This time of the year is perhaps the most miserable for me. It starts with Halloween and the obnoxious trick or treating that is about to start as I type. Sean Coughlan shares some of my misgivings about the whole thing:
Dressing up in a scary costume and cadging chocolate and money is an irresistible business proposition for any child.
But should we be encouraging them? Is it harmless fun or an irritating excuse to annoy the neighbours?
It’s an irritating excuse to annoy the neighbours, I’m afraid. If an adult behaved in this manner, it would not be regarded as harmless fun, they would be (hopefully) banged up for demanding money with menaces; for that is what this “tradition” is; demanding something on pain of punishment – blackmail, in other words.
Like all respectable people, the obvious tactic is to make out that it’s great fun and then pretend to be out when the next bunch call round.
Turn off the lights, duck under the windows and turn down the television – all to show that you’re not a killjoy.
Actually, I don’t give a flying fuck what people think. I leave the lights on and ignore the doorbell. Let them realise that I am not going to play their game. Was I asked if I wanted to play? No, it is assumed that we will indulge these demands, it is assumed that because it is children making the demands and it is a “tradition” it is all okay and that I should prepare for something that I have no desire to celebrate.
So why does it still rankle? Maybe it’s the way that Halloween has been hijacked by trick or treating. Halloween is an authentically ancient festival, about the links between life and death, the struggle between light and dark.
It rankles because I ask nothing more of my neighbours than to be left alone. I don’t want their progeny knocking on my door making demands backed up with menaces. If they want to celebrate in their own homes and without disturbing others; well all fine and dandy, be my guest.
Some of the people commenting feel much as I do – that this is a tacky US import that should have remained firmly on their side of the Atlantic. Begging is ugly, begging with menaces is uglier still. Dressing it up in fancy costume does not alter the nastiness that lurks beneath.
However, Sarah in Donegal thinks otherwise:
What a whiny report, I went trick-or-treating as a child, and was always welcomed into my neighbours homes as the tried to guess who was underneath the costumes. The attention recieved and the amount of effort that went into our costumes were far more rewarding than the actual “treats” and we went home to party games such as bobbing for apples. This year i will be welcoming any ghosts or goblins that come to my house, and be delighted to see how the kids react for the one night when they are allowed to “go against every rule in the parent handbook”
No, Sarah, it is not a whiny report; it outlines just what is wrong with this artificial festival – which has nothing to do with the Celtic Samhain and everything to do with crass commercialism and blackmail. If you want to welcome other peoples’ children into your home and have a celebration, then that is your choice, but don’t condemn those of us who object to not being asked beforehand and whose cooperation is assumed.
Emma from South Wales is equally vacuous:
I think that people should lighten up and remember that when they were kids they probably celebrated halloween too.
When I was a child, Halloween did not involve knocking on my neighbours doors demanding a treat – I was taught that such behaviour was wrong. So, go fuck yourself, I will damn well not lighten up.
Next week, our neighbours will be letting off fireworks for pretty much every night for around six days and rather than a few pops and whizzes, we will get deafening bangs that would put the Western Front to shame. God, but I hate fireworks. Then when that cacophony finally dies down, we will be bombarded with fucking Christmas – and I hate Christmas and all that it represents; tacky commercialism, artificial jollity and sanctimonious hypocrisy – bah! Humbug!
If only I could hibernate…
Round these tacky American parts, the convention is that if one wishes to hand out cheap chocolate to small becostumed visitors, one leaves one’s front porch light illuminated. If one wishes to remain undisturbed, extinguishing the porch light will ensure a quiet evening.
It’s not so much begging with menaces as it is a progressive street party.
Sam,
I was thinking very much the same – we need some sort of accepted signal as to whether we wish to play.
Perhaps a turnip lantern in the porch?
To LR’s point I also agree. Trick-or-treating works in a neighbourhood were everyone knows everyone else. Where you are calling on neighbours. Total strangers banging on your door and demanding sweets is a rather different – and mildly threatening – proposition.
A street party is fine – I don’t have any problems with them at all. Indeed, they had one round here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of VE day. There is a significant difference though between that and trick or treat – street parties are attended by people who choose to partake. Trick or treat is imposed upon neighbours willy nilly – and, frankly, no matter how you dress it up, making a demand with an underlying threat of repercussions is still blackmail; sugar coated blackmail maybe, but it is blackmail nonetheless and is morally reprehensible. I don’t reward bad behaviour under any circumstances.
The poster on the door saying “No Trick or Treat” seemed to work this year, so it was the equivalent of the porch light signal.
Cah, you killjoy! Personally, I spent yesterday evening periodically breaking off from making a papier-mache effigy of Gordon Brown in order to dole out mini Mars Bars to the neighbourhood eight year olds as they appeared, as a gesture of defiance to prevailing food & nutrition guidelines … then we have Bonfire Night, not only a health and safety officer’s nightmare but also a chance to stage the instructive burning of Mr Brown (see above) …. then not long after that there’s the run-up to Christmas, during which I have been known to hand out copies of the Bethlehem Carol Sheet to inept carol singers so they can sing all the verses, correctly, thereby becoming worthy of their hire. It’s a great time of year. Plus, according to my local newspaper, the usual week’s news in our part of the world seems to involve a black teenager getting shot dead, so I see all this as a sort of rearguard action.
The carol singers – and I use the term very loosely – seem to have died a death around here. Given their inept performance (as with yours) that’s probably no bad thing. I never answered the door to them either, just as I don’t answer for door to door salesmen, surveys, religious proselytisers or anyone who has no legitimate reason for disturbing me.
Bonfire night would be okay if it wasn’t so bloody noisy. A few pops and whizzes are okay, but the incessant loud bangs for night after night is too much. And, if I recall correctly, bonfire night is just that; bonfire night, not bonfire fortnight.
Round where I live (Pendle in Lancashire), trick or treating is usually a festival that stretches over a fortnight or so, and leaves the local population so fed up of kids by Samhain its self it is amazing there aren’t murders on the actual night.
This Halloween just gone was the night I usually go shooting, so I did just that (turning off the house lights before I went). I suffered not a single trick or treater and the big bag of toffees I’d bought just in case was gleefully consumed by my colleagues at work (in record time, too).
The only real hassle I had was some muppet taking a potshot at my car with a paintball gun; with luck said fool would also take a shot at the police whom I informed of the incident. I can but hope…