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#Post#: 17543--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: TootsNYC Date: October 29, 2018, 3:34 pm
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when I was a kid, we had the stereotypical trick-or-treating in
our small Iowa town. On Halloween itself, not the weekend; and
after dark (OK, 5pm or so). Parents standing on the sidewalk
waiting; kids on the front porch.
Here's the non-stereotypical thing.
Kids were expected to do a trick.
It was almost "trick for treating."
Kids spent days trying to decide what their trick was.
Sometimes it was a riddle or a joke. Sometimes they sang a
little song.
One year, one kid stood on his head. At every house.
I miss it! But I'd never heard of anywhere else that people did
it. I thought it was just my town.
My friend moved from Missouri to Des Moines, and was majorly
freaked out when the first trick-or-treater at her door launched
into a riddle.
So apparently it happens elsewhere in Iowa.
#Post#: 17549--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: Thitpualso Date: October 29, 2018, 4:09 pm
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It was similar but reversed in the little town of my childhood.
If the householder didn’t give you a treat, you performed a
trick on him. Sometimes, the householder performed a trick on
you.
When I was a child, it was common to wrap an apple or a popcorn
ball in a paper napkin and present that as a Halloween treat.
There was a man who lived a few houses down from my
grandparents. I was welcome to come on Halloween and recieve
something nice from him because I was known to be a good kid.
There were times when he even gave me a prize ball.
There were others he didn’t like as much. The man had a fairly
large garden behind his house. Boys would steal raspberries from
his bushes. Some were bold enough to steal tomatoes off the
vines in his garden when he was away from the house. The man
had a good idea who these little thieves were and planned a
Halloween revenge.
Instead of apples or popcorn balls he wrapped up onions or
potatoes in festive napkins and gave those to the alleged
perpetrators. No one was harmed and the Moms of these kids
probably appreciated having something to add to dinner.
#Post#: 17580--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: TeamBhakta Date: October 29, 2018, 6:53 pm
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My neighborhood gets overloaded with outside families showing up
to trick or treat. Last year people showed up with golf carts
decorated with lights :o I don't live near a golf course, and
any of the gated communities with golf carts are too many miles
away through heavy traffic. One of my friends in a neighboring
county had golf carts show up in his area, too ???
#Post#: 17605--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: TootsNYC Date: October 29, 2018, 9:27 pm
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we did also have a tradition of, if someone didn't get a treat,
then later they would play a trick (soaping someone's windows,
etc.). But it was highly frowned upon. And had mostly faded out
by the time I was a kid.
#Post#: 17794--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: Thitpualso Date: October 31, 2018, 11:14 am
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In my childhood we had a family who came from Hungary and were
having a bit of trouble adjusting to the American way of
Halloween. They had a daughter who was in my class and wanted
to go trick-or-treating.
Her parents were dead set against it because of what they had
suffered during WWII.
‘We are in America! No child of mine will dress in rags and beg
on the streets!’
A classmate’s Mom stepped in. Her parents were Hungarian and
she knew a quite bit of the language. A little sit-down over tea
resolved the situation.
Marika would wear a pretty, hand-sewn Princess costume that
the Mom’s daughter wore last year. Marika would join her
friends for a bit to trick or treat to houses of people the
children knew. Then, they would go to a Halloween party with
games, food and fun. Marika would be home by 9 PM.
That was acceptable and Marika had a wonderful Halloween.
#Post#: 17807--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: Aleko Date: October 31, 2018, 12:15 pm
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Halloween was never that much of a thing in England in my youth.
We sometimes held children's parties where you bobbed for apples
and such like, and at Halloween there were various ways you
could tell your fortune, or find out the name (or at least the
initial) of the person you would marry. The way my mother taught
me (which she had been taught by her Somerset-born mother) was
to peel an apple in a single long strip without breaking it,
then throw the peel backwards over your left shoulder and see
what letter of the alphabet the fallen peel looked like. But the
big event of this season was the Bonfire Night, the Fifth of
November:
[quote]Please to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and shot!
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.[/quote]
For weeks before 5 November children would collect wood for
their bonfire, and would make an effigy of the Gunpowder Plotter
Guy Fawkes, dressed in whatever old clothes could be spared, to
burn on top of it. Before 5th November gangs of children used to
display their Guy in the street and beg passers-by 'Penny for
the Guy!' and use the money we got to buy fireworks. Ah, happy
days! But - although we still have 5th November fireworks - it's
well over a decade now since I saw children in the street with a
Guy. Instead we get trick-or-treaters, a custom which simply has
been cribbed from the USA; 'Mischief Night' used to be a thing
in the industrial north of England but never in the south. It
saddens me that our own equinox customs have vanished (along
with Father Christmas - killed off by Santa Claus in my
lifetime), all the more so since modern Halloween is
horrifically polluting and wasteful - it's reported that seven
million of the tacky petrochemical-fabric costumes sold every
Halloween go to landfill after only a single wearing - and
totally empty of creativity, compared to the hours of care and
effort that we used to lavish on the creation of our Guys.
#Post#: 17808--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: betty Date: October 31, 2018, 1:01 pm
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There are lots of festivities leading up to Halloween in my area
of Colorado. Tons of pumpkin farms with other activities and/or
haunted houses to go to before the big day. Our town and
neighboring towns had safe trick or treat events for little kids
last weekend (trick or trunk, where people decorate their cars,
and other events).
Today is Halloween, and kids will be out trick or treating in
all of the neighborhoods. We don't get too many, because our
house is only one of four on the block (with nothing across the
street). It makes more sense to go a block down where you can
trick or treat at more homes in a shorter amount of time LOL. We
still have candy and small, halloween-themed toys, and decorated
the front yard with a flock of zombie and skeleton flamingos.
This year, we might be out during key trick or treating times,
so I made a "take some candy and a toy" sign and I'll leave
stuff outside.
#Post#: 17811--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: Irked Purist Date: October 31, 2018, 1:23 pm
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Modern Trick-or-Treating may have been greatly influenced and
codified by how it's done in the USA, but it's by no means
'simply cribbed from' there. It developed in its modern form
from the (mainly Scots, still-extant) practice of guising,
general British mumming traditions (clock the similarities to
Wassailing), the mediaeval Soul Cake custom, and possibly back
further to Celtic religious remembrances.
The ingredients of costumes, mischief, occultism,
ghosts/remembering the dead, and door-to-door requesting of
small edible gifts were all in place and are just as much a part
of traditional UK folk practices as they are North American
ones. Even carved jack o'lanterns were an import to the USA-
originally turnips or mangold-wurzels.
I don't love commercial modern Hallowe'en because I'm not one
for cheap tat and, on principle, I dislike scary things being
confined to one month a year. Spook up year round, please!
Soul-caking or All Hallows' doesn't apply as I'm not a
Christian, I can't claim any Scottish or Irish background to
legitimise my guising, and I'm not in the West Country where
things like Punkie Night are still observed. Plus I don't have
any youngsters who are desperate to trick-or-treat. So my
evening will be indoors and fairly quiet; I have my own
observances.
But it's a shame to see our own folk traditions dismissed
wholesale. Anyone who is nostalgic for a less
orange-and-black-tat-saturated time of year could do worse than
reading up on the precursors of modern Hallowe'en and maybe
bringing some of them back if they're up for it. Traditions can
be rediscovered and hold strong if they provide an important
community focus- or are merely sufficiently fun.
Oddly, I went most of my life without seeing a guy- even going
to big, official Scouts' bonfire nights- and thought they were a
thing of the past, but started seeing them every year when I
moved to my current area. There's not masses but there are
community bonfire celebrations of all sizes and they're still a
part of those.
#Post#: 17814--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: TeamBhakta Date: October 31, 2018, 2:25 pm
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There were several trick or treaters running around here before
noon; the two nearest elementary schools let kids out early
today ???
#Post#: 17832--------------------------------------------------
Re: Halloween
By: Luci Date: October 31, 2018, 4:58 pm
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We live in a comfortable neighborhood in a city if 117,000. We
are in a nice neighborhood on a street about 2 blocks long but
it seems that most of us are older and there are very few kids.
Last year are we had nine. The churches are having things like
tailgating and inside parties as we are in the Bible Belt, so
I’m not much surprised. There is a ritzier neighborhood a mile
south and I think that is where most of the people who drive in
go.
Sad. But not surprised.
Update: it’s now 8:00. I always have Teddy Graham’s for the
toddlers, mints for the peanut allergies, chocolate stuff for
the older kids and parents.
We treated 16 kids and 7 parents this year.
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