HALLOWEEN ...do you celebrate it?

[iamded]

Interesting fact, "Merry Christmas" is politically incorrect, the correct term would be "Happy Holidays". I myself celebrate Christmas. Back on topic;

I for one do not celebrate Halloween. With all the evil and demonic and whatnot, it's not really my thing. And the fact that all the annoying little kids you come round expecting free candy, ignoring all the damn signs saying "This is a Halloween free zone". Maybe I should take a more volatile approach, hide in my treehut and throw eggs at people. *skull*

While I'm talking about all these holidays, I mighty as well say I celebrate Easter too. Also, now I can show off this amusing comic by Kris.

~Peace

[ZeekyBoogeyDoog]

It's unusually warm here in PA, so dressing heavily wouldn't be the best idea!

I'm from PA too! It's absolutely ridiculous, 70-80 degrees in October :-/ .

I myself don't celebrate Halloween, it's fine for small children but I think its mainly an excuse to sell gaudy merchandise.

[DB24]

Halloween.... is that coming up again? Here in Australia i barely even hear a mention of it. As a kid i remember getting dressed up once...

What is it even celebrating?

Seems like a corporate excuse to sell merchandise :-/

[Shadows]

What is it even celebrating?

Seems like a corporate excuse to sell merchandise :-/

Now, all holidays are an excuse to sell crap. The biggest of those is Christmas, which is already shoving the Halloween merch out of the way to pile on the biggest and gaudiest display possible. Easter is just the spring equivalent of Halloween now, a big candy fest, though I did like the zombie Jesus cartoon *skull*

Halloween, however, was not originally intended for commercialism. Here is the Wikipedia page, which goes fairly in-depth about the origins and traditions involved.

Halloween itself has been in decline in the US as well, from what I've seen in my life, mostly because of fake tainted candy scares and religious fanaticism. >:-(

[SirNadroj]

Now, all holidays are an excuse to sell crap. The biggest of those is Christmas, which is already shoving the Halloween merch out of the way to pile on the biggest and gaudiest display possible. Easter is just the spring equivalent of Halloween now, a big candy fest, though I did like the zombie Jesus cartoon *skull*

Halloween, however, was not originally intended for commercialism. Here is the Wikipedia page, which goes fairly in-depth about the origins and traditions involved.

Halloween itself has been in decline in the US as well, from what I've seen in my life, mostly because of fake tainted candy scares and religious fanaticism. >:-(

You're right. Coporations just use it as an exuse to sell stuff ~ they didn't make Halloween up, they just hijacked it! |-/

Yeah, I've heard of poisoned apples, and putting razors in them so the kiddies rip their faces off when they eat it. :-X

But we always give out FULL size candy bars from Sam's Club! X-D

[Shadows]

Yeah, I've heard of poisoned apples, and putting razors in them so the kiddies rip their faces off when they eat it. :-X

But we always give out FULL size candy bars from Sam's Club! X-D

A quick trip to Snopes tells you just how much these things have become legends, with very little basis. They devote an entire page to poisonings (none that weren't specific murders) and another to pins/needles/razors (very very few) in nearly 50 years of tracking.

Full size bars, huh? That big kid in the vampire costume knocking on your door will be me.

FULL SIZED BARS ON! *y*

[TheFrisian]

Now, all holidays are an excuse to sell crap. The biggest of those is Christmas

Christmas used to be about celebrating the birth of Christ, but nowadays it's more about Santa Clause and getting presents. Did you know Santa Claus as you know him was invented by Coca Cola? The chubby, white bearded guy dressed in red first appeared in an early Coca Cola advertisement. The original character it was based upon was St. Nicolas, who was a bishop about 400 years ago I believe. We used to give eachother presents at St. Nicolas day, but that tradition is also gradually dying out.

[Holodoc]

We used to give eachother presents at St. Nicolas day, but that tradition is also gradually dying out.

I have heard about that. It

[Lord Of Pies]

I've only ever had one trick or treater knock on my door in my life!

I did like Halloween when I was little though! I used to run about in the garden at night, with the pumpkin sitting in the middle.

Also, it is funny how it is declining in The U.S and getting more popular in the U.K!

Edit: An advert just blurted in my face just as I pressed post saying "make you Halloween zwinky" Grrrr! *n*

Edited October 19, 2007 by Lord Of Pies

[Norro]

Now, all holidays are an excuse to sell crap. The biggest of those is Christmas,

[sNIP]

Halloween itself has been in decline in the US as well, from what I've seen in my life, mostly because of fake tainted candy scares and religious fanaticism. >:-(

I can't help but notice the contradiction here, maybe it is just in my eyes, Christmas is too commercial/has lost meaning (a meaning which is religious), but 'religious fanaticism' is ruining holidays... Do you want people to care or not? If you care about anything, chances are you are removing yourself from something else.... ;-)

Just my 2 cents...

God Bless,

Nathan

[SirNadroj]

Full size bars, huh? That big kid in the vampire costume knocking on your door will be me.

FULL SIZED BARS ON! *y*

He he! ;-) We were thinking of gonig to RI Novelty and buying lots of little halloween toys (like cheap fingerp puppets, things like that) because you can buy them buy the gross (144 ;-) ) and they're cheap. But that's only if I can get myself up in that neck of the woods before Halloween. Yeah, RI's small, but it can still take 45 minutes to an hour to get somewhere if its really far away! X-D

[Opproperaar]

I have heard about that. It

Edited October 19, 2007 by Hairy Ruben

[Minifig Lecturer]

As kids we used to make HUGE bonfires!!! :) And hide 80% of the wood in bushes when Dublin council came to make sure bonfire wasnt too big :)

throwing fire crackers at each other was also common after we grew out of dressing up

BTW holloween is MASSIVE here, especially in areas with many kids. Much bigger than anywhere else I am certain. A great time *y*

[Shadows]

I can't help but notice the contradiction here, maybe it is just in my eyes, Christmas is too commercial/has lost meaning (a meaning which is religious), but 'religious fanaticism' is ruining holidays... Do you want people to care or not? If you care about anything, chances are you are removing yourself from something else.... ;-)

Just my 2 cents...

God Bless,

Nathan

You're misunderstanding what we're saying.

Halloween was commercialized from an originally non-commercial event, but to me that's fine. All of my halloween memories are based on the commercialized version. The majority of the public movement away from it has been as a result of religious groups. The part that strikes me as sad is that for years there were very few complaints along those lines, with churches themselves being a source of some Halloween parties/hayrides and such. It's only been in recent years that I've seen fanaticism move in and declare the whole thing evil. Thus my comment about that.

Christmas was originally non-commercial, but has turned into a huge non-stop selling event, to the extent that it now overruns both Halloween and Thanksgiving (US version) and literally appears in stores in September. If anything, a lack of religious focus would be the problem there, with people more interested in gifts and lights than the intended meaning.

Two seperate holidays with two seperate forms. Only thing they have in common is that the stores love making as much profit as possible off them, and in the case of Christmas, they don't care that they're mostly selling Santa Claus and dropping the rest.

Better?

[Norro]

You're misunderstanding what we're saying.

After reading your second post I think we're saying more or less the same thing (dang cultural barriers ;-) ). I was merely laughing at the fact that in your view one holiday was becoming too influenced by religion, and another not enough... X-D

God Bless,

Nathan

[Doctor Sinister]

I don't celebrate Halloween - ESPECIALLY since I got assaulted on my own doorstep by a grown man accompanying some children two years ago.

*** Small rant now follows - feel free to skip.. ***

I have a sign on the door politely requesting no Trick-or-Treat antics, but nevertheless, my doorbell rang and despite my better judgement I answered it.

There were 4 or 5 kids there by my door and an adult male at the end of my driveway.

I told them politely that I don't "do" Halloween and that they should respect my sign.

"No, we want sweets!" shouted one of them.

I pointed out once again that I had nothing for them and that since my house had been egged 2 years ago I was less than enthusiastic about this whole Halloween thing. Still the children wouldn't leave, so I tried to close my door and warned them that I would call the Police if anything happened to my house. At this moment I'm thinking about my own two small children inside the house and I'm not particularly happy with how this is going.

Then this bloke comes over. "Hang on mate, they're only little kids, don't be so rude to them." He then shot his arm out and stopped me from closing the door. His face was right up to mine and he was shouting at me. I tried to close the door a couple of times but he stopped me from doing so.

So we argued for a minute or so and then I eventually managed to close the door. As I lock it inside, this man says to me "Yeah, you'd better lock your door mate, I would too, remember I only live around the corner."

Meanwhile, the children are banging my letterbox, making all sorts of threats.

So I rang the Police, who agreed with me that this was totally unacceptable. Turns out they have extra patrols out tonight just because of this sort of thing and they turned up at my house literally 5 minutes later. They already had the guy from my description and I was asked to give my story and was asked what I wanted to do with him. I told them I was happy for him to receive a formal verbal warning - his name will be recorded and hopefully that'll be the end to it.

Now, forgive me if I am wrong, but surely the whole point of having an adult accompany the children is to stop things getting out of hand? And yet instead it's the adult who gets out of hand - what a fine example to the children.

Sorry if this has ruined the flow of the thread BTW...

Dr. S.

[TheFrisian]

Just compare that to children singing St Martin songs to get some sweets...

[captaintau]

Yes, I hate All Hallows' E'en too.

It's just a licence for idiots to be idiotic. A few years ago, my elderly auntie's front door was splattered with food dye by the trick-or-treaters because she was too afraid to answer it.

I'm not a killjoy at all - I love a good party and any excuse to celebrate but this tradition, and bonfire night, should be banned.

Give us another public holiday instead!

[SirNadroj]

Yes, I hate All Hallows' E'en too.

It's just a licence for idiots to be idiotic. A few years ago, my elderly auntie's front door was splattered with food dye by the trick-or-treaters because she was too afraid to answer it.

I'm not a killjoy at all - I love a good party and any excuse to celebrate but this tradition, and bonfire night, should be banned.

Give us another public holiday instead!

What's bonfire night? Is that Halloween Eve? X-D I'm oblivious.

I love the holiday as I said, but pranks like slattering food dye is completey ridiculous.

I ALWAYS set up Halloween day. Yup, one day you can drive by the house and its fine, nothing unusual, but literally in a few hours it's transformed. And that's really too bad that all of the setting up needs to be done the day of, but you just can't trust some people. I've heard of one guy who set up tons of stuff, and some jerk stole all of it, so it's just proof. |-/

Plus, I know of people going hallow's eve and smashing people's pumpkins. But this year we bought a 72 pounder! There's no way some jerk will smash in by throwing it into the street. Maybe by taking a hammer to it, though..... 8-|

[captaintau]

Bonfire Night is the fifth of November, when we comemorate an attempt by "Guy Fawlkes" to blow up the houses of parliament. There's bonfires and fireworks. This means:

- In the weeks running up to it, cretins putting bangers through people's letter boxes and other such f***ing stupid antics

- People getting very badly burned

- Lots of money being wasted

- Lots of pets scared s***less. My labrador used to shake. I know people who's horses have injured themselves panicing in their stables.

So we get 31st of October closely followed by 5th of November.

I hate this time of year.

[Corvus]

*** Small rant now follows - feel free to skip.. ***

Dr. S.

Ow. I've had something similar happen to me, but it's not Halloween related. Basically A lady pays no attention to her kids, kids mess around, I stop them, lady gets mad, lectures me, I tell what happened to my boss...

Then, the lady goes to my boss, and starts way overdoing it. Ripping things out of her kid's hands, blah blah... I go back to my boss, tell her the lady is a raving lunatic (NOT in those words). While I'm gone, the lady walks by my co-worker and gives here the evil-eye. :-|

Ask if you want more detail. X-D

As for me, I've never had any Halloween incidents, mostly because I live too far away from the big neighborhoods. Still, we leave a bowl of Reese's out on the door so our house isn't assaulted by hooligans by way of eggs and toilet paper.

However, I'm more worried about being sniped by a paintball when I step out the door. 8-|

[Doctor Sinister]

I hate this time of year.

Me too. I forgot about the fireworks, deliberately I think. Let's be miserable together...

Dr. S.

[SirNadroj]

Ow. I've had something similar happen to me, but it's not Halloween related. Basically A lady pays no attention to her kids, kids mess around, I stop them, lady gets mad, lectures me, I tell what happened to my boss...

Then, the lady goes to my boss, and starts way overdoing it. Ripping things out of her kid's hands, blah blah... I go back to my boss, tell her the lady is a raving lunatic (NOT in those words). While I'm gone, the lady walks by my co-worker and gives here the evil-eye. :-|

Ask if you want more detail. X-D

As for me, I've never had any Halloween incidents, mostly because I live too far away from the big neighborhoods. Still, we leave a bowl of Reese's out on the door so our house isn't assaulted by hooligans by way of eggs and toilet paper.

However, I'm more worried about being sniped by a paintball when I step out the door. 8-|

Thats sounds like a funny story! (For me anyway! ;-) )

The only thing that's happened to me on Halloween is that there is this family down our street, and they've got 3 boys and a girl, a little younger than me. Well, the whole family is pretty rugged, if you know what I mean. So they have this tupid little tractor and a little wagon attached full of hay and they lug their kids and they're friends around all night because they're too lazy to walk. So they always pull up to our house (actually my aunt's house up the street, since we're on a dead end and vicariously bearly get anyone.) and there's about 20 of them at once, plus the others not with them. (we get hundreds of kids, I'd say!). So they are obnoctious and stupid, and they have their silly string and htey spray it, and I got so pissed off I blasted them! I put tons of work last year MAKING the props, not buying them and then they thing their little silly string prank is funny. Well, I don't take bullsh!t from people, so yup, I yelled at them. If they try anything like that this year, I think I'll either tell their parents to gather them up and leave, or something else. |-/ Jerks |-/ ....................................... X-D

Not like the parents would do anything, they're as bad as the kids.... lax idiots! :-P

Edited October 20, 2007 by SirNadroj

[Shadows]

And what we're describing now is less the fault of the holidays and more the general decline of manners and civility. Though I must admit, I'm not a big fan of fireworks either, at least not up close. We have the 4th of July and New Years to put up with those, especially the morons who launch their own and haven't a clue what they're doing.

I had no idea that Halloween and Guy Fawkes (yes, I do celebrate it in a very low key way here in the states) had gotten so out of hand there. In the US, the worst that really happens at Halloween is a bit of rowdiness and the odd toilet papering/egging, which isn't common at all (no more so than random ones that might occur at any time). Or maybe I've just been lucky. :-)

Sorry to hear that society is in such decline and unable to behave in a reasonable manner. Seeing the way people behave in public, and how their children act as well, I'm not really surprised, but saddened nonetheless.

[Corvus]

And what we're describing now is less the fault of the holidays and more the general decline of manners and civility. Though I must admit, I'm not a big fan of fireworks either, at least not up close. We have the 4th of July and New Years to put up with those, especially the morons who launch their own and haven't a clue what they're doing.

I had no idea that Halloween and Guy Fawkes (yes, I do celebrate it in a very low key way here in the states) had gotten so out of hand there. In the US, the worst that really happens at Halloween is a bit of rowdiness and the odd toilet papering/egging, which isn't common at all (no more so than random ones that might occur at any time). Or maybe I've just been lucky. :-)

Sorry to hear that society is in such decline and unable to behave in a reasonable manner. Seeing the way people behave in public, and how their children act as well, I'm not really surprised, but saddened nonetheless.

I've never been so grateful to get to go to Alaska every year during 4th of July... X-D

My town (Or is it city now? Too many people!) has never had too many problems. I'm shocked to hear that people put razors in candy. :-X Just horrible.

If you want to see true decline of society, visit a High School. :-X When you know that people think that if someone is stupid enough to streak across a football field naked, there's something wrong. :-|