Cynical about Halloween

Grampa Don said:
I don't understand people who get upset over Halloween. Sure, it started as a pagan festival. So what? For most people in the US it has no religious significance. People used to believe in witches and goblins. Now they laugh at them. Is that bad? Or do you still think they are real.

Kids and even adults like to dress up in costumes. Look at the success of Comic Cons. The candy is just a small part of it. They can get that any time. The big deal is dressing up and seeing how others are dressed. Would you really want to take that away from the kids?

Sure, it's commercialized. Everything is. That's free enterprise. Look at the price of Mother's day cards.

El Dia de los Muertos is something different. The locals were celebrating that long before the Spanish arrived. It's a serious time to honor and remember those who have died.

Happy Columbus Day, or as the city of Los Angeles has declared, Indigenous Peoples Day.

Don
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Totally agree with you Don....
 

treeguy64 said:
Who cares? If you like Halloween, dress up and go out to trick or treat, or carve a pumpkin, put it outside, and answer your door when kids in costumes show up. If you don't like Halloween, don't do anything. Your call.
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Ha you got that right TG....H'ween is my favorite day of the year, or should I say the whole pre-holiday thing.....my house is spookily decorated to the max with help from my gr'daughter, I drive around to enjoy the creativity of the house decorations wth lights and pumpkins at nite, then I walk around our town gazebo where kids and adults are dressed up and the merchants along Main Street give out treats, so its a safe place on H'ween and lots of good clean fun....I'm never home that nite whether I'm feeling well or not :)
 
jujube said:
My late husband and I were nuts for Halloween and never missed a big party. We would work hard on our costumes and have such a great time.
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My Mom and Dad did this every year after joining the Elks....their costumes were awesome, i.e., bumble bees, french maid (my Dad) and the butler (my Mom) lol....can remember my uncle dressing as a woman too, it was hysterically funny :playful::chuncky::cheerful:
 
We 'celebrate' it in Australia too, it sort of snuck up on us.

We never had it when I was a kid, although we sort of knew about it. We never did the carved pumpkins and trick or treat though, we just saw all that as an American thing.

I can remember going to a Halloween party as a teenager in the 60's, but that was pretty unusual, the first time I had ever seen anybody acknowledging the day as such. But eventually it became pretty well established here too, with the usual complaints that inevitably follow - not part of our culture, just following America, over commercialised etc, etc, etc. I don't know what made us start embracing it, the 'Peanuts' cartoons maybe?

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I just saw it as a bit of fun, to be honest.

I would stock up on lollies, just in case some kids came knocking, (and eat most of it myself), but it's been a couple of years since any have. Maybe interest is starting to wane. I think kids knocking on strangers doors asking for lollies is a bit risky these days ... sadly.:(
 
If you are talking about (I love Holiday's) is a saying...I love Christmas Eve and Christmas Day....My family go to church and we have fish on Christmas Eve (Italian tradition) On Christmas Day we
have a big meal....I also love Easter Sunday....Fourth of July, Columbus Day, my brother was born on Columbus Day, St. Patrick Day, I was born on St. Patrick Day....New Year's Eve and Day....We celebrate them too.....We also have relatives Jewish...Sometimes we celebrate with them...My Niece is married to a Jewish fellow and he Celebrates Christmas Eve with us....So that's how holy I am.....

This post was for Falcan….(John)….They are all Holiday's to me.....I didn't think people here were mean.....
 
peppermint, I read no "mean-ness" here (concerning Halloween opinion(s). Trick or treating is a fun thing to do. Not the tricks-lol But now I prefer Halloween substitute costume parties in some home or church, minus costumes that represent evil characters. My step-grandmother sewed together perfectly a monkey costume for me when I was 10-? to wear in a school play. And I wore it at a neighborhood Halloween party, and was peeved I won only second prize, ... a metal thing that rattled when I shook it by its handle. LOL, I was 10 years old, not 2. sheees. :)
 
peppermint said:
If you are talking about (I love Holiday's) is a saying...I love Christmas Eve and Christmas Day....My family go to church and we have fish on Christmas Eve (Italian tradition) On Christmas Day we
have a big meal....I also love Easter Sunday....Fourth of July, Columbus Day, my brother was born on Columbus Day, St. Patrick Day, I was born on St. Patrick Day....New Year's Eve and Day....We celebrate them too.....We also have relatives Jewish...Sometimes we celebrate with them...My Niece is married to a Jewish fellow and he Celebrates Christmas Eve with us....So that's how holy I am.....

This post was for Falcan….(John)….They are all Holiday's to me.....I didn't think people here were mean.....
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Peppermint, my Italian friend's holiday dinners were the best!
 
peppermint said:
If you are talking about (I love Holiday's) is a saying...I love Christmas Eve and Christmas Day....My family go to church and we have fish on Christmas Eve (Italian tradition) On Christmas Day we
have a big meal....I also love Easter Sunday....Fourth of July, Columbus Day, my brother was born on Columbus Day, St. Patrick Day, I was born on St. Patrick Day....New Year's Eve and Day....We celebrate them too.....We also have relatives Jewish...Sometimes we celebrate with them...My Niece is married to a Jewish fellow and he Celebrates Christmas Eve with us....So that's how holy I am.....

This post was for Falcan….(John)….They are all Holiday's to me.....I didn't think people here were mean.....
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We seem to have a lot in common Peppermint. I love all the days we celebrate especially Christmas Eve dinner even though I am not really a fish lover but I am on that day. As a kid the only thing I didn't enjoy about Halloween was since I went to Catholic school we had to go to the convent and visit the Nuns. They would give us candy but I didn't enjoy going there. I really started to LOVE Halloween when it was the day I gave birth to my son. Since then it has been one of my favorite days.
 
I plan on going out in the morning to get about 10 lbs of candy for the trick or treaters. Last year we had, well, zero, but you gotta be prepared.
 
We have candy to pass out tonight to the trick-or-treaters. Some of the costumes are very good! Guilty of opening one of the bags a few days ago...

The oddest thing about this tradition - all year long kids are told to not take candy from strangers and then all of a sudden, it's okay to take candy from strangers!
 
I didn't buy candy this year because we get very few trick or treaters, I think our average is between 5 and 10. So I wind up eating it all the left over candy myself. If there is candy in the house I WILL eat it. So this year I figured I'd just hand out money. I went to the credit union and asked them for a roll of half dollars. That way I can spend what is left over. But they didn't have any. I have plenty of quarters but that's kind of cheap, even for me. A quarter today is roughly equal to about 3 cents when I was a kid trick or treating. So I ended up getting a roll of those gold colored dollars for $25 bucks. But now I'm hoping I don't get any trick or treaters.
 
Yikes, Trade! You bought gold colored dollars for $25 bucks? For real? If I was a kid trick-or-treating I'd be happy to receive a quarter. :)
 
Elsie said:
Yikes, Trade! You bought gold colored dollars for $25 bucks? For real? If I was a kid trick-or-treating I'd be happy to receive a quarter. :)
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Yeah, well I'm getting buyers remorse about it.

We don't get many trick or treaters here. And I really just wanted half dollars but my credit union didn't have any. And if I get more than 10 kids I'm shutting off the lights.
 
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. What's not to love? Each year about 100 adorable tykes come knocking on my door. I admire their costumes for a moment, prompt the little ones who forget to say "Trick or Treat" - and then I watch them go on their merry way. Being a good neighbor who celebrates the fun of childhood is well worth our annual $30 candy investment.

Possible unsavory roots of Halloween traditions don't matter a whit to me. I only care what it means in this day and age.
 
iu
 
Well it's 9.30pm and we've not had one trick or treater knock the door, despite my friend telling me on the way here tonight, she saw quite a few walking down the next road... I'm chuffed, because I hadn't planned to open the door anyway because I can't be bothered..they usualy knock while I'm in the middle of dinner or watching my fave tv show.. so fortunately I never had to do that this year!! Lots of neighbours got their outdoor lights on tho' so I suspect the kids all went to those homes
 

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