Halloween

[oldspice]

How have the Yanks got it right? Halloween is the night the dead are supposed to walk the earth. It is not a festival to make light of.  The following day is All Saints Day, when goodness and rightgeousness is restored. I see no merit in dressing as ghosts and ghouls.

[Jamsi]

If anyone wants posters to put up at their window/door to deter or welcome trick or treaters there are lots on the freebie thread

[Freddie]

it's not just celebrated in America...

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Halloween.ht ml

[Forth Bridges]

MMM Yes the Yanks may have it right BUT

Freddie IS NOT A YANK shes a EX scot in Canada!

[kevvosa]

I 'sort of' like Halloween because I like pumpkins and horror movies. So I'll probably be making pumpkin pie and watching Halloween (the film) next week.

As for putting a sign on your door saying you don't do Halloween - wouldn't that just encourage the kids to throw eggs at your door? My mam never used to open the door on Halloween and made it look like no one was in. The worst we had was some flour on the doorstep and a broken egg.

I think Haloween is stupid nonesense.  I never got involved in it as  child because I don't like the idea of ghosts and ghouls and vampires etc.  It is celebrated in a very different way in America and parents and children get involved and it's far more organised and is just another event like Thanksgiving or July 4th.  Not so in this country; it's just another excuse for a lot of children to be a nuisance.  Not all of them - there are still some nice children but I suspect they don't do Haloween.

As Oldspice says it's a corruption of All Hallows eve.

[smurfboy]

MMM Yes the Yanks may have it right BUT

Freddie IS NOT A YANK shes a EX scot in Canada!

How is this relevant? What WJP was saying is that Halloween is more widely celebrated in the US and that, in his opinion, that's a good thing. He never mentioned Freddie!

[Forth Bridges]

never mind 

[kevvosa]

[wjp666]

How have the Yanks got it right? Halloween is the night the dead are supposed to walk the earth. It is not a festival to make light of.  The following day is All Saints Day, when goodness and rightgeousness is restored. I see no merit in dressing as ghosts and ghouls.

a lot of our special occasions stem from something horrible or pagan... it's just a bit of fun, really. kids love that kinda thing.

i mean Mayday is based around paganism, isnt it? and the sight of children dancing around a maypole doesn't seem at all twisted, does it? (even though the myapole represents a giant penis!)

people of britain - lighten up... kids love horror and gore and ghost stories. it's not seriously demonic in any way. i say halloween is a great, alternative holiday.

wjp66639019.6509953704

[Forth Bridges]

 

you just have to remember Carry on screaming! to prove that

[StrollingMinstrel]

Whoops .... I'm afraid I'm in the 'pooper' camp on this one.

I don't like it when kids knock at the door in a roundabout way 'begging' for things. I have in the past made up little bags of mixed sweets with a halloween theme.

I get quite irritated when kids turn up on any night other than 31 Oct.

One year we had loads of kids turn up on the wrong night and when I told them to come back on the right night they said .... 'we can't do that we're going round to other houses on that night!!'

I'm afraid I won't let my two boys go trick or treating.... much to their discust. I just can't do it.... it feels like begging and I've never wanted to encourage my boys to knock on strangers doors.

On the other hand I completely ok with halloween parties or such like.

 

 

 

[kevvosa]

Like everything Halloween has good and bad points. It's the commercialising of it that spoils it.

I see nothing wrong with a traditional way of celebrating it - carving pumpkins, dressing up, having fun etc. Even trick or treating could be nice, but kids just get too greedy and spoilt.