Halloween commercialism why ?

[brokenbetty]

[QUOTE 1233124"]
We had a bunch of trick or treaters decide to target a sheltered housing scheme over the weekend. The residents were terrified.

It's not much of a festival to a ninety year old opening the door to three masked strangers dressed in black.
[/quote]

And a lot of people drink too much at Christmas parties and get into fights. That's not a reason to ban Christmas, and neither is a small number of feral kids a reason to ban trick or treating. They'll probably be round next week asking for a penny for the guy.

 

[Archie_tect]

[QUOTE 1233124"]
We had a bunch of trick or treaters decide to target a sheltered housing scheme over the weekend. The residents were terrified.

It's not much of a festival to a ninety year old opening the door to three masked strangers dressed in black.
[/quote]

It is scary, even for us and we knew some of the teenagers [once they spoke!] ... when they just stand there in silence it's still freaky!

 

[marzjennings]

Why is Halloween so commercialized? Profit pure and simple. I've read somewhere that Halloween acounts for 60-75% of annual candy sales in the US or around 2 billion dollars for one day.

I know we bought 5lbs of candy to hand out to kids last night and we have only a couple of ounces left.

 

[John the Monkey]

Waste? We make curry from it in our household.

Soup here, and jolly nice it was too.

 

[Headgardener]

Don't get any trick or treater's as the gate is about sixty feet away from the front door and the road side path is another sixty to seventy feet away across the green beyond that. Means that nobody can get back to the path before my dog catches up with them and lickes them to death .

 

[brokenbetty]

[QUOTE 1233130"]
Drinking and fighting over Christmas doesn't generally intrude uninvited into the homes of the vulnerable.

When the doorbell goes on the evening of 31st October your frail neighbour has no idea whether it's the cute kids from next door or the rough ones off the estate. So it's either risk meeting the scavengers just so the nice kids can get a sweetie, or ignore it and hope your plants aren't pulled out.
[/quote]

And the same applies to the States, yet they seem to manage. I googled "trick or treat" and "elderly" and the results were overwhelmingly hand wringing articles from UK newspapers.

If you wanted to live in the sort of society where the vast majority of pleasant kids are able to enjoy a festival where they walk the streets safely and are welcomed by strangers there are plenty of ways the problem of the vulnerable elderly could be solved. It just takes a bit of social will.

If you prefer to live in a society where every child is assumed to be a problem and every stranger is a threat, well you don't need to do anything at all except bolt your door.

 

[2Loose]

Although 'trick or treat' never existed as a child (well, some american videos maybe'), the small kids around this area have enjoyed the dressing up and the sweets a lot, to the extent that I will be taking greater interest next October.

Although it has been 'evolving' in this country since my late teens (20+ years ago?) I do think that there should be some universally understood way of a household saying 'no thanks, don't disturb' and we only targeted houses that had made some effort to be halloweeny in some way, just to be sure. I turned off my lanterns (1/2 watt Smart rear on flash works well inside a pumpkin

) when I had ran out of sweets and we had no more callers after that. Phew.

Kids of that kind of age should be all done by 8pm tops imho anyway, so it shouldn't be hard to do without upsetting people who don't want to be involved in any way, just a bit of consideration is...oh, I see the failing now.

 

[Cubist]

And the same applies to the States, yet they seem to manage. I googled "trick or treat" and "elderly" and the results were overwhelmingly hand wringing articles from UK newspapers.

If you wanted to live in the sort of society where the vast majority of pleasant kids are able to enjoy a festival where they walk the streets safely and are welcomed by strangers there are plenty of ways the problem of the vulnerable elderly could be solved. It just takes a bit of social will.

If you prefer to live in a society where every child is assumed to be a problem and every stranger is a threat, well you don't need to do anything at all except bolt your door.

You're speaking my language Betty.

FFS folks, lighten up. Here in our village we have virtually every kid visiting every house. I once had a little chat with a 90 yr old who had sat up waiting for trick or treaters with a huge tray of baking she'd done. Not many kids had called and she appeared genuinely disappointed. I spent the next few minutes canvassing kids to go and see her. As I passed later she looked thrilled to bits as she handed fairy buns out to a brace of eight year olds.

Ok, there are a few 'orrible little gits who might spoil it, but in general I find it a great fun night out.

Mischief night is the 4th November by the way, historically a night for folk to make things uncomfortable for the ruling classes, as encouraged by Guy Fawkes, would-be political assasin and terrorist with his IED plot....

 

[Archie_tect]

You're speaking my language Betty.

FFS folks, lighten up. Here in our village we have virtually every kid visiting every house. I once had a little chat with a 90 yr old who had sat up waiting for trick or treaters with a huge tray of baking she'd done. Not many kids had called and she appeared genuinely disappointed. I spent the next few minutes canvassing kids to go and see her. As I passed later she looked thrilled to bits as she handed fairy buns out to a brace of eight year olds.

Ok, there are a few 'orrible little gits who might spoil it, but in general I find it a great fun night out.

Mischief night is the 4th November by the way, historically a night for folk to make things uncomfortable for the ruling classes, as encouraged by Guy Fawkes, would-be political assasin and terrorist with his IED plot....

+1 to Betty and Cubist!


4th November does ring a bell now you mention it.

 

[Night Train]

I was speaking to a Polish friend and he was telling me that in Poland on Oct 31, it's customary to visit the graves of family relatives and to remember their passing.
There's no fun and frivolity, it's all very sombre.

That goes back to the pagan thing of remembering the dead at that time.



I have no time for 'trick or treaters'. I was reading on another forum where a chap turned away a 10 year old lad who was 'trick or treating'. The lad returned and vandalised his car. Smashed both mirrors, scratched the paint work, kicked in the doors and put a brick through the windscreen. The Police are investigating and have good forensic evidence.

 

[Archie_tect]

That's not trick or treat ... that's just mailcious damage.... slap on wrist and off he'll go.

World's gone mad.....

 

[davefb]

In Leeds in the 60s we called it "Michievous Night" and lads would wander round doing un-malicious practical jokes on people or their property. didn't hang around for treats though, would've had a clip round their ears!..... they just scarpered when the dogs started barking!

Typically, lifting gates off and turning them round do they opened outwards onto the street. Tying string to door handles and the dustbin lids, then knocking on the door. Putting treacle on door knobs just before the owners returned from the pub...

indeed, when we moved from yorkshire to lancs, them lancys had no idea what mischief night was..


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischief_night

quite interesting how old it is that it moved from 4th november to 30th october..

also seem to recall we weren't allowed out on the 4th ...

and echoing some other comments, whilst i do remember confusing some old dears back in the late70's with 'trick or treat' i DO remember them also having 'treats' ready for us when we did our little rhymes ( or guises)... not everyone, but a good number..

just thinking about the toffee makes my fillings want to jump out

 

[brokenbetty]

[QUOTE 1233138"]
How are you going to change it for the better then? Maybe in the States it's different to how it is here. The event you describe is completely alien to what goes on in our community. There is the very occasional family with the parent standing at the end of the drive, and the even rarer egg throwers, but on the whole our visitors are groups of two or three parent-less lads out on the scrounge, who just ring the bell and hold out their hands. How is that fun? It's certainly not society. And it's not Daily Mail hand wringing. Older people are genuinely terrified of Halloween, and I'd like to know what you suggest would reassure them.[/quote]

I'm not, but we could. Everything new is alien, until it isn't.

1. Take your kids out and encourage your neighbours to do the same. Then the majority won't be parentless lads on the scrounge but groups of parents and kids all over the place coming and going. Busy streets full of eyes will reduce the threat from the unaccompanied kids
2. Don't give anything to kids who don't make the effort. They might grumble but very few of them will really do anything about it.
3. In sheltered accommodation, the warden could easily prepare the residents for Halloween - making sure those who may not have grown up with trick and treating know about it, and maybe arrange a social event that residents can attend if they would rather not be in. Give residents a "no trick or treaters" sign (as long as that's what they want.)
4. Plenty of media coverage to normalise the good approach and stigmatise the bad, until "everyone knows" that if you want sweets don't bother going to houses without decorations, and that there's no point in going out later on as all the sweets have gone

But please understand the above isn't a prescription, it's just one way things could work. I'm sure you will find holes to pick in it - but then again bonfire night is distressing for pets and suicides peak at Christmas. There's always a reason not to do something. There's always a horror story or a potential deathtrap, but the reality is that last night thousands of children went out safely, had fun and didn't terrorise anyone.

 

[Cheule]

Yesterday we broke the record for trick or treaters at our door. One!

Best bit is we didn't even open the front door as its broken.

Normally every year nothing at all happens.