I love Halloween! There I’ve said it. This may have something to do with growing up in Canada where it is a lot bigger than here in the UK. Yes, I’m an atheist, well actually I’m agnostic as I’m not convinced either way but I still celebrate Halloween. I don’t read more into it than kids getting dressed up, scaring the sh*t out of each other and asking for sweets from strangers.
I have to say I was saddened reading tweets about people turning off all their lights and hiding indoors hoping that no Trick or Treaters would knock as they felt it was an invasion of their privacy or parents who were too frightened to take their children out as candy may be laced with goodness knows what. I think it’s a sad reflection of where we have gone in society. I blame helicopter parenting and how insular we’ve become. We know longer know our neighbours or make any attempt to get to know them.
When I was a kid, god I sound old, Halloween was huge. It was rare to find a house that didn’t have a pumpkin, which is the exact opposite here. The poor trick or treaters here have to walk miles and miles to get a good stash. The streets were swarming with ghosts and goblins and everyone was welcoming. We used to use pillowcases to collect our sweets and no word of a lie we would half fill them.
Luckily, I live on an incredibly friendly street; we have street parties and often congregate in the street having a chat, which is not the norm in the UK. There are 6 families on the street with young children and we often spend time together. So, we all got together and took the little ones trick or treating and then headed back to one house for Chilli and beers. Just the way it should be. Look how much fun they had!
So, stop being so miserable!
I took some of my English friends trick or treating on the American base and the one comment that stuck out for me was “You guys really go over the top don’t you?” She was referring to a house that had a “haunted house” in their garage. I guess I am just used to OTT.
It’s all good fun isn’t it!!!
I used to love ‘guising’ as it’s called in Scotland. Now there’s nowhere around here to even take the kids, unless there’s a halloween party going on (which there was this year, and it was a huge success!). Such a shame.
Parties are a great alternative. :-)