Ours was quite good this year, they had spooky dress up, not Halloween IYKWIM. As adults we got what it was about but according to DD1 it was a kinder party food day :):
It's something you can easily discuss with staff who would understand.
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Ours was quite good this year, they had spooky dress up, not Halloween IYKWIM. As adults we got what it was about but according to DD1 it was a kinder party food day :):
It's something you can easily discuss with staff who would understand.
I have a slight love and obsession for skeletons...so they are up in our house all the time anyway, including our housemate Clavius who is a life size skeleton, he is part of the family. because of this people thing I am all into halloween too.
Im not =P I do celebrate Samhain, but do it in autumn. we got trick or treaters but had to honestly say we just dont have anything sorry. (which wasnt completely honest, because DH does have a stash, but it had been moved cause we had visitors with little kids over last week and we had to hide it after one of them got into it. and he couldnt remember/find where he had hidden it =P) he found it after they left and then said to me "might be a bit wrong me chasing after them saying we have lollies after all....people might think im a peado"
Im also a bit uncomfortable with the whole getting candy off strangers thing...seems a bit hypocrytical to me...
in saying that, a friend was telling me that the army base suburb all get into it and people put a balloon on the letterbox if they are involved, and there is even a sausage sizzle and such at the community hall as well, and use it as a family evening. so when Spock is older we might give that ago.
My pop remembers doing it as a kid also and he's in his 60s. It has been popular for awhile. I think it's whether your parents actually did it or not as to whether you view it so.:
i just remembered when we were kids mum and dad let us trick or treat only at our house. and dad use to trick us by putting chilly powder on twisties and put nuts in a smarties box....ahh fun times =P
[QUOTE=LimeSlice;3224963]It isn't just pagans, to be specific.
There are Day of the Dead traditions in most societies in the world, and most have developed independently of each other over centuries. [/QUOTE
very true!! my DH is Chilean and he was telling me that in Chile The Day of the Dead is actually a public holiday for them!
We had a ball, went out trick n treating and had a few at our house too. lots of fun, the kids loved it, so all good.
we have a neighbourhood halloween deal where a family across the road do a letter box drop with a balloon asking that those that are happy to have trick or treaters knock on their door between a certain time frame put up the balloon on the front door and that anyone can come and join. Last year it was just a small little group of 12 in only our street, but this year it was MASSIVE! and it was so so much fun. all the kids really got into and there were around 50ish kids (from toddlers to tweens) all out and about with parents in small groups...and the trick or treating really went above and beyond our street, so it was really really fun to meet a few of the other people in our community in neighbouring streets. the older folk really loved having the kids come knocking on the door and we got to really have some good chats and well wishes in general. I was so impressed!
I think what works is that it is an opt in, opt out system and there is a clear time frame for when the trick or treaters will be turning up (in our case between 6pm and 8pm).
But you can't contain it to the people in your neighborhood with little children. From what I see there are a lot of teens as well doing it. I'm not sure all would be aware, or respectful, of an opt in, opt out system.
Well it obviously works for some communities or it wouldn't have been going on as long as it has ;) we have a very tight community. There is one area/street that everyone goes to. The rules are lights on knock, lights off don't. We all know each other. There is no fear of strangers. Or upsetting neighbours. And each year houses add themselves to the list. I hear more complaints from people saying they didn't have many kids than the opposite.
I think it's just going to be one of those things, either you like it or you don't but just like my parenting choices will be different to others i'm sick of the snide comments on FB about the 'american holiday' and us being in australia and how it's so stupid.... actually it's NOT traditionally an american holiday and yes we are in australia but we take on other religions & cultures holidays so why not have a bit of fun with this.. thats my two cents.
Well said. Maybe if we shared the loot it'd take away the bitterness :p
Nope, don't agree with it! and don't like the idea of encouraging/enabling children to take lollies of a stranger! we warn them about stranger danger all the time, so how can it be okay for 1 day of the year to go knocking on strangers door's and accept sweets? It is not as if that one day is going to stop all the "bad" people out there! Poor kids must be confused. :confused:
But I'm a mean mummy ;-) as they get older and really understand the potential dangers they can make their own minds up, but I won't encourage it.
If we did take on other religions and culture's holidays I would agree with this but the reality is that we don't. I can think of a few holidays we could take on that would be much more fabulous than US style Halloween. Loi Krathong is a Thai festival where people make little boats with banana or bread and decorate them and then float them off downstream with candles. It's so, so pretty and far more lovely than Halloween. They have a water festival too where they water bomb each other. Once again much cooler than Halloween. There is a festival in India where they throw coloured powder about. Bastille day is a celebration of liberty, equality and fraternity - ideals we could all aspire too. Obviously there are oodles of other splendid festivals around the world but the one we seem to be embracing more over recent years is Halloween as it is celebrated in the USA which IMO is the lamest All Hallow's celebration on Earth.:
I guess it's just another facet of our reliance on importing American culture rather than building our own.
But that is a huge generalisation. And probably very incorrect. As someone who loves ALL festivals be they religious or not I disagree completely. And as someone who learnt about Halloween by my Irish grandparents I have to say no. And they loved scaring the crap out of kids who took hours to dress up. Just like my grandfather loved dressing up as Father Christmas each year too. If all it is to you is a plasticky greedy lamo holiday then that's fine. But to me it's seeing my kids have a great time. They love all things different and or spooky. And they've been criticised for it. Yet on Halloween when they trick or treat they don't get criticised, or accused of being weird. And we don't trick or treat every year. But we do decorate the house and carve pumpkins, and watch scary movies and even tell ghost stories. Why? Because it makes my kids happy. It's not about asking pedo's for candy. Or buying plastic stuff. Or not being able to separate traditions across continents. It's fun. That's all.
DH took DS. We'd spoken to our neighbours on either side of us during the week and asked if they were ok with a little dinosaur knocking on their door, and they were more than happy. DS was so so excited. It isn't something we ever celebrated growing up, but he had seen all the stuff in the supermarket and there was a bit about it on ABC2 during the day. Our neighbours were fantastic and really got into it. They had made up packages of lollies for all 3 kids (the twins had no idea what was going on :)), and one set also gave them glow in the dark bats and skeletons. From the 3 houses DS went to - 2 neighbours and ours - he came away with a huge stash.
I'm not sure I would ever take him any further than a few house away. We have quite a lot of eldery people in our street and I felt quite sorry for them, knowing they might get strangers knocking on their doors. It could possibly be quite confronting for some people.
We got some really cute dressed up kids who had gone to heaps of effort, and their parents were with them. We just had our big front windows open and would wave to anyone dressed up to let them know to come up to the house. Later in the night, we got the teens - who weren't dressed up and holding plastic bags. I would open the door and they would just be standing there holding out their bags, not saying anything. Those ones got told we didn't have any lollies left (and they just grunted and walked off). If you can't make the effort to dress up OR BE POLITE I am not handing over anything. I think some kids use it as an excuse to get lollies off people and show they have no manners :)
I was never allowed to go trick or treating as a kid. I also don't let my boys go. Even if they did lollies would go wasted because they just don't eat them. I still have chupa chubs in my cupboard from one of their showbags.
I have put signs up every year since Kameron was a baby. It was our first day home from hospital and I have just got him to bed finally, and a kid banged on our door. I refused to answer it. He banged again. I refused to answer it, so he nearly bashed the door down. I opened the door and screamed abuse at the kid then noticed he was only 5 maybe 6 years old. I shut the door and bawled my eyes out. Since then we've had no trick or treater signs.
What annoys me is people that don't even bother getting dressed up going out to scab lollies.
Love Halloween and have brilliant memories as a child but we didn't do anything although DD1 helped Grandma hand out treats as she was sleeping over there and absolutely LOVED it. She hasn't stopped telling me about all the costumes today. Where my parents live (and I used to live) it has been going on for as long as we lived there (15+ years) and people are always dressed up and accompanied by adults. I remember at one point in my childhood we lived somewhere that didn't really do Halloween so my Mum stood at the front door and my Dad at the back while my brother, me and some friends did laps lol.
Halloween parties were my favourite thing growing up (haven't been to one in a while though) and we would spend forever planning our costumes. As soon as one was over we were already thinking about next year! The best was stuffing newspaper in stockings to go as a spider... was an awkward night having extra arms attached to me at different lengths LOL trying to eat and drink and just not bowl people over was hilarious.
We love Halloween/ samhain. Celebrate both.
Not into trick or treating but that's such a small part if you are into it.
We have a party, dress up, play games and feast. At dinner we talk about both festivals afterwards have cake etc.
Think we"ll always have Halloween parties and its safe.
I am starting to hate Christmas, that's gone WAY ott which is a shame.
We don't go over the top but Im worried when I get home what it will be like for the kids. Here its still not really "done"
:bump: My FB and pinterest is clogged up with Halloween stuff every day at the moment! Thought this thread was interesting.
We seem to be getting more kids at the door every year and there's two events on for it that I know about it. We don't doing anything ourselves though.
We will probably organise to take the girls with their friends again, they had so much fun walking around together all dressed up.
Tempted to try pumpkin carving this year. Lol
We love Halloween here, we do pumpkin carving & the girls dress up but we don't go trick or treating as our street isn't into it.
We make Halloween snacks & do Halloween craft.
My girls really enjoy it & look forward to it each year.
We love it and our kids just love dressing up scarily, which is actually huge for my DD2 who is usually scared of her own shadow! Lol.
They love going out trick or treat-ing and coming home to scare the door knockers too.
We've just moved into a brand new estate and we're really hoping the neighbourhood kids do Halloween here too.
I celebrate it but as a religious holiday. I will be decorating.
I was in the USA last year and they decorate their houses like they do at xmas time. I loved it, it was awesome, they go all out!
We found out that not only does our estate do Trick or treat-ing, the sales office (for land, as it is a very new estate) provides us with decorations and a list of homes that will have treats for the kids. We're all meeting up in a group and doing a neighbourhood walk with the kids. DH had taken the day off work so he can join in with the kids too. I can't wait! My kids are thrilled that they're not going to have mean people this year :)
I'm being reluctantly forced into it by the kids! They are going to the local Halloween party this year so I need to dress them up. I've successfully avoided it until now so I guess I've done ok. Dd2 wants to be a vampire Snow White and dd1 wants to be a zombie bride.
My DD3 is dressing up as a zombie bride. :):
My kids want to dress up, but I won't be home till about 615 on Thursday, so dh said he will let the kids hand out sweets, and I am taking them to a Halloween themed disco on Friday night a play centre.