Q&A 24: Halloween
Micah C R Guy asks:
Simple question: how are you preparing for Halloween and are there arcane rituals involved? Thanks very much.
When I was growing up in the 1980s, Halloween wasn't much of a thing in the UK. There was trick or treat, yes, but it was slightly more menacing as it was still bound up in the old tradition of Mischief Night (November 4th in the north) which now seems to have vanished. My first school used to do a combined Halloween/Bonfire Night thing with a spooky costume parade on Bonfire Night, which further confused me, to the extent that I don't even really know what date Halloween is and will often think it's on November 5th, because I consider bonfires more "Octobery".
When I lived in Manchester, often on Halloween a teenager in a fright mask would knock on your door at about 9pm and ask for money. Yes. The worst time this ever happened was in 2002 or 2003, when someone in what I can only describe as a full body faceless wookiee costume knocked on the door at around 10. Now usually I would just not answer the door at all, but i had friends staying, we were playing Scrabble, and we had probably had some glasses of wine so I felt a little safer.
The faceless hairy entity just stood there, wordlessly, with no entreats for cash, sweets, or anything else. After what felt like five minutes (but may have been 30 seconds) staring into that expressionless fizog I closed the door and locked it, returning to the game with a chill in my bones.
When I was a student in the nineties, I think Halloween parties with costumes "and that" were a thing, but I really hate dressing up for costume parties. I feel very vulnerable, as if my soul has been stolen until I can put my own clothes back again and reclaim my identity. It's hard to explain, because I love puppets, which are even more enveloping of a costume.
Halloween here is now so harmonised with the American experience that if you don't deck out your house in Costco spider webs and pumpkins, kids won't knock. And if they do, they're seven littlies with their chaperone. I consider this the dagger of cultural imperialism thrust once more into our nation's minced beef heart and choose not to participate at all. I'm 48 years old. My war is over. Halloween's for teenage faceless hairy entities who come in the night.
Comments (18)
Here in Australia it's pretty much the same. Halloween has never been a thing except in American media, but more recently the commercial sector has tried to make something of it. It's not really taking root. *Most* Aussie kids won't try trick or treating because they know they won't get much out of it.
It depends on where you live, I think- there was no-one near where I live, but a few suburbs away it was a mob scene.
Wait--this isn't this the night that we summon Bob Crowley?
I lived in Kazakhstan in the early naughts, when Halloween became a Thing there too. Or, at least celebrated by bars and restaurants that catered to an international crowd.
I won't stand for either, so it's Boo Humbug as well as Bah Humbug!
:stealing "Boo Humbug"::
In Italy trick or treat didn't exist, until the 90s Halloween was just an exotic celebration that you saw in American TV series.The most that happened was lighting candles for the dead on the evening of the 31st, letting them burn all night and the next day going to the cemetery. There were also traditional sweets made to be eaten on November 1st. However, the commercial part of the celebration began to arrive here too and now you see decorations on sale since September. I remember that already in 1993 an elementary classmate of mine had invited some of the girls home to dress up and go around like the Americans did, but he was considered the idiot of the class and we laughed at him.
Very interesting that it has come to Italy too, I wonder what caused it to suddenly become more than an American celebration for our class idiots!
A+ cryptid story. Adding Faceless Wookie to the bestiary.
Until relatively recently in U.S. history, Hallowe'en was much more like your mischief night. Around the middle of the 20th century, it became a children's holiday, both as a way to combat mischief and for merchants to make money. Only in the last couple of decades or so has it become an adult holiday. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/26/1049379072/the-dance-of-the-dead
Same age John, and I don't remember halloween being a thing at all as a boy. The season was all about burning effigys on a giant bonfire on 5th November, sometimes after a day of some local scallywags racing it around the town in a wheelbarrow. Nowadays it's just got weird...
With you all the way, Mr. A. We are losing our cultural identity under a rising tide of non-native squash-like vegetables. When I were a lad, we used to carve turnips or swedes for 'allowe'en, and do bobbing apples.
Mischief Night is I think still a thing, but may have moved to 30th October in some places. I have strong memories of the Merseyside Police setting up a dispersion zone around Liverpool city center to prevent "Mizzy Night" shenanigans somewhere around the late 2010s.
Agree 100% with the last paragraph. Much more British to celebrate treason and immolation, rather than Satanism.
All Hallows' Eve being associated with Satanism is a new one on me, gotta say. _mutters under my breath in cultural Catholic_
Alas
.. after which the faceless, hairy horror shambled back to its UFO and received a merciless dressing-down for an utterly failed First Contact attempt.
Not interacting with that Hallowe’en cryptid has big Philippe-digging-a-hole-to-China-to-confront-a-warlord energy, if I may let my Achewood fandom show. Think it over kid!