Tricks and Treats

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For those who celebrate it, Halloween is coming up in 10 days. Anybody get anything really wacky as a treat? Or play any tricks on the people down the block?

Up here (don't know about the rest of Canada) people hand out chip bags. Yes, like you'd take for a brown bag lunch - Doritos, Lay's, Cheet-os, etc.

I didn't play any tricks on anyone, other than the requisite TPing of the front yard trees and shrubs. Strangest thing I heard happened when I was about 16 and I 'chaperoned' one of my nieces while she banged on doors. This old guy, about 80 or so, gave my niece her mini candybar and gave me one, too, saying, "Here's one for you and one for your mom."

As a grown-up, the wacky treats I got were a phone number, a proposition and a bottle of Wild Turkey.

Best treat was a single mom who gave out full sized candybars!

 

I hate Halloween. Its the most pointless thing ever.

 

I'm hoping, since I'm at university, the people will be more mature. They'll probably just demand more sweets and do worse "tricks" though. I'll do my usual thing - pretend to be out.

 

Well, I know in Ottawa, you can spend about the extra mile to walk all the way down to the Prime Minister's house, and he gives out hella treats that fill bags. If you want to lug it all back too, that is. Anyways. I was thinking, that if I *were* prime minister, I'd still only give out a minibar or something, just to piss off all those greedy kids who want to get fat.

But then, I'd probably just get angry calls from parents who tell me I'm a cheap prime minister and deserve to be shot down at the next election...

My personal experience though, is throwing a candy bar at some peer of mine because he really really annoyed me and kept begging for more candy at my door.

 

We pretty much just hole ourselves up in the house with the gate blocked off, the letterbox taped and 999 on speed dial. Hallowe'en sucks.

 

Oh well, I guess its time to lace those sweets with anthrax and sharpen that axe.

 

Hmmm....on Oct. 31st, I start my new job...from 7pm to 7am the next day.

So...no, I'm not doing anything special. Although, work *does* scare some people.

 

Nothing like a blue overall, a hockey mask and a hand axe when answering the door.

Hint: This is NOT a Friday The 13th reference.

 

Does no one on BoM have happy Halloween memories? I can't have been the only one who had fun.

 

Nope Halloween was mainly introduced here because big toy-stores wanted to make more $...

We already had another tradition called "fastelavn", where kids dress up and ring dorrs for money (not candy). Then people gather and hit a barrel filled up with candy. The one who first bash it open is queen, and the one who hit's down the last piece is king (it hails from an old tradition, where there originally were a real living cat within the barrel, hence the name "To beat the cat out of the barrel" - roughly translated!).

 

Well, kuemp, seems you are indeed the only one with happy halloween memories. Meh. be proud to be different!

 

Living on a farm that was a bit hard to get to we didn't worry about halloween. Now I live in an adult community and don't have to worry about it.

There is a party at the club house where the folks get to wear customes and pretend they are 10 yrs old...(but with wine & beer.) I do not go. I will hole up with my computer and probably visit SP.

 

Hmmm...back in the day, I used to toilet-paper the houses that didn't answer the door when someone was obviously home.

That was fun.

Also, we used to spray kids down with super soakers who ventured outside their neighborhood...back then, super soakers were big and powerfull.

That was fun too.

 

Ewww...

 

I'll be giving out candy on Halloween and going to a party the weekend before. I always give out the regular sized candy/chocolate bars - The munchkins seem to dig it and they don't toilet paper my car.

 

Halloween as we know it is just another tacky holiday, however I celebrate it the traditional Irish way, complete with wicker 'sacrafices' bonfires, dancing and folk music - Just like my ancestors. Halloween or 'Samhain' as its really called, is about the barrier separating our world, with the spirit world being at its weakest point, and having to offer part of the Autumn harvest to starve off famine and war.

During the Great Famine, many of the locals blamed this on the anger of the Irish gods and the sidhe.

 

I never miss Halloween. Of course, with my schedule there's not a lot of time for decorating the house and getting on a costume for answering the door, but I wouldn't miss it for the world. I felt that way before I had kids, too, and now that I'm a Mom Hallowe'en is one of the most important days on the calendar! Arlyn is starting to pester for decorating the house, so I think we'll go out over the weekend and cobble together the beginnings of a collection.

When I was a kid I used to spend months planning the perfect costume, only to have it go awry because of some forgotten factor, or the weather. Didn't matter, it was still great to change into someone else for a night. Gee, I wonder where my love of RPing comes from... Even in college there were always Hallowe'en parties and reasons to dress up, and later my fencing club put on a huge Hallowe'en bash. We did this for several years running - it was a huge production, with live entertainment and a professional bartender pouring your BYOs and an incredible haunted house that went with the party's theme. One year aliens came, and another we took a dive in a sub to visit the survivors of the Titanic.

Nowadays it's about the kids. Arlyn is going to be Harry Potter this year (oooh, note to self, go find him a tie, ASAP!) and Marcus is going to wear Arlyn's old dinosaur costume. We haven't yet decided who will take the boys around and who will stay home to answer the door. We usually end up switching midway thru the night, anyway.

We get about 5 bags of candy, with 2-3 kinds of chocolate and 1-2 non-chocolate things. I'll sometimes let kids pick, or sometimes I just drop a little handful into their bags. As the night wears on and the older kids come around, the handfuls get bigger. However, no one gets anything until I hear the magic password - no, it's not "Please." That works the other 364 days of the year. On Hallowe'en, I want to hear

TRICK OR TREAT!

 

Maybe that's what the Irish call October 31st. For this displaced American-Newfie, I'll stick with the colloquial squishing of All Hallow's Eve.

No special plans for me this year. As neither my hubby or myself are into the alcohol scene, the grown-up parties sort of pale.

 

I love halloween also. There is something very intriguing about a day that celebrates the darker side of life. Having kids makes it a lot more fun though. Last year we had a few really great houses where the people went out of their way to install fear in all the 3-6 year olds that came by. Great fun.

One day I hope to be in Mexico for the Dia Del Morte. The true halloween. I still have a sugar skull saved that my husband sent me one year. Apparently the sweet bread that they make for that occasion is delicious.

A few years ago before I was married and had a family of my own, some friends of mine and I had a "day of the dead" party. We had it on a Nov 1. Part of the activities involved writing letters to dead loved ones and then burning them so that they could receive the letters. I think the party lasted until about 4:30 in the morning when the police came because of complaining neihbors.