trick or treat

[purplerockie]

By allowing our children to "trick or treat" are we inadvertently teaching them to behave like terrorists - I.E Give in to my demands or something bad will happen to you?

[smudge]

enigma - I have to agree with FakePlastic here. I have to say that although the celebration of Halloween itself is not a new thing, trick or treating is, well in my neck of the woods anyway. We never used to have children of all ages knocking on door until recent years, but now it's one after the other. I am a very giving person & always 'treat' them, but it worries me that in this day & age these children are alloed to roam the streets unattended knocking on strangers doors. I am not a miserable old stick in the mud & this may sound hypocritical, but I remember the fun when we used have doing 'Penny for the Guy', but it was safer in those days back in the fifties. I admire you for making up goody bags to give to your neighbours children & in no way indicate that you are a scrounger by doing this. It is aimed at the irresponsible parents who allow their unattended children to do so. Apologies if it sounded that way.

[smudge]

P.S. I suppose this may sound hypocritical, but we also used to go carol singing too - again this was many years ago when it was safer to venture out at night!

[Charlie_D]

Just wanted to say that I agree entirely enigma. I am saddened to hear the "tricks" that have been carried out on people but personally I love halloween, maybe this is because nothing so horrible has happened to me though. I dont consider it to be begging and the strange thing is although as a child I do recall saying trick or treat to people, I never once played a trick on anyone, I presume that's because my parents were with me? I am sad to hear halloween is now something to be feared. I was actually disappointed this year as we only got one little visitor and I had spent ages making cookies in the shape of broomsticks. I cant wait until my little one is old enough to visit our neighbours and have halloween parties with his friends.

[TracyJ]

I like to celebrate Halloween but I'm just not keen on the concept of Trick or Treat. The Scottish tradition of doing 'a turn' sounds much nicer and is more in keeping with the carol singing that goes on close to Xmas. There's no element of 'do this or else' to it. However, I'm just against knocking on stranger's doors, particularly the elderly. My grandparents always have sweets in ready for the kids, but when they ran out last year they had a firework put on their windowsill. Frightening for anyone, I think, not to mention the hole it left when it melted through the sill, which had to be replaced. I didn't want my own kids to miss out yet I also wanted to stick to my principles, so we had a dress up treasure hunt in our house. The kids still ended up with sweets, did the pumpkin, duck apple, etc, and were happy as Larry.

[smudge]

Sorry to hear what happened to your Grandparents TracyJ - that's awful. That sort of thing is totally unnecessary & it's a shame no one could have caught the horrible kids that did it. Mind you, they would probably only have got a 'little' ticking off by the police anyway. Hope you all had fun this year - at home.