The ghoulishness of Hallowe’en?

I'm a Facepainter- and do mostly children's birthdays, but also have done Halloween faces too. I've recently (3 years) refused to do any more gory faces, and blood etc, as to be honest, I find them all a bit grisly.

I agree with you Maw. I remember being scared and horrified as a child when I saw an American comic with skulls, skeletons and gravestones at Halloween.

None of that was part of the Halloween that we loved as kids in Scotland in the 1950s.

I remember feeling horrified too at a children's party which had an old fashioned Punch and Judy show where Punch beat Judy, threw their baby out of the window and was finally hanged! I was nine or ten at the time, so I knew it was a puppet show, but I didn't understand either then or later why such horrific events were being laughed at!

I like that, we could learn much from them.

As the you Tube link I posted didn't work, I should perhaps explain that the Swedish custom for Halloween is to light lanterns (in jars, H&S!) in the local churchyard and remember loved ones who have died.

Peaceful and respectful.

Thank you maddyone for your sympathy but as it happens my walk up to our village church with Hattie is through two pleasant fields and the churchyard itself is a green and pleasant place. You look out over rolling fields with the village nestling to one side and it could not be further from the ghoulish or “creepy”image of a graveyard if it tried. That is how I want my DGCs to regard it, a peaceful rural “garden” where Grandpa’s body rests as he has no use for it any more , not a spooky scary place.
I am sorry if that has not come through in my posts.
I am not personally bothered by the commercial Halloween tat but deprecate this obsession with the scary side of death, the fascination with the macabre in an increasingly violent age, particularly where adolescents are concerned.

MawBroon while I have been typing my rambling post a lot more people have posted. I am sorry if you have had a battering as this is so obviously a very sensitive time for you. The unpleasant Americanisation of what used to be a harmless minor occasion with pumpkins and tea lights, now turned into a 'celebration' of ghoulishness, is sure to be a strain to cope with.

this aspect of death (skeletons , ghouls, ghosties etc) is not one I am comfortable with dwelling on, nor I hope do the DGCs make that connection with the smiling loving Grandpa they have lost.
I don't think they will necessarily link the two in their minds MawBroon
It depends on their age, of course, but I remember DGD2 (then 3) telling me in a very matter-of-fact way, when we passed her DGF's old house, that 'Grandad is in heaven with the cat'.
Ghosts, ghouls, skeletons seems to be a separate thing altogether in their minds when young as I think she, at least, just pictured her Grandad as he was when still alive.

I don't particularly like this ghoulishness myself and especially not the knives - and it is the commercialism that upsets me as much as anything (a sea of plastic).

Old stories, including such as Grimm's Fairy Tales, were always scary but much has been 'Disneyfied' for today's youngsters.

I think the whole Halloween business has got out of hand, and as for 'Trick or Treat' I absolutely loathe this blackmailing American import. One neighbour had eggs thrown at her house, another had plants pulled up. Years ago when living in London I answered the door at lunchtime to find two children, each wearing bin liners with a hole torn for the head to go through, and their mother leaning on my gate;. She announced that as they were going away for Halloween they were 'collecting' a week early. My two dogs had run to the door with me and, put out by the rustling black plastic outfits, started barking madly, at which point mother and ghouls departed. I did wonder if they managed to collect anything. If this were made an evening for local charities, and children dressed up and went around with collecting boxes, I would be the first to reach for some cash!

Do those same GNers remonstrate when their GCs indulge in online games with fighting, killing and monstrous images or films such as Harry Potter which show graveyards and skeletons

Perhaps they do, I am happy to say my grandchildren have shown no interest in that sort of thing. ?

I would question your second example in any case.

Nobody is getting upset about Halloween cakes or suchlike tat GabriellaG - yet again you persist in getting the wtong end if the stick and beating us about the head with it.
If it is not too intellectually taxing I respectfully suggest you read my OP and for once try to show some emotional intelligence instead of arrogance.

I don't like Halloween either, it gets more and more commencial as time goes by and like PECS I find the whole idea of dressing up as ghosts and ghouls unpleasant.
Some years ago we had a group of teenagers (not local) come and literally demand sweets or they would "trick" us - we didn't give them treats as we always saved them for local small children. The result was eggs dribbling down our front door.
Carved lanterns are fine, and perhaps supervised small children calling at the door.
However I don't really see why halloween would upset bereaved people any more than any other event, unless they believed in spiritualism.

Why on earth have we adopted this American trend. When we were children it was nothing of the sort, some children just played "knock a door, run away" and that was that.

Shakes head... snowflakes or what?
People are becoming ever more sensitive to what has been a 'celebration' of sorts throughout the ages.
How anyone can correlate cakes with ghoulish icing, masks, skeletons, toys and the like, with bereavement and get upset about it, goodness only knows.
Yet some of those same people go to church and look at a supposedly real man, crucified, with blood pouring from his wounds.
Do those same GNers remonstrate when their GCs indulge in online games with fighting, killing and monstrous images or films such as Harry Potter which show graveyards and skeletons?
Hypocritical...IMO.

I absolutely loathe Halloween, and I think that it’s become extremely commercialised in recent years. I hate the open coffins, blood splattered body parts, and so on. When our children were small we used to make a pumpkin light and that was it! I wasn’t even bothered about doing that, but they used to ask for it. I hate trick or treating, it’s Americanised and purely serves the interests of commercialism. Furthermore, I don’t think children should be encouraged to think that if people don’t give them a treat, it’s okay to play a ‘trick’. Nor should they be knocking on neighbours or strangers doors, even if their parents are hovering nearby.
Maw, I’m so sorry that as the anniversary of your dear husband’s death approaches, you have to confront all this utter rubbish on your way to the cemetery. I think you’re right, it could well be very upsetting for the recently bereaved, just as Christmas is upsetting when people lose their beloveds around that time. Please just try to think of it as the rubbish it is, encouraged by commercial interests. Remember you husband as the lovely man he was and talk to your grandchildren about all the happy memories they have of him.

Oh perish, why hasn't the link worked???

There's a link on the thread discussion whether cultural traditions are overrated. It concerns what happens in Sweden for Halloween:
youtu.be/Vki-E-_KQUo
I think it's lovely!

Good post PECS. I agree with your sentiments.

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.

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.

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.

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

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)

And why were they there Maw?

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

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”

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!