat the toffee and then say I was full so couldn't eat the apple 🤣

It's just endless commercialism, isn't it? Trying to convince parents that the way to create magic for their children is to spend relentlessly on poor quality items and briefly fill their houses with future landfill. People can do what they like but it makes me despair a bit. We're losing the art of actually connecting with our kids in favour of feeling like every magic moment is something to be bought.

Me too! Bloody hated that bit when I was a kid, always had to find an excuse to leave the room…

Endless commercialism is exactly how I think of all of this. Easter baskets, Christmas Eve boxes North pole breakfasts, just more excuses to buy some more plastic. I don’t do them but there are clearly enough people who do for it to be something the shops push every year.
Some kids will grow up associating every calendar day with presents and baskets and boxes of stuff!

North pole breakfasts, just more excuses to buy some more plastic

Tbf the breakfasts don't involve eating plastic

Now this is much more in the spirit of Halloween than a cutesey ghost cup and some chocolate pumpkins imo 😂.

Because of course the only way to find happiness is to buy more stuff.

Honestly like kids need all this extra crap and sweets.

Oh no not more tat to clutter peoples houses!

😂 😂 😂 I have Scottish friends. I know exactly what you mean

I have no idea, but Halloween is often at the end of half-term, so that sounds like a good idea to make the day a bit special

Surely the whole point of Halloween is that other people give them the loot?
I am not massively wild about my kids getting cheap sweets from complete strangers, so somehow making them forget about their loot by giving them something better works for me

@ThatRealLemonCat do you do trick or treat then?