(Tell me why! I don’t like… ohh, wrong song)
I’m not quite sure why but I’ve never really enjoyed Halloween, and I still don’t. It may be because it seems like such a sham these days with strange kids disguised as unruly teenagers turning up at your door and demanding their goods.
Occasionally you still get a witch or a ghost, or a domino (c’mon, everyone was a domino once, right?) and they even make an effort to do a turn (translation: sing a song, do a dance, tell a joke). When they do you politely laugh, or nod and smile, then present them with a tangerine and usher their bemused faces out the door, ignoring their pleas for sugar-based goods.
Actually, that last bit is a lie. On Halloween I sit upstairs, reading a book or surfing the interweb, whilst my darling wife liberally coats every waif and stray with candy skulls, sugar coated coffins, and jelly spiders. Did I mention that I don’t like Halloween?
I wonder if it can be traced back to my childhood (ohh go on, indulge me), being dressed up and taken round the neighbours to be patronised… I mean to entertain them purely for the reward of their applause. OK, a lot of the time it was just for the sweets. Although when I grew up it was mainly monkeynuts.
I hate monkeynuts.
Well that’s not strictly true, I quite enjoy opening them but that flaky skin that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth? ICK.
I now indulge (a little too often) in the adult version, pistachios. Only I no longer have to dress up and sing a silly song to get my hands on them. The joys of adulthood, eh.
God I sound like some old curmudgeon. And no, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, honest Lyl… er… honest.
I’m not completely averse to dressing up, but it has to be for the right reasons. The last time I dressed up was to attend a medieval banquet as a wizard, at the behest of a co-worker who was celebrating her birthday. The fact that she was rather cute, curvy and had shown me a photo of the wench outfit she was hiring was, I admit, a factor. Which reminds me, I think I still have those photos in the loft… I HAVE been meaning to start scanning them all in…
I guess it’s fair to say that I don’t really hate Halloween as much as I dislike the forced nature of it. But then I dislike any form of organised fun. You know the type I mean, it’s usually led by some cheery-faced idiot who can’t begin to fathom that, rather than repeatedly ducking your head into a basin of cold water in the vague hope of being able to retrieve an apple (why do they always buy the biggest apples they can find?) you’d much rather just hold them under the water until that smirk was removed from their face.
You know, this is why I like writing this blog. It brings some issues of my personality to the fore, don’t you think. Yes, it seems I harbour a deep-seated suspicion of those with a permanently cheery disposition and, you know what, I’m not going to deny it. In fact, to my eternal shame (and I’m being serious now) I once pushed over a kid at school because he had the gall, the audacity, to smile at me and wish me good morning whilst I was in a bad mood. Sorry about that James! (er… MacDonald I think..??)
Maybe it’s jealously, or maybe these cheery nutters just bring my psychotic tendencies to the fore. Thankfully my bad moods are far less frequent these days, and don’t ever stretch much beyond a glare. Either that or I’ll just completely ignore you, you leering, smirking twat. Ahem.
If you are dressing up tonight then please enjoy yourself, have fun, go wild! Just, whatever you do, don’t mind me and please don’t try and involve me.
Ohh and definitely, DEFINITELY, no monkeynuts.
Souds like you should sit upstairs with a sniper rifle – it would be much more befitting.
Thankfully, here in Ruralville, we get very few T-o-Ters and we recognise most of them. Our local police force has sent out an email suggestion that kids should actually stay at home and have a party instead of terrorising all and sundry, so clearly they are curmudgeons too.
Your dislike of Hallowe’en is hereditary – you get it from me! I will be spending the night upstairs at the computer, ignoring the doorbell. Just think if I had known you didn’t like it either I wouldn’t have spent hours making costumes for you when you were younger – I thought you wanted to get dressed up as a DONIMO!
You say “curmudgeon” like it’s a bad thing.
Anyway, we’ve found another benefit tonight of living down an unlit lane, one house from the end of the village. Not one of the little fuckers has bothered. Works for me just fine.
Bah, Humbug.
Which reminds me, need to talk to you at some point about a site for this time next year (not enough time to do it proper this year – oooh, Enigmatic and curmudgeonly – what more could you ask for? Heh.)
After 25 years of celebrating Halloween with my own children, the last child has finally reached the age where he doesn’t want to dress up, carve pumpkins or go out..
This is the first year in decades where I’m not up to my elbows in pumpkin guts. Having said that, I like Halloween and I have better reasons that you to dislike it. The little ones are just so cute. How can you be annoyed by them?
Lighten up Francis!
With an attitude like that, your house is begging to get egged! 😉
Last year and this year no callers! Maybe they fear the old folk in the corner of the street! Thank goodness we do not live in USA we would need to decorate our house , garden and car. Next day we would take it all down and put santa and sleigh on the roof and shoot the turkey for thanksgiving. Anyway thanks for making me feel better I’ve grown out of all that extortion at my front door stuff too!
Best time I had at Halloween was when I took your little sis.(then about 8yrs old) around the neighbours. I had just taken delivery of my costume as the Pirate King in the G&S “Pirates of Penzance” for a forthcoming performance For every apple etc. that Jennie got I got a drink — we have a lot of neighbours—hic!
See!
Is it any wonder I turned out like I did?!! My Mother (a primary school teacher) hides from the kids and publically humiliates her son for not being able to say Donim… Dmoni.. DAMMIT!!! and on top of that my Father’s a drunk!! Sheesh!! 😉
Peggy, I don’t think we’ve gotten THAT Americanised yet, I’ve certainly not heard of any egging (or toilet papering) of houses in Scotland. Yet.
Gordon… I agree entirely with your Halloween loathing. We went out to the cinema. I am a self-confessed grump. I’m the same with Easter Egg hunts.
Sad to report we were ‘rotten appled’ a couple of weeks back. The local yobs were picking up the windfall apples and lobbing them the house. Although we suspected ex pupils who know where we live, most of the other houses were ‘done’ too so I don’t think we were singled out. Luckily as the apples were pretty soft they didn’t break any windows, but it was quite scary being under attack like that.
Us too 2 years ago. Very quiet this year.