Trick or Treat
 

My granddaughter has been out trick or treating tonight (with her mum and 2 friends). She was dressed up as a female devil, complete with horns and a trident, and her friends were both witches. Most of the neighbours had sweets in readiness for the kids and entered into the fun of the occasion. There were 4 lots going around and I had my own little store to give to them. There's also a few parties going on (I can hear the fireworks).

There's a church in our village, though, that believes Halloween is evil. They sent leaflets to the school inviting children to a "light party" tonight as an alternative. One leading light of this church, about 20 years ago when my daughter knocked on his door dressed in a bin-bag and a witch's hat, shouted at her that she was "messing with the occult" and told her she was putting herself in "great danger".

My daughter is Brown Owl at the local methodist church Brownies and they proposed a "Harry Potter" evening, early this year. Parents of Brownies who attend the "other" church objected and said Harry Potter is evil, so the evening was cancelled.

Personally I think the "evil" is in the minds of that congregation who seem to be a load of silly, superstitious idiots. What do you think?

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I think children see it as a fun time to dress up and get lots of sweets, I dont think they think any deeper than that, dont care for the attitude of your church much!

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Hey it's not MY church. :D

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Its for the kids so the church should hold its tongue. Maybe I should complain about the next harvest festivel because some starving African Kid could be offened.

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I totally agree with you West Ender…..These people from the church must understand and adapt to what is a modern world. The stringent attitudes of church goers of 40 or 50 years ago have no bearing on matters pertaining to today’s commercial and want, want minded society.

The Occult is a real and dangerous area of interest, but only if you let it, or those promoting it, rule your life. In reality the only real danger is you being conned out of your worldly hard earned cash.

Master Potter is the fragment of an especially talented mind and is little different and certainly no more dangerous than classics like Peter Rabbit or Whinny the Poo. What these people should remember is that their own religion in Britain was born out of the assignation and amalgamation of Romano Celtic beliefs, gods and sites. Light and Darkness are both sides of the same coin, outside of the natural realms evil exist only in the minds and eyes of the ignorant, that is to say that the occult isn’t itself evil, evil is born out of those that use it for their own ends by creating wars, hatred and other such manifestations and in my mind that includes those who seek to use it to promote fear and mistrust like that person who shouted at your daughter.

Evil exists in many varied degrees. The scum that Broke into Paul’s home where no less evil than that a*** hole who let selfish stupidity bring about the death of a horse today with fireworks, and certainly no less evil than scaring a little girl by creating unnecessary fear of something that she doesn’t understand…….If these people want a witch hunt they should start by looking under there own cassocks.

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I don't know how that happened.:o Hey, two for the price of one.:rolleyes:

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I have to admit I'm not that fond on the trick or treat idea. Not because it's worshipping the occult or anything but because we spend the rest of the year telling our kids not to talk to strangers and then here we are telling them it's ok to go knock on strangers doors.

We did apple bobbing and went for a spooky walk instead. I'll also quite happily keep a pile of sweets next to the door for anyone who knocks but I'm just not encouraging my two to do it.

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Laura and her mum only went to neighbours on our street. As we've lived here for 30 years there's not much danger that they might run into strangers.

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That's fine but we got quite a few coming to our door that didn't know us from Adam.

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I think that modern life is stealing all the fun of childhood......and with attitudes like that it is no wonder the churches are empty.....OK, so Halloween is a pagan festival, but it pre-dates Christianity.....it should be viewed in the light of a cultural thing. Having said that, I don't ever remember doing trick or treat when I was a child.....we were too busy collecting bonfire wood, making dens, stopping other kids from raiding our bonfire stocks......and collecting pennies for the guy.

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I must admit the first time I came across trick or treat was when we lived in Whitby in the 60s. My husband worked at Fylingdales early warning station and there were a lot of USAF people there. The American children used to come round, all dressed up, and we got used to it. I don't think we did much at Halloween when I was a child in West End but Bonfire Night was a much bigger event then.

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Yes, the focus was always on bonfire night. We used to make up raiding parties and go and pinch wood from other gangs bonfires.....we had a garage and all the wood was stored in the garage.....except for the few days before bonfire night. Dads used to help us build the bonfire.....we rigged up all kinds of things so that we would know if our pile was being raided.
Mums used to make parched peas, spud pie, parkin, treacle toffee and toffee apples. The whole of Marsden Street in Accrington used to get together and it was like a street party.....we would put potatoes into the fire and then we would get some brave adult to rake them out for us.....we must have eated almost as much wood ash as potato.....it never seemed to do us any harm.

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We use to have some cracking bonfires on the pens at the end of Miller Fold, anything up to 15 or 20 foot depending on how much wood we could nick.......:D

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There was gang warfare in West End over bonfire wood being nicked. :D

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same on tanpits ....with them from nelson square nicking our wood, & some one always seemed to thow a settee or chair out......& that was last to be burnt......he he potato pie made in the (well scrubbed) enamel washing up bowl....ahh well.

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Potato pie in a washing-up bowl, Auntie Elsie's parkin (she was a baker), mum's treacle toffee, dad's potatoes burnt black on the outside and nearly raw on the inside - "They're beautiful", he used to say as I spat the charcoal out. Ah, the memories! :)

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I don't like Trick or Treating round the Street,but private parties are o.k.
We didn't have Trick or Treat when we were young.
I got in trouble when I got caught going round asking penny for the guy.

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Never mind doug you can make up for it on bonfire night.

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Trick or treat is an Americanism which we can do without. I always go out on Halloween so that I am not bothered by T or T'ers. If they do catch me in, I tend to give sweets. One cheeky little runt asked me for cash last year and I threatened him with a clip round the ear. We went for a meal last night and were laughing at some of the things that the kids say. We have both had "Halloween is coming, the goose is getting fat!!!!!!' What the hell is that???? I would happily give cash to any kid who knocked on my door and gave me a chorus of The Monster Mash.....:D

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My brother & I used to go to all our 'aunties and uncles' neighbours houses dressed up, with a shoe in hand saying 'witchy poo is asking you to put a penny in the shoe' the proceeds of which bought our fireworks. We always managed to fill a quality street tin +rockets & sparklers.

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Now thats what I call savvy two nights enjoyment for the price of one.

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http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_11_2.gif http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_11_2.gif http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_11_2.gif http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_6_19.gif http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_6_20.gif http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/12/12_6_21.gif

we had loads of children round last night ,,, the door bell was red hot..
the little boys loved the great big toffee eyeballs ,,
the little girls freaked out.. and went for chocolate






http://www.smileycentral.com/sig.jsp?pc=ZSzeb065&pp=ZN

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i disabled my buzzer as I would have been a worse sight than them.

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I switched off my frontroom light and pretended we were out.
They drove me mad last year.

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I like your style, Willow, that's really entering into the spirit of the thing (no pun intended).

Most of our neighbours were great and made the night fun for all the kids. After all, that's what it's all about, just fun. I was amused when there was a ring at my doorbell and I opened the door to find at least a dozen "munchkins" on the drive. They were all about 3 or 4 years old and looked about 2 feet tall and most had witch's hats and cloaks on. They were accompanied by about half a dozen mums, also dressed up. All the children looked very solemn, as little ones do on these awesome occasions, and when I gave them sweets and their mums told them to say thank you they all whispered thanks just as solemnly. It made my night.

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exactly... the mums have just as much fun.. one had a baby in a pram dressed up as a pumpkin ..the other children with her were taking it very seriously ...

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Ahh the innocence of children and the "big children" so sweet.:)