The ghoulishness of Hallowe’en?

No, let’s not simply think of it as a marketing scam, because it is more than that.
Society has become more violent all round and the Halloween ‘tat’ has moved with that fact and provides customers with what they want ( sadly) in that respect.
Children can and are frightened by a lot of it, as I have witnessed in stores.
I think posters could have a bit more sensitivity to others and their grief, even when they don’t hold the same Political views as themselves.

Well who would have guessed you are such an expert on the grieving process Trisher and that your reference to your mother’s death does not constitute “a personal story”
Different for some.
End of.

Grief is personal lemon it's not something I choose to post about on GN. If someone does I assume they are happy for their grief to be discussed, of course I may be wrong and they may just be fishing for sympathy.
The private side of my life is just that private. The people who need to know how I feel do know. It's nothing to do with politics but simply how I was raised. It's difficult to discuss something if someone uses their emotional state to challenge you.

I posted about my GD and discussing death with her MawBroon not about how mum's death affected me. As I said that's my personal business.

Exploring morbid concepts in a safe and fun way actually help processing of real bereavements.

Parts of the world that celebrate death in festivities also tend to be more open about talking about and dealing with loss.

notanan, totally agree.

I think it is the horrendous "horror movie" merchandise which is so prominent in shops that is the problem, and causes some people to be anxious. This has nothing to do with grief/dying just gory sensationalism.

Exploring morbid concepts in a safe and fun way actually help processing of real bereavements

Oh is that what all that plastic tat is?

You can’t compare The Day of the Dead with Trick and Treating can you?

Anyway, you miss the point of the OP.

What place have knives in Hallowe'en?

It used to be little witches and wizards and a black cat.

I think it is the horrendous "horror movie" merchandise which is so prominent in shops that is the problem, and causes some people to be anxious. This has nothing to do with grief/dying just gory sensationalism

Isn’t that precisely what we are talking about?

Yes maw, just reiterating your OP.

I haven’t asked you to provide any sad personal stories trisher but if you ever do on here I shall remind you about your ‘fishing for sympathy’ comment.
Do you consider all who post personal sadness to be doing that, because I don’t, I call it looking for understanding.
Fortunately, most posters on GN are not so stony hearted.

Jalima some stores have the most appalling things ( Tesco included) blood covered knives and axes and severed heads and hands.
Wish it was back to witches, and pumpkins.

I'm not "stony-hearted" lemon if people want to post about their personal feelings I know there are threads on GN for support and I appreciate some need that. What I don't accept is that using personal experiences to argue a point and then complaining of a lack of sympathy is good for discussion.

trisher
Can I just say I am sorry to hear about your mother; I'm sure many of us know how it feels to lose one's parents.

However, it's one thing losing an elderly parent (very sad in itself of course) but it must be quite another feeling to lose your life partner, the love of your life, before he or she reaches old age.

That sounds horrendous lemongrove - I didn't look at the 'tat' in Tesco but I'm sure there is plenty.
It is just sheer commercialism.

I’m not a fan of celebrating Halloween myself, as someone up thread said it’s a far cry from the Halloween of my Scottish childhood. Nowadays it seems to focus on darkness and evil and the more goulish and gory the better. I think there is much in the world that’s good, bright and positive - I’d rather focus on and celebrate those things.
I don’t have a problem with children being aware of death, attending funerals etc, in fact I’d always advocate age appropriate honesty with children. How else will they learn how to cope with loss. But yes we do need to protect them from some some of the details, let’s face it they are not pretty and we struggle with those things ourselves sometimes.
I think in the period after a death we are more sensitive to anything that seems to trivialise the pain we’re experiencing ourselves. I can well remember over 40 years ago , following the death of my lovely dad, being reduced to tears by a children’s tv programme “Rentaghost” . My older children still remember me not letting them watch it. Someone else may not have had the response I had, but we always need to remember and respect that everyone is different.

Traditional jack-o-lanterns were EXTREMELY dark....they were not traditionally there as pretty decorations..

..if posters are suggesting going back to the old ways of celebrating halloween lets at least be clear that the traditions were not cutesy to start with!

A jack-o'-lantern is a carved pumpkin or turnip lantern, associated with the holiday of Halloween and named after the phenomenon of a strange light flickering over peat bogs, called will-o'-the-wisp or jack-o'-lantern
Dark?
We had turnip lanterns as children, a million miles from plastic body parts or “open graves”

And why were they there Maw?

Traditionally it wasnt to look pretty, they had dark purpose/meaning.

The Legend of “Stingy Jack”

People have been making jack-o’-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed “Stingy Jack.” According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

The big difference between then and now is that things were symbolic whereas today they are plastic and graphic leaving nothing to the imagination.
With the decline of practised religion, the spiritual aspect has declined. Witches and warlocks do not mean as much today, nobody eats the devil and the idea of the spirits of the dead being abroad is unimaginable .
Halloween was a lot scarier in Tam O’Shanters day but that was because he truly believed the devil would take him.
(None of this has any bearing on my OP however)

“Eats the devil”?
“Fears the devil” rather!

Good post grannyqueenie

I remember Halloween parties at youth group, nobody dressed up, there were some lighted candles and sprayed cobwebs and balloons, other than that we just danced to records.I realise we cannot go back, but the least we can do as a society is not to revel in truly horrible things and have sickening things on display as small children walk past.

I never heard Hallowe'en mentioned when I was growing up - then my sister went to live in the US and went mad for the whole thing - I'm talking room sized spiders, life sized skeletons etc. - crates of the stuff shipped over when she returned from the US. DD has the same enthusiasm so little DGS not yet 2 knows nothing else - the scarier the better as far as he's concerned. When we go to Tesco he asks me to press the buttons so he can hear all the scary voices. It all seems very peculiar to me but I really can't imagine that children would associate all these gruesome items with real life or death - my nephew is 14 now and has been dressed as everything imaginable since before he could walk in a house full of ghoulishness - he seems fine.

I think the macabre and sometimes shocking outfits sold for Halloween are hideous. In the US I gather that the fancy dress outfits that children wear for trick or treating are often just 'cutesy' and not ghoulish! It seems we in the UK have embraced the horror in a big way. Maybe more than US? I do wonder how this 'fancy dress' could be reduced.

As a child we played games: apple bobbing, Nelson's Eye, carved Jack o Lanterns to frighten away evil and listened carefully and enjoyably scared to ghost stories!

My DGC do the same plus they enjoy dressing up and collecting dreadful sticky sweets to rot their teeth..all reasonably harmless fun.

I can see that the over focus on violent characters, graves etc can be distressing especially for those still grieving the recent death of loved ones. I think even if I was recently bereaved the children enjoying Halloween would bring little comfort.

I do agree with posters who say that there will be all kinds of things that are likely to cause bereaved people to be upset.. we cannot avoid everything that causes us pain.

Good post PECS. I agree with your sentiments.