Halloween - Is it just me or does anyone else object to trick or treating?

[Stripymouse]

I must admit that while I know halloween parties can be great fun (and have held/been to a few corkers over the years) I loathe Halloween. Every year that night comes round and I know what will happen. Early on you get a few cute younger children all excited and dressed up with parent in tow eager to collect a sweet or two. Then, after a gap of an hour or so you start to get big groups of teenagers in no costume other than horrific mask shouting and banging on the door demanding "cash or food". Ignore them and you get your home attacked, open the door and you get nothing but arrogance or cheek. Last year one group of boys were not impressed that I refused to give out money and only had a few fun bars left in the bag so floured and egged our car anyway. No point phoning police as they are being inundated with people phoning with much worse. Stupid thing is that we live in a lovely quiet village! I really feel for my elderly neighbours who are terrified so go to bed early, don?t sleep a wink and rush down in the morning to worry over any damage or clearing up that needs doing.
Why do we all allow kids to do this? I won?t allow my girls to go trick or treating as I believe it amounts to nothing more than blackmail and extortion and causes real misery. Am I alone in this or am I a "party pooper" and should "lighten up" about the whole thing as my sister suggests?

Stripymouse - that would really irritate me! We don't seem to get many for some reason but I'd get quite annoyed if we had people throwing eggs and flour. LIke you say, the little kids looking for penny sweets and mini-milky ways is one thing but the grown up ones after cash is quite another. Wouldn't let mine do it.

nice to know that I am not the only one not allowing it. It is fine now as my eldest is still only at pre school but could be an issue when I refuse to let her join her friends in a few years time. I think I will have to hold a party instead and hope to encourage a few of her friends to come to our house rather than trick or treating.

No, I agree. I hate the whole thing (t or t, not Halloween itself). The problem is that we adopt traditions from America without learning about the culture of it, so it ends up being done wrongly, IYSWIM. In the States, I'm sure the children never expect to be given money and the "trick" part is merely a threat, never carried out. I'm sure some of the Americans on the list will elaborate.

I hate the older children who come round expecting to be given money and who are quite nasty when it doesn't materialise. It's just a opportunity to intimidate and extort.

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It's done very differently in America. Participation is virtually compulsory, which means that all the kids are out and all the houses are willing to open their doors and give their treats. This means that you get a very nice, warm, fuzzy, neighbourly feeling. A lot of houses would provide drinks for the adult chaperones - hot spiced apple juice was the seasonal drink, but we used it as an excuse to start the mulled wine season.

You do get naughty kids who take too much candy or trample across your flower beds, but that's about it. The teenagers don't usually take part.

A lot of cities have set times for T or T (ours was from 6 - 7.30pm) and you are not allowed to do it outside of these hours (hee, hee, you thought America was Land of the Free, eh?).

The worst thing would be the quality of the sweets - ugh, American chocolate! The kids would bring thing home in pillowcases, and would pretty much chuck out 80% of it.

We completely ignore Hallowe'en in the UK.

Hate it. Not just the fact that its NOT traditional here but the whole thing is bad taste imo and unpleasant. I had tried a few years ago to be open minded and tolerant as kids enjoy it but decided that its not on unless its a real neighbourhood thing with parents involved. Also the practice round here (lots of expat americans) is that if someone has a pumpkin or other halloween decoration in the window then they welcome Trick or Treaters and if they don't then leave them alone.

Am ambivalent about it. But like it more than I used to. Far cheaper than Christmas and most other such events!

I don't have a problem with it. It's a great excuse to get rid of all the sweets that DSs get in party bags during the year but don't like . I do mix them up with a box of Celebrations or something so I'm not totally cheap...

Davros - I like the idea of the pumpkin in the window being a signal that T or T is welcome. It would be great if this was a universal signal in Britain and that the houses without one were left alone. Would be a great compromise.

Soupdragon - that is unbelieveably organised of you to keep all of those unwanted sweets ready for Halloween. I am impressed

pumpkins and other halloween decorations are the signal for trick or treaters in our SE london neighbourhood too!

good idea about sweets, soupdragon.

Here's my one and only halloween tip: put the sweets in a plastic container. But first cut a hole in the base of the container, big enough for a hand to fit secretly. When someone takes a sweet, the hand appears to wave at them!

We need to get Esther Rancid or someone interested in a campaign so those who want to Trick or Treat can do so without abuse (from me!) and those who want to be left alone can be. I worry about my neighbour who is over 80 and lives alone, I know she won't answer the door but I don't think she should even be bothered by people. Pumpkins/decorations in the window, please ring, tape recording of big dog and my grumpy face at the window, don't!
Just remembered, I posted this on MN last year when DD was only 6 months old. I put a notice over the doorbell saying "baby sleeping, please do not ring" and the doorbell rang rather vehemently so I tore to the door only to find two sweet little kids. I said to them "I put a notice up to say don'r ting" and the little boy said "but I can't read"

I hate and dread it too. It's not fun in any way for people worrying about 'tricks'.

One year we had a bereavement and I put up a notice on our front door saying so. No one dared knock. But I think the kids would be suspicious if every other door carried such a notice.

I go up to bed very early and watch TV with the light out, or sit in my back room with no lights showing at the front.

I also loathe bonfire night and the resultant noise, litter and revolting smell in the air. Not to mention the risk of being hit by the things if you dare go out.

We got our front window covered in egg last year and it really peed me off. I don't even open the door, object to the whole thing.

anorak - I wish pretending that you aren?t there would work. The year before our DD1 was born I had bought loads of sweets and stuff as I knew we would be in as it was mid week. However, we went shopping striaght after work and decided to grab a take away so didn?t get back till about 7pm if I remember rightly. Came back to a front door covered in flour and egg and lime coloured slime posted through the letterbox which permanently stained the carpet. Apparently, being out in this area isn?t a good enough excuse to avoid the little terrorists.

stripymouse. I have been known, when in a bad mood, to open my door and say 'go away, and don't even think about playing a trick on me, or you'll get one back, and you won't like it.' I must be quite menacing when I'm angry cos none of them have ever dared do anything.

Obv I would only do this with the older style trick & treaters. If I see littlies with their parents hovering across the street I take off my grumpy face and give them a few streets. I guess one of the things about it that I hate is kids roaming the dark streets, knocking on the doors of strangers without their parents.

They even go into pubs! Now that really gets my back up. I have been known to tell trick or treaters in pubs to 'f* off' (10pm, no parents in attendance, threatening manner). They shouldn't be in that adult domain and if it shocks them out of it so much the better.

Where are their parents? is always the question.

Hi gals, another American wading into the discussion. I had no idea that some kids will actually pull 'tricks' on Halloween! I guess we've been lucky so far. As Ameriscot said, when I was growing up it was a great neighborhood community experience and certainly not an excuse for vandalism. Little kids, and some older ones, dressed up and trick or treated. As my brother and I got older we still dressed up but we tended to stay home and hand out the sweets before going to a party.

Done properly, it can be great fun and I have high hopes for our neighborhood this year (we're in SE London). We always put out a pumpkin and have a bowl of sweets for the kids (never money!). We'll take DS out for the first time this year and I would only go to houses where we knew the people. One terrible problem we had every once in a while in Texas was sick people giving the children nasty or dangerous treats - chocs injected with tequila, etc. Once a child was given an apple with a razor blade in it! Horrible, horrible stories so we keep it just to people we know.

I'm not very keen on it as a US import but have never had the problems posted here [shocked]. Don't mind giving a handful of sweets out to the little ones, would be teed off if it was teenagers.
Although up north we do have a tradition of mischief night but can't remember if it's Hallowe'en; hope someone living there can remind me!

First of all, let's not blame the Americans for this one - we Irish invented halloween - costumes, jack-o-lanterns and all!

To all you who have had such shockingly bad experiences, I apologise for my celtic ancestors.

It's very different where I live. The children only visit decorated houses - but almost all the houses are decorated and the older ones, who come later, have to stand on your lawn and sing if they want anything more than a few sweets!!

It's an horrendous practice - I never answer the door and luckily have had no damage done to life or property. Stripmouse, don't you know who these boys are? I'd get dh straight round to their parents house!

I am the only one who bothers in my row of 10 houses so I always end up with knock after knock after knock...a queue forming even!
have never had any trouble, but to save me from being pissed off with any little buggers moaning im not handing out money ive brought little halloween bags and im going to stick some sweets and fruit in them and they wont be able to see whats not in them!

Nerdgirl, don't think it's entirely fair to blame the Irish, although there is a celtic connection. But trick or treating is from the US.
Hallowe'en was originally a pagan festival celebrating the dead; it's supposed to be the time of year where the limits between the world of the living and that of the dead are weaker so you might be able to communicate with the spirits. Then when the early Christians were trying to take over the country they replaced all the pagan festivals with their own eg. Easter, Christmas and Hallowe'en - IIRC it's All Souls Eve or something, the night before All Saints Day?

One year I bought lots of sweets & made cat-shaped biscuits. Every kid who knocked on the door looked down their noses at the offering. Biscuits? Give us the cash! Haven't bothered since.

What really gets me is that they come after dark & hammer on the door. DH works nights & I don't usually answer the door after dark. None of these kids know me- for all they know I could be an axe murderer or a molester (I'm not, honest!). Even very tiny children come with no parents. It'd be a different matter if it was a proper community where every knew everyone else, but what are thir parents thinking of letting them approach complete strangers? I'd never let mine do it.

Sadly it starts all over again with "Carol singers" from the end of November. (No I don't consider that one line of "we wish you a merry Xmas" is carol singing or deserving of my hard-earned money). Call me miserable but I hate it.

Anorak, I wish we did know exactly which kids cause the trouble. Problem is that we live in a lovely small friendly village with a not so pleasant town fairly nearby. Kids from the local town "visit" and are impossible to identify in those awful masks.

Have you all seen the latest "scream" mask with a constant drip of "blood" that uses a little hand pump. Truly horrendous. They are selling it in the local Asda store and I wish it were illegal. We were shopping there on Friday and my poor DD1 (only 3yrs) cried when she saw one boy try it on laughing around with his mates. I complained to the manager but got a fairly apathetic response mumbling something about "what sells" and "see them everywhere love, not just in this shop"..