Trick or Treat
Annoyances October 31st, 2004
It’s Halloween today, and…
… bah! Humbug! I hate Trick or Treat with a fiery passion.
The mass Trick or Treat is a reasonably new thing in the UK(*) - the influence of US Halloween celebrations.
*I am fully aware that it might be an age old custom that has roots in the fifth century, it’s something that when I grew up I only ever saw in American imports - it was foreign. Trick or Treat simply did not happen, we did not know what it was. It may have gone out of fashion when I was a kid, but that doesn’t change the fact that it did not happen and then seemed to appear from nowhere.
What is Trick or Treat exactly? Well, it is a custom whereby small children accost strangers and ask them for their property. If such goods are not provided then a ‘trick’ is played. Fortunately this part of the ceremony hasn’t (yet) been imported in any major way, quite often they will simply shuffle off looking resentful that the accostee hasn’t added to their obesity problems in later life. There have been cases, however, where windows are broken or damage is done.
Essentially the custom amounts to extortion - at any other time of year it is criminal activity, yet on this one day parents send out their children to knock on the doors of their neighbours and hassle them.
Humbug!
Speaking of Humbug, next week we’ll have ‘Penny for the Guy’ and the week after the Christmas Carols will start (they’re already decking out the shops). Christmas Carollers are also the work of the devil, at least the usual ones are - a rushed out of tune ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’ and a hand thrust out for payment. I will have to put up a little sign which says words to the effect:
‘Dear Carol Singers, If you’re going to sing a Carol then it needs to be:
- In tune
- Not ‘We wish you a merry christmas’
- Not Jingle Bells either… and..
- at least two verses and a chorus.
Oh, and don’t bother knocking on a tuesday, that’s Stargate night.
Humbug! I say to ye! Humbug!
(Edit: Jim Carson has posted about his Trick or Treat experience in the US)
Things that interest me… 
*LOL*
The following is something I posted into comments in someone else’s journal about 3 minutes ago in answer to a ‘merkin who said “but you don’t do trick or treat over there”!:
We appear to have “picked up the habit” over here… I’m afraid I actually don’t hold much truck with imported customs which have translated over here into “begging with menaces”
The “begging” over here always used to be done for Guy Fawkes (Bonfire Night - the night we celebrate that they caught the conspiritors who were trying to blow up our parliament)… a “Guy” was made and carted about (normally in a wheelchair or wheelbarrow) and donations were made depending on how realistic your “Guy” was. It took effort. It took ingenuity, Trick or treat just appears to be kids in bought costumes (when they bother at all).
Needless to say the local kids have learnt we do not anwer the door to trick or treaters.
And as for the kids who tried to “Carol” here a couple of years ago…. two out of tune lines of “We wish you a merry Christmas” by two “lads” does not consitute “carolling”. Other half was cruel enough to get out the guitar and tell them if they could do to the end of the second verse still in tune he’d pay them - they didn’t get their money, and _they_ haven’t been back either *g*
I wouldn’t come my way during haloween, bonfire night or Christmas. At haloween, my brother has a nasty habit of… being nasty (throwing water for example). At bonfire night, I have a habit of setting things on fire. Well I do that all the time, but an unwelcome beggar trying his luck might end up being the next target (I’m called Guy by the way - don’t say it). And I have always found the “We wish you a merry Christmas” line rather ironic. I don’t enjoy Christmas.
I despise the forced sense of happiness over a period of up to a week, spent with people that you don’t really like that much. It could just be my background, but Christmas has never been a happy time.
And why I ask you are the decorations out in shops ALREADY? It’s the beginning of November for goodness sake.
I agree. Bah! Humbug!
Roll on January…
Hmm. I always went ‘guising’ when I was little. But that always meant the child has to do their “party piece” before obtaining the omnipresent treats.
A quick google suggests that this was more of a custom in Scotland/Northern England.