Halloween, should I?

I am a witch so intend to open the door in civvies, dressing gown and big slippers.bring it on!

I 'dressed up' one year and frightened two little darlings (AND their dad!) to death!!!!! Fun though lol!!!!!

Arrrghhh! Halloween! Just when DID that cross the Atlantic! Whatever happened to bonfire night... fireworks.... roasting potatoes ...hot dogs...??

Oh... I'd love to but I'm so full of the cold, stuffed up and sore ribs/shoulders from coughing that I can't even think of dressing up.
However dgc 10 and 7 are here today after school and I've left out black and orange streamers of pumpkins, skeletons, ceiling twirlies and orange balloons. They are excited to be decorating our glass porch after school. It has been emptied of all the usual bits and is nice and empty and ready for whooooooooo !!

Callers will call at our front door on the night as we light it up, and we usually appear from around the side of the house...... Boo

If the children are out trick or treating then they obviously enjoy all that surrounds Halloween (witches etc) so I say go for it!

We have dressed up for years since our kids were small. The kids seem to love it - getting into the spirit of things (pun intended)

Only problem I can see Phoenix is that they will expect it every year from now on!

Nooooooooooooo - is it just me? Am I the only one on the planet who finds the whole concept of Hallowe’en weird, scary and disturbing? I’d never heard of it in my childhood and it just seems so, well, I don’t know, just awful. I know some will say it’s therapeutic to laugh at something which is terrifying in itself - death and evil - but for me, no thank you, grumpy old woman that I am!

It was Halloween last year when our new neighbours popped round to see if we knew of any tricks to get their boiler working! The previous occupant had told them that we always helped in times of need and knew far more about the house than she did.

We treated them to a glass of wine.

What fun! Being a grumpy old woman myself, I'm afraid I reply to 'trick or treat?' with 'I'll have a treat please!' That gets rid of them x

Go for it and have a great time, the kids will love it

Definitely go for it. The children will love it x

I shall ignore Hallowe'en, I lock the door and switch the lights off. I live alone and am alarmed by strange visitors. I'm sorry if this makes me sound an old misery.

Saggi Halloween crossed The Atlantic a long time ago, but from here to there, possibly by the potato famine emigrants from Ireland. It’s a very ancient Celtic tradition, also called All Hallows’ Eve. It marked the end of the old year. I do remember celebrating it, nominally, when I was a child. We used to try to bite chunks out of an apple suspended from a string. Quite tricky. Bonfire/firework night is on 5 November, recalling something quite different. If only it actually were confined to the 5th but it seems to go on for weeks. Wish they’d ban the noisy ones.
Phoenix go for it. You sound a lot of fun!

I’ll be wearing a scary mask from Poundland this year when I open the door (big bag of lollies ready).
I have form though, a few years ago I opened the door, said ‘treat please’ and helped myself to one of their choc bars. They were shocked and Mr M’s car got a kick on their way past.

DH dressed up and ready to terrify our visiting small people.

? juliette

Been decorating and 'doing ' a window since my son was small. He has Asperger's syndrome and was too afraid to go out in the dark-so I did it to encourage the children to come to us instead! We now have people that used to come as kids bringing their own children round. This year my d and three year old Gd will be dressed as witchs giving out the sweets. Always have some chocy buttons for very little ones. Go for it and Have fun!

I’ve been tempted for years to do this. I do have a glow in the dark skull with ghostly sound effects and that has frightened the really littlies so decided a witch opening the door might be too much.
Now that I have a littly in the house the pumpkin gets removed sharp at 7 when he goes upstairs for books and bedtime, the curtains are drawn and the fun is over.
As for large teenagers with fearsome masks holding out bags for sweets, they always got short shrift. Our front door got egged one year and a plant in a pot kicked over another year. Two bad years out of 40 Halloweens isn’t bad.

We don’t get any children visiting at Halloween at all ( we live a bit out of the way, as it were) but go to DGC’s house and help with it all there.Children nowadays do get a big kick out of it all.
When a child, I don’t remember doing anything at all.

Although it was called mischief night!

"Witches" were often the community Wise-Women who were turned to for medical advice as doctors were usually frauds and quacks.

When things went well, all was good. When things went wrong the Wise-Woman was blamed, damned, accused of being in cahoots with the devil and subsequently tried (the verdict being a foregone conclusion) and horribly burnt to death.

So it's just a bit of FUN to make a game of the lives and deaths of these women?

Halloween was actually started in Scotland and Ireland and the tradition of "guising" going out in disguise is still very much a part of Halloween in Scotland and the far north of England. It was the people who emigrated to America who took these traditions with them. Now that Halloween is more commercialised in the UK and America it has become a more popular event than it used to be. I lived in the north of Scotland for quite a few years a long time ago and back then the children made all their own disguises, not much shop bought then, and they had a lot of fun inventing something to guise in. Also they did not just knock on the door saying "trick or treat", when they knocked you invited them inside and they had to earn their treat....telling a joke....singing a song....maybe a funny poem. It was good fun for the children and the adults alike. Obviously times have moved on and it would probably be seen as inappropriate these days to invite them into your home, however these were much simpler times then and we mostly knew (even in their disguises) who children were who as it was a real community event.The mother's made a lot of the treats themselves, toffee apples, Scottish tablet, with just a very few shop bought treats included.

One year SiL, dressed in black, was left to give out treats while we went trick or treating. He put in his theatrical vampire teeth and played some seriously spooky Japanese music. When the doorbell rang he opened the door, solemn faced and silently held out a bowl of sweets. Then he smiled ...

Another year DD put up fake police tape, with a Hallowe’en message, across the front path and on the railings. It misfired. No one came to the door!