AIBU

Well said twiglet. I can't stand it and as for the colour coded plastic pumpkins.....well, words fail me.

364 days of the year it's wrong to bother strangers and we must all save the planet.

How utterly ridiculous. I live far enough out of the village that I'm not troubled by them but I'm blowed if I'd bother to make sure my property was safe for the unwelcome little blighters.

I think some primary school parents have an arrangement that if a pumpkin is displayed, the children are welcome to knock the door, and not otherwise. Houses are decorated, the children dress up. I really don't understand encouraging the grabby mentality in little children, but when teenagers go door-to-door it's tantamount to demanding money with menaces. Blasted Americanisms aren't welcome here.

When I was speaking to a friend today she said that as her dogs get upset by the door bell ringing a lot she put two big dishes outside the front door filled with sweets saying please help yourself to a few and leave for others too. She looked out 5 minutes later and the dishes were empty. So someone was greedy and not entering into the spirit of it.

Apologies for typos, arthritis grim today!!

Sorry, celebration of those family and friends who have died, and coul perhaps be viewed a little less harshly?

Lumarei if you look at the origins of the ‘day of the dead’ it is a gually a respectful ce

Just the one batch of Trick or Treaters, but we are quite rural.

I have many sweets for myself now.

We had more than 40 very well behaved and polite children come to our door last night.
We always hand out a single treat to each child. This calms any potential rugby scrum.

We don't get any trick or treaters (thank goodness) as we live in a small hamlet with no young families.

I don't agree with it and my DC never went out when young - we lived in Hong Kong then and there was a strong American influence which is where I first came across the custom. I was often amazed at the age of some of the children who were brought round by their Filipina helpers (not parents!) - some as young as 2 or 3!

As for sweeping the drive and lighting it - why? If they want to come in then they should take care and have torches. And children should be accompanied by an adult who should know what they can and can't have!

I had some very sweet little children with their mothers and two giggly teenagers, obviously just having a laugh.

I think we are the old people of the street who are not to be bothered, the only person who rang the doorbell wanted a lot more than a handful of sweets, it was the plumber and he wanted paying.
I now have a large quantity of child type sweeties which will probably end up being given to GC.

When my niece was a child, she was trick or treating, and asked the woman who answered the door “Trick or treat?”?.
Thqe woman answered “Trick”, and took a handful of sweets out of my niece’s bag before closing the door. ?

My little DGS love it and go all out with their costumes and decorations. I was carving pumpkins with two of them yesterday - very small ones from grandad’s allotment - then we decorated my windows with cobwebs, spiders and lights so the local children would know they could call here later.

We had 13 trick or treaters (spooky!). I was disappointed that all but one were older children this year, as I love to see the little ones. We had a cute over-excited pumpkin visit last year who really wanted to put sweets into our cauldron from his bag, rather than taking them.

Still, they were all polite and no-one slipped on a wet leaf or choked on a haribo, thank goodness!

To my mind our homegrown Mischief Night was far worse back in the day.

November 5th is worse.

I didn't know about the lit pumpkin rule. I thought there was no knock at the door 'cos we're miserable gits. However I shall make sure I don't leave a pumpkin out next year too.

Callistemon, Ha if only!

Missfoodlove there is obviously no crime whatsoever where you live and the local police are bored and looking for something to do!!

Gilld69 OH looks forward to leftovers.

No-one called here even though I had sweeties ready and waiting

Perhaps it's because we didn't sweep our drive!

I just kept the hall light off all evening. There’s a clear code in our street: only knock on doors where there is a pumpkin or some such tat outside the door.

I came home later than usual and have missed most of the trick or treaters im genuinley gutted but on the plus side i have lots of sweets now

Trick or treat is I think an American ' phrase, but almost seventy years ago, here, kids went door to door asking for ' penny for the guy ', and they expected money. I think it was supposedly money to spend on preparing for Guy Fawkes, as in buying sparklers and fireworks and making a guy for the bonfire. It was called ' guysing '.

My view is that it's just an excuse to dress up, have a party and light a few sparklers. My grandsons will be enjoying it.

And no, of course it doesn't make anyone miserable if they don't agree.

That’s blooming ridiculous MissA what a stupid waste of paper and ink I d take no notice at all anyone coming up my path takes the risk... what risk ?
I fuelled up last year put my pumpkin out and didn’t have one knock so didn’t bother this year
It’s not a celebration I like very much anyway I don’t think that makes me miserable it’s just such a strange thing for kids to be ‘celebrating’

I'm not a lover of Halloween and think filling kids up with sweets before bed is not too wise. Today I turned to the internet for constabulary advice. From that I was able to download a bright & light-hearted poster to say "Sorry, no trick or treating here". We sellotaped this to the glass panel in our front foor. There was actually quite a variety of posters from a selection of police authorities. As I write there are gangs of children outside but they're polite enough not to knock and we can enjoy supper in peace!