Am I nasty/mean

Lillibet_2

The above post is nothing to do with me....Mr Lillibet got on his soap box a bit & replied under my user name whilst I was out! (well, I have been encouraging him to read the forum & be a bit more MSE-inclined....I have only myself to blame:rolleyes:). I hope it doesn't offend anyone, Mr Lillibet is rather passionate about the subject!:o

Curious_George_2

I have never answered the door to TorT'ers, I hate Halloween,
You spend all year telling your children not to speak to strangers and not to accept sweets from people and then one night a year thats all forgotten as you go out begging!!!

I tend to draw the curtains, tape a bin bag around the inside of the letter box (to foil the little bleeders who try and trick you by dropping eggs and flour through there... oh and also so if people try and look through to see if your in... they cant!!!) and ignore the knocking.
I dont turn off the light, I dont switch off the tv, but i make sure we cant be seen, ignored halloweeners get quite annoyed when they KNOW your ignoring them.

Dont get me wrong....My kids will be dressing up, and we will be having a scary buffet dinner in our spooookily decorated kitchen..... but i refuse to buy sweets for all the local kids who make your life a misery the rest of the year!
Think about it, what is TorT if its not a form of accepted bullying??
Give me some sweets (or money) or im going to damage your property...
English, American, Scottish... whatever, its got out of hand.

Contains_Mild_Peril

Hallowe'en depresses me nowadays. I live in Scotland, and grew up with the tradition of Guising (which predates Trick Or Treat by a long way). Guising, for those who don't know, is when children perform a party piece of some sort (song, poem or whatever) and are rewarded with edible treats. If trick-or-treating is considered begging, one might, in that vein, compare guising to busking. It's a much nicer tradition with none of the threatening undertones sometimes associated with trick-or-treat. Some other countries have their own versions of guising, as we would call it.
I was quite horrified when I moved to a council estate and found that some parents considered it acceptable to allow their children to go guising but did not themselves cater for guisers. In the places I grew up, that would be unthinkably bad etiquette. Many parents made a real effort, with homemade tablet and toffee etc. Coins were sometimes given in goody bags with nuts, apples, confectionery etc, but never, ever instead.
Children were always told only to visit those we knew, and forbidden to go to strangers' doors. We interpreted this loosely, and went around in groups of half a dozen or so, who then felt entitled to go en masse to the homes of those who were known to any child in the group!
I first had someone come to my door with the words "trick or treat" about 5 years ago. I tried to educate them, explaining that they were in the wrong country for trick or treat, and guising was the proper thing to do in Scotland. I ended up telling jokes to one lad who claimed he didn't know any! The following year, I was met with blank looks when I mentioned guising to the trick-or-treaters. I explained that they should sing or recite a poem or something, and there faces lit up with understanding and they chanted in unison "Trick or treat! Smelly feet! Give us something nice to eat!" Close enough, so I gave them their treats. I think that was the last year we had anyone come to the door at Hallowe'en. In a few short years, we went from hoards of guisers through trick-or-treating with its accompanying apathy to having Hallowe'en pass almost uncelebrated. It saddens me that other parents no longer seem interested in passing on their cultural heritage, and seem to be satisifed with letting their children learn from foreign (mostly American) TV programmes instead. I think schools are probably scared to teach pupils about such matters for fear of offending religiously sensitive individuals or being perceived to encourage unsafe behaviours such as visiting strangers.
In reply to the OP, of course it's quite right to expect them to wait until Hallowe'en and not pander to their greedy mickey-taking. You wouldn't take requests for early Christmas presents as well as the ones on Christmas day seriously, would you?

elisebutt65

I'm not expecting anyone this year after i gave out mini toothpastes to the lil ToTers last year!!!:rotfl:

I got a whole boxfull from my dentist and I still got loads of them to give away!!!!


The mum's loved it though!!!!

sarahlouise210

I do not think you are mean. I always put a sign on our porch saying "no trick or treaters please...baby sleeping" I did this when my DD WAS a baby ..it worked so well I am still doing it 4 years later!! ..mmmm.maybe that makes me mean...:rolleyes:

JenIttels

When I was younger (i'm 24 now) we went T&Ting a couple of times in the village where many people knew us.

For us it was more about getting dressed up and prancing around the village, hearing compliments from the house owners. Our 'trick' was something like a silly, slightly insulting , song we sang but most people went out of their way to find us a little treat as it's that sort of place.

I never considered the begging side of it and it was never about the treats anyway. I think, as many others have said, TTing is fine in some places, not fine in others.

I would never give money out and would check out any callers before answering the door (some of the kids where we live are right little gits). I would be nervous of them doing the egg/flour thing if i answered the door then refused to give them money.

dora37

It is done for a bit of fun in the surrounding cul de sacs near us. DD 5 went for the 1st time last year and is looking forward to it again this year - we take her around a few houses dressed up.

DS2 12 goes around with a few boys and girls - he is only to go where he knows children live and is only allowed to ring the bell once, and if nobody answers then he is to come away.

At our house after 7.30 we simply don't answer......for the past few years in both houses we have lived in, this hasn't created any problems at all - just a fun couple of hours.

Savvy_Sue

JenIttels wrote:

I would never give money out and would check out any callers before answering the door (some of the kids where we live are right little gits). I would be nervous of them doing the egg/flour thing if i answered the door then refused to give them money.

Or doing the egg/flour thing if you don't answer the door ... (that is why we THINK our gate was padlocked a few days after Hallowe'en last year!)

I'm wondering whether a note on the gate saying "Church Meeting in Progress: please do not disturb" will put them off or encourage them more ...