Do you celebrate Halloween ? I'm interested to find out just how popular this American holiday is getting in good old blighty. I for one do not celebrate it, people started trick or treating in this country after seeing it done on ET the film. And I think it is a really intimadating time of year for old people who get loads of scallys knocking on there doors demanding sweets. Why do we feel the need to follow American holidays, are we that culturally weak that we need to become so americanised ?



Penny for the guy anyone ?

The only thing i celebrate on halloween is my birthday I'd like to celebrate it, cos i like the atmosphere but i probably just imagine that. I do make jock o lanterns though. And i used to do trick or treating but thats just cos my friends did it, it was something to do but i admit it annoyed the fcuk out of everyone

I thought people did trick or treating long before ET?

In America they did scorps, but not in the UK.

That cant be right. Cos the day i was born, my ten year old brother was annoyed that i was born cos he couldnt go out trick or treating with his friends, and ET came out 3 years later

Well you might be right but I never heard of it when I was a kid, and never saw anyone doing it in London untill the early 80's

Never been trick or treating, I hate trick or treaters.. I don't see the point in this holiday.. I don't really see the point in any of them..

I like crimbo and easter cause i get something out of them lol

I hate trick or treating. As FBG says it's just another outlet for anti social behaviour nowadays, a night where most people become prisoners in their own homes.

Tomorrow i will be going to B&Q to purchase a length of chain and a padlock and come Friday night when I get home from work I shall be padlocking the gate shut to stop them getting in to mither. It's a scandalous form of begging and in this day an age I would never permit my child (if I had any) to go knocking on strangers doors asking for rewards - nor would I accompany them to encourage them.

Out of the 2 I actually prefer bonfire night because at least you have the option to go to an organised display or if not you can sit it out and not partake in the whole thing. Halloween forces people to take part even those that want to do nothing more than sit in and watch telly cant do so without being disturbed.

Last year I sat in my back room with the lights off at the front of my house and some little shite was still shouting through the letter box because he could see the light under my door when he peered in through the letter box. Ban it I say.

I thought it was sad when i read you were having to padlock the gate shut. But then reading the above, i totally sympathise. I cant believe some people go that far to get something. Its supposed to be in good fun but clearly its not

Oh dont get me wrong even if that hadnt happened I would still padlock the gate shut. It's one of my real pet hates is trick or treating.

Do b&q sell landmines???

I think its a shame. I dont get trick or treaters but i wouldnt mind lil kids coming round with their parents cos i've seen some come round to my parents and they really make a big effort with dressing up and are very polite.

But teenagers ringing on your doorbell doing nothing, or even just teenagers at all, is totally wrong

I think if they are over ten years old you should be allowed to Taser them

its just an excuse for another party

do you need an excuse to party

I think what's also changed in the last ten-fifteen years is its commercialisation. I don't remember all the tacky crap in the shops before then, I'm sure. Neither do I remember anyone trick or treating before the mid-80s (Essex). Even then it was only a few of the little kids wanting sweets, etc.

But no, I never bothered with it, and have no intention of doing so.

Don't mean to be picky but halloween isn't an American holiday, it goed way back before the founding fathers and all that jazz.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

I think we know what FBG means, though - it's not celebrated anywhere else the way it's celebrated in modern day US (and Canada).

For me Halloween just means fancy dress partys

Ok I take your point that the haloween was started in Eire hundreds of years ago, but it was never celebrated in the American fashion over here until the 80's as far as I know.

qouting your link

Halloween celebrations in England were popularised in the late twentieth century under the pressure of American cultural influence, including a stream of films and television programmes aimed at children and adolescents, and the discovery by retail experts of a marketing opportunity to fill the empty space before Christmas. Between 2001 and 2006, consumer spending in the UK for Halloween rose tenfold from £12 m to £120

I just was wondering why the American films and tv make us celebrate an american holiday. As haloween has not been celebrated for hundreds of years in the uk (reading jasons link )

Its like everything in american films, we seem to be so influenced by them that anything in them catches on here

An elderly lady who lives at the other end of my road had two boxes of sweets that she offered to trick or treaters.

She still got her front windows egged.

What happened on my Halloween...

Padlocking the gate worked a treat