Halloween costumes

There seems to be a bit of confusion here. All Souls' Day is 2nd November. All Saints' Day is 1st November, and us also known as All Hallows' - hence 31st October is Hallows' Evening, or Halloween.

Nannarose is right, most cultures have some kind of way of coping with winter darkness and the fear of the unknown. I grew up in the north west, the tradition there was to dress up and bob for apples, eat toffee apples and baked potato and tell ghost stories by a coal fire.
I don't remember going knocking on the neighbours doors at Halloween.
We kept bad behaviour for Mischief Night, the 4 November. We'd raid people's apple and pear trees, take gates of their hinges, knock a door run and in our teens, roam about in groups never doing anything worse than this.

This generation of parents are great party creatures in my experience. They love occasions and throw themselves into it. My grandchildren will be meeting up with the children of their parents friendship group. There will be dressing up, apple bobbing, ghost stories and no doubt they'll watch a scary children's movie whilst their parents socialise.

Well I can’t stand it, but grandchildren love it, I’m not a old grouch by the way, I buy sweets for the kiddies that come to the door, and most enjoy it, we live in a nice area but have recently heard of some people being scared and teenagers dressing up in clown outfits and scaring ppl, eggs being thrown at windows always the odd ones spoil things for others who want to go out and enjoy themselves

I have no religious feelings about it at all but certainly don't remember it in my childhood in the 40s
As far as I'm concerned it's just another tacky, commercialised excuse for selling plastic tat!
Imported from America, along with bridal showers, baby showers, proms, baby naming, baby gender revealing and so on and so on.
Is this what the economy is built on nowadays?

My impression is that within the UK there were regional differences, about these 'autumn' festivals, and you can see how they merged into each other. I see 'trick or treat' coming from 'if you don't give us one, we'll take 2, better for us, worse for you' rhyme we used to say when asking for bonfire wood.

We certainly 'celebrated' Halloween and my grandmother told of things like peeling an apple to see if the peel made the initial of your true love, and various rituals involving mirrors.

I told my kids they were rituals from old times about coping with the coming winter darkness. And if you look across the northern hemisphere, most cultures have something: from Diwali to St. Martins' Day. I lived in a large town at one point, where, to accommodate all cultures, we had, on the nearest Saturday, a 'lantern procession' (there were workshops to make and decorate the lanterns) followed by a bonfire (no guy) and fireworks. My friend who hated Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night joined in happily.

That reminds me of when I was Akela. We decided to have a ‘Nasty’s Party’ . I was naively thinking of literary and Disney villains. One very religious family told me that were pleased as they don’t hold with Halloween. She then sent her son in a horrific Zombie costume of bandages and fake blood.

We didn't "celebrate" Halloween when I was a child and am fairly indifferent to it now - although I do keep a bowl of chocolate bars and sweets for any of the local children who call.

I think it is just another custom which has been taken over by business in order to make money - but I wouldn't want to stop kids from having fun

I had a colleague who was a Christian and she believed that Halloween was evil and should not be allowed to be celebrated, especially in Primary schools. I didnt agree with her but did not feel strongly enough to challenge her.

When we where little we had duck apple in the washing up bowl in the kitchen there was a lot of cheating going on I must say.
There is such a change now,my DG in-law has gone to town and decorated all their front porch for the children with halloween lights etc and is having a party for the little ones and their friends.

I think different denominations have different opinions about Hallowe'en.

When I was in my teens we had Hallowe'en parties at our (CofE) church youth club - organised by the vicar!

We had duck-apple and a turnip lantern but nobody went knocking on doors. Home-made treacle toffee as well as on bonfire night.

M0nica

Our village is like yours, if you wish to participate, you put some lit pumpkins outside your door, if you don’t, no one bothers you. It’s a great atmosphere, everyone outside, all dressed up and having fun.

I do agree on the yet more plastic rubbish issue, but you don’t have to buy new things every year, I’ve got a cupboard full of Halloween bits and bobs, and the costumes get passed through the family, and some are improvised.

We do try and keep more plastic rubbish to a minimum, but I wouldn’t want to spoil their fun.

Remember "guising" in the north of Scotland in the early 50's. Most houses welcomed us in and we did a "turn" (poem, song or told jokes) before receiving apples, sweets and very occasionally some pennies (usually copper ones!). Some families had parties going on and we "dooked" for apples or were blindfolded and had to try and eat treacle scones suspended on twine between two chairs which ended up very messy but was great fun. Sweets were few and far between back then and it was great to have a supply to take to school for the next couple of weeks.

Its as commercial as you make it.

Birthdays, mothers/fathers day, anniversaries, easter, christmas etc can ALL be just as "commercial" if you are tat inclined. Its not specific to halloween which actually lends itself to "upcycling" and creativity (which are environmentally friendly) more than other celebrations. It also focuses in on seasonal food, also a good thing

People who like tat at halloween are people who like tat year round.

Halloween does not make environmentally mindful people wasteful

I loved Halloween as a child. Brought up in an English and Scottish household (living in Scotland),we always had dookin for apples and treacle scones hung from the ceiling that you tried to eat with your hands tied behind your back. We had Halloween cake usually bought from Greggs or Crawfords.We were church attenders and knew other folks from church who did the same. It was seen more as a fun thing. We didn't do trick or treating though, it was just within our own home with a few friends. There is an old tradition of Halloween in the West of Scotland and they call it Galoshens.

I was once a parent governor at a Cof E school where the Head was quite a devout Christian. He told the governors he would prefer it if the school didn't mark Halloween in any way, and wanted the support of the governors for this decision. The three of us who voted against this were the three women governors - one of them giggled afterwards, "They'll be calling us the three witches!" Oddly enough that same Head had no problem with Bonfire Night, at which the children threw effigies of various people into the flames.

ps: I will be visiting DGC for Halloween this year, by special invitation. I will take the paper pumpkin with me and as there is a a Halloween party, I have been told to dress up as a fortune teller and repeat my starring role in just such a part at DGS's Harry Potter themed birthday party.

DGC spent last Halloween with me. Dressing up was limited, just a couple of maskes and some make-up.

In our village anyone participating in Halloween puts a lighted pumpkin in the window or by the door and Trick or treaters just visit the houses with lit pumpkins and leave all the others untroubled. I went out with DGC and we had a lovely time visiting all the doors with pumpkins and when we were in our pumpkin, a paper lantern one that will be re-used this year, was lit up and we had lots of young visitors.

I do not think my DGC, who are being brought up CofE, ever thought whether there was any religious significance to the festival. They had fun, I had fun and no-one locally who didn't want to get involved was visited by children.

The Christian school which my GCs attended certainly frowned upon Hallowe'en activities, but they participated at home. I love greeting the local families and shall display a pumpkin to welcome them. Last year I gave gifts to over 40 children. I am well known as the woman who has a large tray full of home baked goodies, sweets, drinks and non-edible items. All that are left at the end of the evening are apples and satsumas! I am pleased to say that the greeting is always 'Happy Hallowe'en', no mention of tricks.
This year I plan to paint a pumpkin with a sugar skull something along the lines of these.

We aren’t allowed to sell any kind of Fancy dress including Halloween in the charity shop I volunteer in, not because of Christianity but because claudia winklemans daughter got burnt whilst wearing fancy dress I personally think this blanket ban is silly it’s up to each parent to make sure their child is safe whatever they wear but we have to adhere to it
Hallowean was certainly not around in any way as a celebration in my childhood It had arrived in my children’s childhood and we had a simplified celebration making green (poisonous) fairy cakes and the kids walked along just our road in sheets or something made up The razzamtazz , the huge financial gains and the ‘begging’ all came over from USA notanan and is pretty horrible
So I think the lady in the charity shop was just following the rules of her shop whether she was snippy or not is really just in your interpretation flora

Flora - you asked if anyone was in agreement with the "snippy" lady in the Charity Shop, yes I am very much in agreement, but know also that I may well be in the minority. Halloween is not encouraged within my family.

Children have fun.
Generations interact.
Businesses made shed loads of money on costumes, foodstuffs and decorations.
Environmentalists sigh.

X posts Witzend ?

I think most people realise that unless something was a Native American custom notanan anything else came from various other countries as the people settled there.
However, it’s a relatively recent thing that Halloween as a ‘big thing’ became popular here, as a result of American films.
The Church appropriated all the pagan holy days, but has never encouraged making a fuss of ‘devilish’ customs, as they see it ( or certainly used to.)
I think it’s all a waste of money and creates a mound of plastic tat, but if kept to carved pumpkins and sweets for children it’s harmless enough.

IMO it's the rampant commercialisation of it that's been imported from America - it lends itself to so much plastic tat.

I do remember Halloween parties when I was a child in the 50s and 60s - bobbing for apples etc., and some would dress up, but it wasn't a common thing where I lived (SE England( - I know it was always a major thing in Scotland though.

Bonfire night was the really Big Thing - that has retreated in to the background somewhat - presumably because it doesn't lend itself to mountains of tat.

My dds enjoyed trick or treating and little Gdcs now enjoy it. I always put a small pumpkin in the window and we usually have quite a few young children around. (I just hope there will be some of the mini packs of Smarties left for me!)

The pumpkin is made into Thai style soup the next day - with chilli and ginger and coconut milk - delish!