I notice that some of the local kids are Trick-or-Treating already, instead of waiting until Monday evening.
I was born in 1953, and spent all my childhood growing up in either North London, or rural North Somerset.
I can honestly say that I have no recollection of celebrating Halloween as the Americans do. We had Firework Night of course.
When I visited America, in 1978, I saw Halloween Trick-or-Treating for the first time. The Trick-or-Treating starts at about 18:00 and stops at 20:00.
You show your willingness to take part, by leaving your porch light on. Of course, generally speaking, we don't have porches over here ! But TOT'ing never begun 2 days before the 31st.
Nowadays, all the paraphernalia needed for Halloween is available anywhere. But even in the 1991 and 1992, it was nowhere to be seen over here. I used to bring back stuff from Walmart, for my nieces and nephews, like masks, pumpkin carving kits, etc, etc. Without it, they wouldn't have had anything.
Someone said on Radio Four this morning, that Halloween is second only to Xmas in its commercial
importance. We seem to have come a long way in a very short time !