Well it is still the 31st of October, and we have survived Halloween in Beetley. Regulars will be all too aware that I do not celebrate Halloween. In fact, I regard it as an American commercial invention, and avoid it, at all costs.
https://beetleypete.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/halloween-scmalloween/
During all the years I lived in London, I had little or no idea about Halloween. For me, it arrived some time around 1990, with people knocking on the door after 6 pm, and asking for ‘Trick or Treat’. I had no treats prepared, and asked them for a trick instead. Some were flummoxed by my reply. Mums with small children called me a ‘meanie’, but older kids just threw eggs at our windows. By the time I was living in Camden, after 2000, older kids would knock up until 10 pm. They did not even bother to dress up, and never said ‘Trick or Treat’. They just wanted cash, which annoyed me even more.
By 2012, we were living here in Beetley. In a neighbourly spirit, we bought in lots of sweets and snacks, expecting better-behaved children to knock on our door on the 31st. But despite hearing them around on the nearby streets after dark, we didn’t get a single ring on the doorbell, or knock on the door. A few days later, we mentioned this to our neighbour. She told us that as we did not have a pumpkin outside, nobody would knock and disturb us. We had never heard of this tradition, but considered it to be admirable.
Since then, we have never put a pumpkin outside, and nobody has bothered us on the 31st. The same thng happened this evening. Despite crowds of noisy children traversing the local streets, nobody came to our door. Just as well, as we had no sweets ready, and Ollie might have barked. For us, this is an excellent way to celebrate Halloween, for those of us that do not want to celebrate it, and take part in the commercial excesses of this corrupted festival. Well done, Beetley.
We survived Halloween, and that made us happy.
I ain’t a fan either. I hope the ‘no pumping no knocking’ thing makes it’s way into London.
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If I had put a pumpkin outside the door of my flat in Camden, someone would have nicked it!
Cheers, Pete.
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Hahahaha
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Well said. I’ve never liked Halloween as I find it hugely commercialised and tacky. Children dressed up as ghosts is one thing but adults doing it is far worse. I treat 31 October as just another ordinary day and that’s it.
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Thanks, WS. It does seem to divide people, but I continue to resist the modern commercialism of this ancient festival.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Where I come from Halloween is not celebrated because the Day of the Dead (All Souls’ Day) is much more important. But increasingly, it seem like this commercialised Halloween has also made its way to where I came from originally.
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I’m with you, it’s commercial claptrap, no visitors around here luckily!
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Thanks, Gilly. It seems to divide opinion. Glad to have you on ‘this side’!
Best wishes, Pete.
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We put some pumpkins out and got loads of adorable little kids dressed up… and I loved it, as did Little O.
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I saw your post, Abbi. It’s not for me, though my wife enjoyed some Halloween stuff with her grandson on Saturday.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Nate enjoyed last year’s and this year’s celebration of Halloween in Nissa’s office. They don’t have “trick or treat” though in their place. Lots of candies and chocolates, bad for the teeth 🙂
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It is a feast of bad, cheap sweets, Arlene. But I think it is ingrained into our society now, sadly.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
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Many thanks, Michael.
Best wishes, Pete.
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It’s becoming more and more popular here in Australia as well. I’m part of a generation that didn’t celebrate it but have no interest in it. Can’t think of anything worse than knocking on other people’s doors or having them knock on mine but it is a bit of fun. Sounds like Beetley has the right idea as a community.
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Interesting to hear that someone as young as you has not celebrated Halloween, Lloyd. Perhaps the British settlers in Australia had more to worry about, than dressing up. 🙂
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In Spain, it wasn’t a thing either (I don’t know if it has changed, but as people live in apartments, at least in the big cities, I suspect there might be parties but not visiting around). The 1st there is a holiday, and the tradition was to go to the cemetery and visit your relatives who had passed away. There are also some sweets involved, but that depends on the place (roasted chestnuts and panellets… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panellets) My experience here has varied. In some places where I’ve lived children have come knocking and in others not, regardless of any decorations or not. I think in some places children visit the houses of the other children. Here some years they have come and some haven’t. Yesterday, I decided to go to the local cinema (to watch the new Blade Runner movie) and it was well attended for a week day, so I suspect I wasn’t the only one who had the same thought.
Enjoy your Wednesday.
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Thanks, Olga. I didn’t get to see the new BR at the cinema (yet). Did you like it? (I have read some stellar reviews)
Best wishes, Pete.
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We have a pile of pumpkins on the terrace, but that’s only because I haven’t bothered to take them to the outdoor cellar yet 🙂
No danger of anyone finding us here and knocking on the door, besides the Catholic church is up in arms about it http://thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/332907,Polish-Catholic-official-slams-Halloween
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Perhaps The Pope can ban it? That would help, but I fear we have few Catholics nearby.
It might make the 31st much quieter in parts of New York and Boston though…
Best wishes, Pete.
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It is not celebrated here says she with a big smile..Do I miss it ..No! Like Mary, I remember when It was a nice evening with apple bobbing and a few sweets for the little kids and then it all changed. I like the idea of leaving a pumpkin outside and like you….I wouldn’t and I am not grumpy…Really…lol
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No Halloween in Thailand? Give it time, Carol… 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Ha Ha..not for a long time Pete…trust me too steeped in tradition … Carol
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Perhaps you could start it off? It’s a real money-spinner! 🙂
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Nooooo! I like it without Halloween I will make money elsewhere.. thank you for the suggestion…lol
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Halloween has never been big where we live in Australia. Just as well because I usually don’t know what day of the week it is. 🙂
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I’m sure it will find its way down to the Antipodes eventually, Peggy. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Oh it’s here, just not big.
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Well said!
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Thanks, Susanne. Just more unnecessary expense for parents, as I see it.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Oh, come on. It is fun for so many people 🙂 It did become commercial – sort – of, but with all the glum and snobbery around the UK anyway, it is a relief to have something like this – fun, exciting, community-binding. As for Americanisation, well, well, the Halloween tradition originated first in the UK – the dressing up for Halloween was practised in the UK in the 16th century, when it has become custom in the US only in the 18th century. Therefore, it is a bit weird talking about the UK borrowing something from the US.
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Hi Diana, thanks for commenting.
Dressing up for Halloween was done here hundreds of years ago, I know. As I mentioned in the linked post, it was taken to the US by British settlers. However, it was not that widely celebrated when I was young, until this country adopted the American commercialisation of it much later. If you enjoy it, then that’s fine. If parents now want to parade around with their kids on the 31st, that’s fine too. Just leave me out of it. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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It is far too commercial, Pete. At school we have pajama day (yes, I wore mine to school), and a day in the dark with flashlights and glow sticks.
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I had a ‘dressing-gown’ evening, but no glow stick. 🙂
Thanks, Jennie.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Ha ha!
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I’ve just been waxing lyrical and nostalgically on another blog about how much I loved Halloween when I was a kid. We dressed up, went out in groups of three or four to every house on our road. This was no trick or treat event, though. We were guisers and we knew we had to work for whatever we might receive – recite a poem, sing a song, play a tune on a musical instrument or dance a Scottish Country dance. The ‘treats’ were a handful of nuts, apples, or homemade toffee apple, homemade table or toffee – rarely, were we given money. I suspect the money was from people who’d forgotten to prepare or had run out of other goodies.
Sometimes we were invited to ‘dook’ for apples which were bobbing in a bowl of water. You either had to kneel on a chairl above the bowl and try to spear an apple by dropping a fork from between your teeth, or kneel on the floor and try to grab an apple in your teeth – you can imagine the result. Or, scones covered in treacle were suspended on strings and you’d to eat them with your hands behind your back. How the adult sadists laughed at that!!!
I’m sorry it has become such a commercialised, dare I say, Americanised, occasion now. I’ll stop here before I start sounding like a grumpy old woman, just when I’m enjoying my trip down memory lane.
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Nothing wrong with saying it is Americanised, Mary. It is, and that’s a plain fact.
I honestly never celebrated it at all in my youth, and didn’t know anyone else who did.
Maybe that was unique to London? I might have enjoyed those treacle scones though!
Best wishes, Pete.
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My three year old loved this am in her Max of where the wild things costume….they were in lower Manhatten but thank god not hear where the van hit all those people….so horribly sad.
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Sad indeed, Felicity.
Glad to hear that your grand-daughter enjoyed herself, and was not caught up in it.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I love greeting little trick or treaters at the door and oohing and aahing over their costumes, but I totally understand this not being a holiday for everyone! I’m glad you, Julie and Ollie have survived another Halloween Pete.🎃🤡👹😈👺👻👽
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Thanks, Kim. I love how we don’t get bothered here. Just another day tomorrow, thankfully.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I forgot to mention I’m dressed up as Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter!🎃
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I will have to Google that, to see what you look like! 🙂
Ah, Dame Maggie Smith!
Best wishes, Pete.
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Ha! Not quite that old, but I feel like it.😁
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I didn’t mean you looked like her of course. 🙂 Just that she played the character. (I haven’t seen the films)
Best wishes, Pete.
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Oh, I know Pete! I was kidding.😁
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Beware the Headless Horseman! If there is no pumpkin to be found, the Hessian will find a substitute!
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He’s welcome to try, David! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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It is charming when small well behaved children visit-but not so when much older people come by demanding. And the tricks can be costly.
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It’s just one more thing we don’t need over here, Michele.
Best wishes, Pete.
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We do not need any more reasons to need or buy here either-
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I read your old post Pete, some good points. (I, of course, like it 🙂 )
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Feel free to like it of course. I used to like Bonfire Night, when Halloween was just ‘something in America’.
Best wishes, Pete.
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Trick or treat, they have caught it here. It is supposedly All Saints’ Eve (which is celebrated today Nov. 1) but for most, it has acquired a different meaning.
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True, Arlene. Just another commersialised festival.
Best wishes, Pete.
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I’m with you on Halloween, Pete!
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Thanks, Sue!
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