Halloween

I think the protocol is that any house with a lit pumpkin outside will welcome 'trick or treaters'.
I usually bake small cakes and decorate with fondant pumpkins and ghosts made from a plunger cutter I have. Bagged individually, they always go down well at the door. Unfortunately the satsumas are always left behind, but pouches of fruit drink and bagged sweets are popular.
If you Google 'Halloween cakes' you will find no end of ghoulish ideas.

I'm glad we're out in the sticks, and don't have to suffer 'Trick or Treat' I never took my DC out to do this. I don't like flippin carol singers either. #grumpyguts
Organized charity carol singers are welcome

I'm a grumpy guts where Halloween is concerned, too, ninathenana. My kids never went trick or treating, it's just an American custom that's been imported by the purveyors of party tat, so far as I'm concerned.

No I dont like it

As children we always went Guising but only to Grannies' and immediate neighbours. Our DDs did likewise and now our DGC do the same. We eschew the Americanised 'Trick or Treat' commercialism, adhering instead to the traditional Turnip Lanterns (albeit with electric candles), a performance (telling jokes, singing, reciting) in each house by the Guisers and a reward of apples, sweets and small coins.

DDs usually organise a Hallowe'en party for family and friends with traditional dookin for apples, eating treacle scones dangled from a clothes line, Mashed potatoes with hidden treats, hot chestnuts. All great fun at minimal cost.

The old Scottish custom of 'guising' still prevailed when my own three were little and it involved dressing-up, visiting close neighbours, performing a song or reciting a poem and receiving a token sweet or satsuma. The lanterns were turnips! No (tricks) threats implied!
Dgcs enjoy dressing up and pumpkins but no trailing around trick or treating.
I've never liked Hallowe'en, even less now with the americanised version, so will feel free to ignore it.

The children in our village have a very happy time at Halloween, there are no tricks/ treats as such, just that children visit neighbours ( who have put out either lights, pumpkins or something) other homes are left in peace.
they show off their costumes and have little goody bags, which we drop something into.It's good natured fun.

Good natured fun, that should read.

Last year ( along with his mum) there was a tiny ghost on the doorstep, it was a little boy of about two, so sweet. he was very proud of himself.

My granny lived in rural south Wales on a sheep farm . She told me that at Halloween people came round with a horse's head. Any ideas how this worked?? She said she was very frightened as a child in the 1880s.

P.S we used to carve a turnip but give me a pumpkin any day

I don't like the idea of 'trick or treat' (with menaces) though in my (Scottish) youth we went out 'guising' round the neighbours and relatives until we outgrew it at about 12. Halloween parties usually involved 'dooking' for apples and eating black treacle coated scones hanging on strings and with our hands behind our backs! A very sticky game.

My grandkids thoroughly enjoy dressing up for Halloween. All the local children gather together under the watchful eye of a couple of the fathers, then go to one another's houses for treats. It's a happy, community event for all the families in the street. #nomenacesinvolved. The costumes are probably seen as tacky by some, but I don't think the children understand that concept. To them it's just fun.

My GS (8) goes trick or treating but only with a couple of his friends and "shadowed" by DD, in the cul de sac where he lives. Here in our road we get quite a few children, from tinies to teens, coming round in the early evening. I like to see the little ones. I usually buy small packets of Hariboes, wrapped lollies and such like. There are always some left over and DH usually polishes those off!

That horse's head was a Mari Lwyd. It went round at New Year so nothing to do with Halloween at all. Just ignore me.

I love hallowean, am I the only one? I decorate the hallway, have a carved out pumpkin on the porch and lots of ghoulish treats to give to those who call. My 2 DGD always come around in their new costumes each year and I get really disappointed if no-one else calls which sometimes happens unfortunately

LullyDully, I was thinking of the Mafia ( the horses head!)

I loathe this American import, just a way for shops to sell tatty rubbish.
Every time I see "Happy Halloween" I point out that there's nothing happy about it , it's when we remember the dead.
Too late now, it's completely ousted Guy Fawkes Night and small children do love dressing up in unsuitable costumes. Does anyone tell them what vampires, mummies etc are?

I hate it.

What on earth is going on when it's thought acceptable to ask total strangers for sweets etc and threaten them if they're not forthcoming?

When we first moved here from a very rural area the local yobs from a nearby village thought it fun to post dog excrement and bags of urine through the letter boxes of anyone who either didn't open the door or who declined.

I absolutely refused to open my door (sat with the lights off) to the ghastly teenagers so not only got that treatment but also my car keyed.
Police didn't want to know although 9 houses received that treatment. It's making me feel ill, the thought of it coming soon.

Halloween is a big celebration in my DD's house. She already has all her decorations up! She is bringing her family up as Pagans therefore Samhain is a major festival. It is the Day of the Dead, they honour loved ones who are dead and set out a plate of food for them. Light their pumpkin lanterns and go out trick or treating with their friends. They give thanks for the harvest and look forward to the new pagan year. DD and her family make quite a big celebration over two days 31 Oct. 1Nov. It is also a big party for DGD 3 whose birthday is on 30th October.

Sorry grandson 3. He'd be miffed if he thought I said he was a girl!

I enjoy it, cupcake1, though I've never come across the "trick" option, which sounds horrendous. Round here we just have 5 or 6 little groups knocking at the door, from the adorable tinies with their mums and dads at teatime to a few gangly youths at 9ish. I have a plastic cauldron which I stock with spooky sweets from the supermarket and just hand these out. I'll be decorating the windows with cobwebs, spiders, bats, pumpkin lanterns and tat, and keeping it all up for the Halloween lunch I'm doing for the DGSs the day after. Mummy sausages wrapped in strips of pastry, spooky mini pizza faces, tomato soup in a cauldron, buns like shysal's, etc. I'll be resplendent in my best witch's garb.

I remember us trying to scare people in the 60s with our turnip lanterns and blackened faces, and doing some nasty tricks on Mischief Night, 4 November. What loopylou describes though is inexcusable criminal behaviour.

DD lives in a nice little group of houses where the children can call on each other without annoying anyone. We've got a couple of families with small children near us so I keep a few sweets in the cupboard in case we get visited. We don't have ant problem teenagers, probably because we all know their parents!

I will be dressed in my best witch outfit, DGD and DD will be calling and we will have fun with DGD in her outfit, nothing more nor less, she will go home with her little bucket filled with sweets and have eaten a couple of Halloween treats. She wont be allowed to go to strangers houses and will have her parents with her at all times. Its pure fun.

I loathe it. In a magazine the other day somebody asked for suitably gruesome food for a child's Halloween party, and one of the suggestions that particularly disgusted me was for a dish that looked like vomit. I just find the whole concept of Halloween depressing.

Having said that, I think my grandchildren will probably go trick or treating since the whole Halloween thing has become almost obligatory now and even schools seem to be reinforcing this largely commercially driven frenzy.