To disagree that Halloween is "American"

[allytjd]

I'm a bit annoyed that loads of people have been moaning about Halloween, saying they don't like it because its American, even DS1's French teacher (who is french) repeated this to the whole class. The phrase "trick or treat" is american and so are pumpkins but the rest, dressing up, lanterns, children being given treats etc, are very traditional up here in Scotland and have always been a much bigger thing than bonfire night up here.
We have traditional games, and traditional foods for halloween and we have been doing them for hundreds of years - Where do you think the Americans got their traditions from?
It is a combination of anti-Americanism and ignorance about non-English traditions and it really annoys me! Its supposed to be fun!

Nor would you know about what went on in my town in the 1970s, PD. You weren't in my school where kids talk about their plans for the evening, etc.

Don't try to tell me about my own experiences.

Guising was not a huge thing when I was a kid. It may be bigger now, revived by the relative enthusiasm for TorT.

\i'm not telling you about your ecxperiences. I'm thinking of other people's experiences

It's all rough people here.

My dd is the roughest of all.

as far as I know egging not done up here.

In Scotland you had to work damn hard to earn your tablet...learn a poem, song, dance etc

My DC's had a song ready in case anyone demanded one.

No-one did, they weren't bovvered

But you seem to be telling me that my experiences aren't true!

Why would I lie?

What's to get offended about?

ooh yes there is a church round the corner from us that is fundamental evangelical and the DC's used to go to their youth club and playgroup. We are Not Allowed to knock on the doors of all them, because they don't approve. One year they had a light party on halloween, to counter all the dark goings on. You had to wear something bright with no black. DS went as a cloud, DD went as a candle.

They're a bit obsessive I think.

Califrau,

When I went through the loot, I was always really disappointed. I would give out decent stuff, and get back the yuckiest candy.

Second year in, you know to remove sweets from your kids at regular intervals and recycle them, leaving the good stuff for yourself.

I'm Scottish and trick or treat or guising NEVER happened when I was a kid. We used to go round with turnip lanterns asking for a penny for the guy in the run up to Nov 5th (all money went to charity). None of my friends ever remember hearing about trick or treating when we were kids (and were from all over Scotland so it wasn't just my area)

Oh we were deprived

You live and learn with t&t. The first year I offered the sweets to the children, so the first couple of kids took about 70% of the sweets in the tin and I had to tell them to put most back!

So now I ration...

guising did happen (70's Ecosse)
and agree you had to work hard to earn your booty
a burns poem did the trick it for me,
twould melt the heart of mony an awl mouldy codger elderly neighbor, and was the cultural key that unlocked the stale blue ribbands!

'Children do not egg houses or threaten old people. That is a British problem not American.'

Just to clear up, too.

Kids don't get away with things in America the way they do here.

I never heard of this sort of thuggery as egging someone's house because you didn't get a treat in the US.

It's a criminal offense to do that to someone's property there, and yes, the police will prosecute or go after people, including kids, caught doing this.

We always used to celebrate in Donegal (Ireland) with ducking for apples, catching apple on a string using your teeth, and apple tart and/or barm brack with a hidden coin and a hidden ring in them.

There was a lot of guising in the seventies when i was a kid. that was in Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire and friends from other places like Perth and dundee remember it too. I'm a bit surprised that some people say it didn't happen where they stayed, I really thought it was universal.

That was about it for us too, SSB. Halloween would mean going out to a party (usually Brownies or Guides), and then doing traditional games - apple dooking, etc.

I remember a think where we were covered in icing sugar (maybe the result rather than the intent) and somehow had to eat fruit pastilles off a line.

Did you ever do the Nelson's eye/Nelson's arm thing? That was funny.

I went guising as a child in Angus (north of Dundee) in the 60's, and in Fife in the 70's. My DSs went guising in the 90's in Edinburgh, but I think, with hindsight, that things were starting to change by the late 90's. There was more publicity about child abduction at the time - Robert Black was doing his thing.

I was in Sarf London in the seventies and it didn't happen then.

It was happening by the eighties though, I remember seeing kids going roudn when I was a teenager

My mum did that, I suppose our guising was a bit like a strung out party as we lived in a cul de sac full of kids and each mum in each house we went to would do a different game (eg. treacle scones dipped in syrup dangling on strings) and most of the kids went round together.
We also used to get cakes from the bakers that had buttons and coins and charms in them...I think health and safety put a stop to that, bit of a choking hazard!

When we moved to Yorkshire from Ireland in the mid-Seventies, nobody celebrated Halloween but they did do a deeply unpleasant thing on 4 Nov which was known as Mischievous Night or Micky Night and was just licensed hooliganism - ringing doorbells and running away, chucking eggs around, breaking things... I was rather shocked.

I am thinking that the order you did things in was important. You had to do the treacle stuff before the icing sugar pastilles, which is why you ended up covered in the stuff.