Halloween...

[CailinDeas]

What Halloween customs do you remember from your childhood?

[Sparkles62]

We always had bob apple and duck apple on halloween but that was about it really.
When my children were little I used to do a party for halloween and they had a few friends round, ( trick or treat was just starting to take hold, and I didn't like the idea of them going out doing it )
We had fairy cakes and biscuits with icing spiders and bats on them, a big jelly with jelly spiders and worms in it and the bob apple and duck apple still went down a treat.

[maggiebee]

In Scotland we went guising - I wore my dad's coat tied with string at the waist, his bunnet and tackety boots. We went ducking for apples, eating scones covered in treacle and ate mashed tatties with sixpences hidden in them. We made a tumshie (turnip) lantern with a bit of candle inside - smelled to high heaven.

[pixie373]

We didn't do anything for hallowe'en. Just bonfire night.

[sherrardk]

I don't remember doing anything for Halloween really, but we did have a party one year (it was a 'sorry, but daddy is leaving party'). We had a party tonight for our children and my friend's three children, my kitchen floor is v sticky, I am picking bits of spaghetti off my socks and thing 1's hair is a bit crispy!

[Sparkles62]

I forgot the turnip lanterns Maggie, we always had one at halloween when we were little, I can't ever remember seeing a pumpkin in the 60's.

[CailinDeas]

Have we Americanised it?

[bravejordy]

Yes, I can still remember "duck apple night" with tin baths filled with water and bobbing for apples containing sixpences or apples hanging from strings and trying to bite into them without using our hands. And of course, the turnip lanterns. I can also recall having roasted chestnuts too, but that was pretty much it. How boring and uncreative we were back then!

I'm glad we Americanised it and brought a lot more excitement and fun into it. Besides, before we Brits latched onto the idea of using pumpkins for our jack o lanterns, those turnips were a nightmare to carve faces into.

[janbee]

In Scotland, we went guising, made turnip lanterns and dooked for apples. All simple pleasures but I have happy memories of it all. Sometimes, the Brownie pack I belonged to, had a Halloween party and they tied up HUGE pancake type things dipped in treacle. We had to TRY to eat them with our hands tied behind our backs. What a mess in our hair,uniforms etc. My mother was NOT pleased ! I loved it all. I wonder if todays kids REALLY enjoy the vile "trick or treat".?

[beso]

Halloween was completely irrelevant where I grew up in Australia in the 60s and 70s.

[boxtops]

Dad helped us make Jack o' Lanterns from pumpkins
Toffee apples
Bobbing for apples
telling scary stories

That was it, none of this going from door to door.

[bravejordy]

I do love the community spirit of trick or treating though, boxy. I know some would argue that all year round we're telling our kids never to take sweets from strangers, then come Halloween we're basically sending them out to knock on people's doors and ask for sweets. But in fairness, it's nice to see they do so responsibly by accompanying their children and I like to think I act responsibly too by only buying and handing out sweets that are individually wrapped as oppose to those that are not, such as jelly worms.

And in response to janbee, I would say judging by the beaming smiles on their little faces I'd say yes, they do ENJOY trick or treating very much!

[ludwig]

We used to make a lantern from a swede. Pumpkins weren't available.

My mum would say 'let's look out the window and see if there's any ghosts', at which point my dad would start prancing around the garden with a white sheet on his head. It never worked very well in broad daylight.

[maggiebee]

Had four guisers at the door last night - pretended I didn't know who they were all dressed up. Got a song from them and gave them a lucky dip.

[naomi24]

Ludwig, I once happened upon a friend's father prancing around the garden naked. That was scary enough for me. :o/

[Purple_Popple]

Ah the lovely whiff of a burning turnip...we also had that delight of carving out a swede or turnip and fitting a candle in the base of it. ..once lit replacing the lid and the smell would seep out. Lol.

[andres]

A few brave souls climbed Pendle Hill just 10 mins from our farm and we probably had a village dance. Nothing special-not like today. Like everything else it is becoming a commercialised event.

[trt]

I thought the Yanks nicked Halloween from the Irish!

[wiltsman]

None!

Not celebrated in the little Wiltshire village where I grew up, even though our church was The Church of All Souls.

Why do we need to celebrate Halloween followed a few days later by Guy Fawkes Day? Why don't we let Guy rest in peace after all this time.

Oh no we can't - the firework manufacturers wouldn't let it happen!

[coccinelle]

Turnips were used in UK and Ireland but as there were no turnips in America when the Irish arrived they used what they had and that was pumpkins....
This custom has now crossed the water to be taken up by the UK and Ireland...
Nor did we in the North East get dressed up etc just did out lanterns but we did have mischief night on the 30th October in certain areas !!!!!!!

[atalanta]

Halloween was nothing at all, except an excuse for a hell-fire sermon from the vicar if we showed any sign of believing in the occult, ghosts, etc. But we did enjoy going about for a fortnight or so with a straw-stuffed guy on an old pram or push-chair begging "pennies-for-the-guy" which were to be spent on fireworks.