Trick or treating: love it or loathe it? Please take our super-quick poll - and you could win a prize

[HelenMumsnet]

As Halloween draws scarily nearer, we want to know what you think of trick or treating.

Do you love the whole spooky-wooky, vampire-fanged sweet-fest?

Or do you loathe every doorstep-begging minute of it and wish it had never made it across the Pond?

Please take a couple of secs to fill in our super-quick survey and we'll enter you into this week's competition to win a spine-tingling two-day family visit to the Halloween Scarefest at Alton Towers.

Not that the nature of the prize should influence the way you vote, mind...

You can find the survey here

[Blu]

I love Hallowen, but NOT TorTr.

But we will be out doing it - harrassing people, and begging! Lambeth supply a notice to put in your wondow if you don't want to be disturbed.

A couple of years ago I had decorated our house for a little Halloween party for DS, and had Old Religious Ladies in Hats praying and singing hymns on the doorstep, and begging me not to go in the way of satan. I didn't feel i could be anything other than most polite, since we would be making a noise on people's doorsteps later!

[LetMeEatCake]

I am the ultimate halloween hypocrite - I like going trick or treating, but I cannot bear them coming to the door, usually just a few teenagers wearing a scream mask and black tracksuit just sod off. It should have a trick or treating age limit of 10.

[ludaloo]

I LOVE Halloween

We have friends over with their kids (about 10 kids in total) and have a halloween buffet type dinner and halloween games (apple bobbing, scary lucky dip etc)
Then we all go tick or treating...we live in a fairly friendly village so everyone knows everyone, and who's house is happy to have trick or treaters visit, and who's to not go to. TBH there are so many families with young children who all get involved there are plenty of doors to knock on without the worry of upsetting anyone.

Its Great!

[whispywhisp]

Housemum...yes I did that when DD2 was about 2yrs old....but it was ignored..either that or those that knocked couldn't read. There was a time when my kids would beg me to let them dress up and go out with their mates and go knocking. Now they're not the slightest bit interested. I very much doubt if you asked all those that dress up and knock what the actual meaning is of halloween they'd all shrug their shoulders. In fact even I don't know (shame on me!) but DH seems to know all about it, being the one with the historical brains in this house!

[skyatnight]

I don't like it. Too American, commercial, comsumer-orientated, bad-mannered grasping children just after sweets, no imagination put into tricks, etc.. I prefer what we used to do as children: Halloween parties, candles in jam-jars, bobbing for apples, spooky- or gruesome-themed games. Dressing-up is fun but, as the mum is the one who has to sort out the costume and doesn't always have time, the temptation is to buy something - more commercialism.

[Housemum]

Whispy - have you tried putting a sign up? "Don't knock - child sleeping" or something?

[WhizzzingAroundOnABroomstick]

sorry but a bit of a duff poll with only 2 options (I won't win now will I!)

I like it if kids are polite & make an effort to dress up. I loathe it if big kids just stand there with their hand outstretched & continue to knock on the door until late in the evening.

[Hulababy]

Done.

I have no problem with it when it is little chi;dre, supervised by adults, and it is earlish on in the evening.

Do't like it when it is older children/teens later on in the evening. We tend to stop answering by that stage.

[whispywhisp]

What I hate is when you get persistent groups of kids...they knock once, they knock four times. They won't have it that we choose not to answer our door. I've even heard kids say 'they are in, I can see a light on'. I see it as an invasion of privacy...if we don't answer the first time then bugger off and go bother someone else! By this time my dog is going crazy, my youngest (4yo) is hiding behind the sofa and I'm getting very fed up!

[KarenInKenley]

I hate it, would prefer to keep the house lights down and ignore the doorbell, but my husband is so worried that they might scratch the car in retaliation that he insists we buy a big box of sweets for them!

Still I enjoy the remains of the box of sweets if we are fortunate enough not to have too many kids come to the door.

[Iklboo]

I don't really like it cos round our way we get the gangs of 15-19 yr olds with a cheap mask on banking on your door. And they don't want sweets either. And since our car is parked on the road right outside our house......
BUT DS wants to dress up and go (he'll ne nearly 3) with CM's older two children cos he made a bloody fortune last year and practically his own weight in sweets

[Lizzzombie]

I don't mind the trick or treating bit too much, but what completely baffles me is that a parent would let their children knock on strangers doors and eat the sweets they give them. We had 3 trick or treaters last year, and I knew none of them, and I knew none of their parents.
I'd personally not let my child eat sweets etc given to them by a total stranger.

[prettybird]

Yes - we also still expect them to do something in return for their goodies - and they all do, even if one or two need a little encouragement!

Bu we've never really suffered from any "trickers" nor any scrounging teenagers - maybe 'cos we still have the basic tradition of "guising".

[Housemum]

I love Hallowe'en, even in an American kind of way. But we are v lucky in that we live in a close with lots of kids, so we basically are going to the houses of people we know - we don't knock on doors without Hallowe'en decorations up. The local paper prints a cut-out "please no trick-or-treating here" sign too, my mum puts one on her door as she lives on her own and doesn't want to be bothered at night.

It is just begging for sweets, but if you are taking part you've probably got kids so it's tit-for-tat. And I don't mind teenagers coming round - they are only getting kiddie sweets, and if they want to come round (so long as they have bothered to dress up) then that's fine. The only thing I object to is the "trick" which I see as just vandalism nothing to do with Hallowe'en where yobs chuck eggs and flour at houses & cars (the local supermarkets refuse to sell flour/eggs to under 18's round here from now until Hallowe'en)

[haggisaggis]

I like it - but round us although they now call it "trick or treating" it's still "gusiing" and the kids all do something to earn their treat. (sing a song, read a poem or tell a joke)

[Peachy]

Maybe its just where I grew up (just south of back of beyond) but I trick or treated as a child- I am 35 now (no that must be wrong, 23 surely? )

So i don't feel i can prevent the boys but if they went (fortunately we're out this year) we would just do what the other shcoolkids do and keep to local famillies we know

I do the pumpkin thing to let kids know we're coming. We do get kids- mum gets th teens and tells them to bog off and come back in a costume

[scaryboo]

I like it but it doesn't feel right in europe. I was born in Canada & adored the whole halloween thing as a child (and my b'day is the day before so it was all a big deal! (wink). I know the whole concept has changed, even in nth america & seems dangerous now but definitely out of place over here.

[ClosedForCleaning]

Just doesn't feel a part of my childhood - lacks provenance doncha know. Should be pennies for the Guy at that time of year. Now, meddling with pyrotechnics - that's proper seasonal fayre.

[Wordsmith]

Dislike it - hate it when yobby teenagers come up demanding sweets, and don't like little ones coming round door to door either, whether with parents or not. I feel steamrollered into it though and finding it harder to resist. When I tell other parents on the playground that no, my DSs won't go trick or treating, they look at me as though I'm some sort of weirdo. (A bit like they do when I tell them they're not getting a Nintendo DS as well).

So...why would I do a survey where the prize was a trip to a Halloween Fest? Somehow I thinking you're going to have a lot of 'love it' answers on the survey, so why not just do a prize draw instead? Or am I being cynical?

[Everhopeful]

Too old to be more than bemused by all this malarkey that goes on now - I'm even too old to have heard of guising, but that sounds ok. Only thing I can see as a problem is that you'd have to avoid nuts these days, I guess. American friend did a great party and we took the kids t or t ing down her street, which is very into it. Ours isn't particularly and we're one of the few houses that puts out (tbh, it's a chance to use up excess sweeties my kid's been given through the year. Let them rot some other kid's teeth instead, I say). I'm glad I don't live some of the places rest of you do though - we've never had any trouble with yoofs disappointed iwth their haul (they save that for Christmas, but we get so few carollers, I'm a soft touch and only go for making them sing at least two carols with at least 3 verses each before I cough up). I never tell American friend, but I think it's a gross and loathesome tradition - guising, apple bobbing, peeling the skin and dropping it over your shoulder to find the initial of whoever you're going to marry (mine was wrong ) toffee apples, honeycomb toffee, etc - oh yeah! Love all that.

[eidsvold]

WE WANT COMPS!



OverseasmumsnetteRsunIteForfaIrtrEatment

[sandy4]

Hate it.

Never done it as a child & don't EVER want my children to do it. AND since we moved to a house only accessed by a long, dark scary drive way, nobody dares venture down it at halloween anyway.

(Wish it worked for double-glazing sales people. )

[fairyfly]

Well as a child it was a complete no no in our household, apparently it was "common". As an adult i have yet to work out how the connotations of that word effected us in such a way. It was as if we behaved in a certain manner we would all catch a deathly cold and have to guard our front doors with red painted crosses.
I held onto my mothers values throughout my twenties and as her shadow proclaimed trick and treating was wrong and showed patronising judgemental disgust at any parent that would allow their childen to pace from door to door.

Now i think it is possibly quite frightening if you live alone. I would not appreciate answering the door all halloween eve to random merchandised younglings. But i do believe that people aren't having enough fun and carry round a lot of misplaced guilt and paranioa about what they cannot or can't do.