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Hallowe'en / Halloween (General / Compendium Thread)

I remember as a kiddie wink (1980's) some people who lived in the village going trick or treating, but it was very small scale. I never got to go becuase I lived too far away on a farm :cry: Also, at Brownies we had a Halloween party, but it was mainly apple bobbing & just playing normal party games, with a few people dressed up as witches.
In about 2000 I remember walking home from work & seeing someone decorating their house with halloween stuff & thinking they had gone a bit too far with it, but now I love it! :oops:

I don't have kids and I find little one's coming to my door a bit odd, but we do have a bowl of sweets by the door just incase. TBH, it annoys me that older teenagers & sometime adults come knocking for sweets, I'm not a fan of younger ones (with parents in toe) coming, but ffs, if you're 14 or over you should really pack it in! *Grumpy old woman rant over!*

A few years ago, me & a mate were having a few pints when a woman who was a least 40 came up to us & said "Trick or treat". I looked at her and said "ummm, we're in a PUB!" And a few other words I don't dare repeat in such polite company :lol:
 
JamesWhitehead said:
....

Back in UK North, there was a tendency for Halloween tricks to migrate to a designated Mischief Night, which was always held to be the night before Bonfire Night in Southport, where I grew up....
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That the same where I was brought up not far from Southport in the 60s - or at least that was the story that went round. Generally your Mum wouldn't let you out...
 
During the late '80s, almost '90's, we used to go Trick or Treating around the doors in our street (Washington, North-east England). We'd all dress up and go as a gang. As we were so many kids in the same street, we'd basically be just knocking at all our own houses.

Those who didn't give us anything got a little trick at the end of the night. We would prop open their letterbox with a piece of twig and then tie a thread to it. This thread would then be crossed over the street and tied to a door handle. This doors letter box would then be propped open and tied off to a third door handle and so on. Then it was just to find a nice hiding place and send one of the smaller kids to knock on the last door and run away.

It was great to see so many grown-ups opening their doors in confusion and seeing the chain reaction work its way down the street.

Here in Sweden, it's king of eclipsed by their own festival held on the first Saturday in November, celebrating All Saints. Everyone, and I mean that literally, goes to a cemetery and lights a candle for a soul. You don't even need to have known the person in the grave. You do it to show respect.

allhelgonaafton.jpg


Nice isn't it?
 
I remember trick or treating in the late 70s when I lived on a big, rough council estate in Somerset. It definitely wasn't a local tradition, it had been picked up from TV, probably one of those ubiquitous American shows. We all went round in a gang, no costumes but we did have a boy with us who could vomit at will and anyone who didn't give sweets had their car or doorstep sicked on.
In the early 70s when I lived in a village no one really bothered, bonfire night was more important, we did carve out mangles though, they were hard as wood!
 
I remember trick or treaters back in the 90's - usually teens wearing black plastic bin liners who simply shouted 'Trick or Treat!' and didn't want sweets, but money. In the early 2000's it changed to younger children who made an effort to dress up (I saw a really sweet little witch this morning in the local Co-Op).

When I was young and lived in the country, Bonfire Night was more anticipated. We always had a big bonfire and fireworks. Halloween was quiet, save for yes, Brownies, with the apple-bobbing :D Did every Brownie do that, I wonder?

Still, there seemed more of an atmosphere to Halloween then, or perhaps it was because I lived in the country, and it was not commercialized, but more atmospheric somehow.
 
A couple of the pictures of old American-style Halloween appear - coincidentally - on this Blog that was linked in another thread today:

http://www.societyforparanormalinvestigations.com/

Scroll down to find the post.

Another coincidental find last night was a section in the Opies' Lore & Language of Schoolchildren, where they note that Mischief Night was celebrated in Spring in some Northern English towns. Feels wrong, somehow! 8)
 
Well, we're all costumed and sweetied up but there've been hardly any callers. :(

Mut be the weather. Surely can't be my fearsome appearance or fiendishly mind-boggling tricks, can it?
 
Had a lot fewer this year - mind you it's peeing down with rain.
 
Our local children turned up in a well organised group supervised by mums and nans.

I only thought too late that I should do something scary with the cellar. Our cellar grating it right by the front door. There could easily be one of us making scary noises down there when the children knock on the door.
 
Saw a number of children dressed up as we were driving home and thought we'd get a few callers. A few started to come in then stopped and went off. We'd prepared bags of lollies so it was a bit disappointing.
Maybe they saw the do not knock sign meant for people trying to get me to change my electric company. Never stops them coming with raffle tickets or chocolates for fundraising though.
 
My front window is full of flashing battery-operated pumpkins to draw the ToTers' attention but we haven't had many this year. What am I s'posed to do with all this chocolate? :?

I'm not sure it's just the weather. We're in the middle of a major peedy-panic. Knocking on strangers' doors might not seem a great idea just now! :lol:
 
Not one caller here - but then I have been sat on my balcony in my rockin' chair cradlin' me shotgun.
 
escargot1 said:
What am I s'posed to do with all this chocolate? :?
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Gosh, I'm stumped. ;)
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
Not one caller here - but then I have been sat on my balcony in my rockin' chair cradlin' me shotgun.
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It was the ukulele that really scared them off. :)
 
We had a fair few, also shepherded by parents, and all between 5.30 and 7.00, though again the rain did get really bad after that so maybe any stragglers went home.
 
TBH I think the British version of Halloween is dying out. Fewer parties each year, absolutely no ToT'ers this year, even the local kids party has been cut back by half.

Perhaps it just appealed to that generation who grew up on a diet of cool-but-homey US TV shows in the 60's and 70's, and is too twee for modern kids who get a regular diet of much more mock-horrible stuff than we did.

Still plenty of tat on sale in the supermarkets though.
 
Around our way we got through a big bowl of sweets. Very good turn out and much better than a couple of years back.

Nice to see that all the kids were really polite as well.
 
We had sweets left over for the first time in ages, too. We only had two (large) groups round.

And some charming little scrote decided that kicking all the carefully - carved pumpkins down our street to pieces would be a good way to celebrate. :(
 
Last year we gave out a fair few sweets, this year I only saw one group of teenage lads out with masks on. Having said that it was freezing cold & raining really hard, so I don't blame people for staying in!
 
Heh! Good for her!

Here's the spider pumpkin my daughter carved this year. Fortunately she lives outside the village with her partner in a farm cottage, so it didn't get smashed!

Spiderpumpkin.jpg
!
 
Im glad to say my jammy dodgers are still in my possesion.

We went to the local heritage railway for their ghost train.

The train was `very` tatted up, and the volenteers had some truly scary costumes.

(so did many visitors)

I wore my grim black hooded smock and looked hostile enough to get one of the chocolate bars for the kiddies.

in spite of the rain (which added to the atmosphere) it was very well attended
 
The earliest documented use of the phrase "Trick Or Treat" occurred in Lethbridge (Alberta; Canada) in 1927.

The begging custom, of course, dates back a lot farther. However, the classic night visitors' shouted challenge hasn't yet been demonstrated to be any older than the 1920s in North America.
The origins of ‘Trick or Treat’: Lethbridge home to a piece of Halloween history

One of the most popular Halloween traditions across the globe apparently originated in southern Alberta.

Every Halloween, children on the hunt for candy dress up in costumes, knock on doors and ask homeowners the infamous question: “Trick or Treat?”

But did you know that term was reportedly first spoken by costumed faces in Lethbridge?

READ MORE: Sensory Halloween event aims to help kids who struggle with traditional trick-or-treating

Lethbridge historian Belinda Crowson said research has confirmed the term “Trick or Treat” was first documented in the Lethbridge Herald on Nov. 4. 1927.
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SOURCE: https://globalnews.ca/news/6109625/trick-or-treat-phrase-lethbridge-history/


The earliest known reference to “trick or treat”, printed in the November 4, 1927 edition of the Blackie, Alberta Canada Herald ...
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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...reating-is-weirder-than-you-thought-79408373/
 
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Halloween origins.

Nestled away in a field full of sheep in County Roscommon is what some some people believe is the origin of Halloween - a cave known as Ireland's Gate to Hell.

Also known as the Oweynagat (Cave of the Cats), it is believed this is the birth place of the Irish pre-Christian festival of Samhain, known today as Halloween. It is located near Rathcrogan, the ancient capital of Connacht and a major archaeological area, home to 240 sites dating back 5,500 years.

The damp and murky cave, stretching 37m (121ft) below ground, is where ancient Celts believed there was a doorway to the other world.

"At least as long as 2,000 years ago locals believed that the gate between the worlds opened on 31 October," said local archaeologist and historian, Daniel Curley.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63402457
 
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