Anyone else wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween growing up

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  • DietingMommy08
    DietingMommy08 Posts: 1,366 Member
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    My mum is a manic depressive, and every Halloween we where put in the front garden to sweep up the leaves, with the instruction to tell everybody that mum was not at home
    she never gave out sweets, no decorations no fun allowed.

    Fast forward 20 years trick or treat is in full swing here my kids are out on the street with there friends, i'm manning the door giving out the treats,our house is like the set of a horror movie, my kids love it. it is fantastic not to follow in my mothers foot steps.

    Halloween was born from the Celtic druids, the carved pumpkin was originally a hollowed out turnip to bring home some of the flame from the bonne fire, which is supposed to bring good luck to your home for the coming year.

    Jack-o-Laterns with candles inside where put in front of doors of the irish to scare evil spirits away.
  • _Timmeh_
    _Timmeh_ Posts: 2,096 Member
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    Just sad reading some of these replies.
    Halloween is a fun time of the year, great memories of friends going from street to street all decked
    out in some cheesy home made costume. Then as an adult going to Halloween parties. Woohoo good times.
  • debswebby
    debswebby Posts: 326
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    I see a lot of post from people in the UK who say they don't like Halloween. I watched a program over the weekend and the day originated in the UK and was bought here by the puritans.

    Its not halloween we don't like, its trick or treaters. We Brits don't like people knocking at our doors without a prior appointment :laugh:
  • sjohnny
    sjohnny Posts: 56,142 Member
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    I grew up in a very religious conservative family and we celebrated the hell out of halloween. My dad (a Catholic deacon) would decorate the whole house and put a blacklight up in the front porch with a cauldron of dry ice and records with spooky sounds. He'd have all kinds of scary props and stuff out in the yard and would dress up in a scary costume and scare the crap out of all the trick or treaters (he was so scary one year that my little sister wouldn't even go back in the house). We got turned loose on the neighborhood to trick or treat until we wore the soles off our shoes. It was a different world then and I take my kids trick or treating but I wouldn't let them go by themselves in this day and age. I feel like by the time they're old enough to trick or treat by themselves they're probably old enough to not trick or treat any more. I don't know what the cut off should be but it's annoying when 17 year olds are trick or treating.
  • malecritter
    malecritter Posts: 3
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    There are other parents that think that we should selibrate God and not Halloween. I personally think that halloween is a day for the kids to have fun and inneract with one another.
  • LemonPoppySeedMuffin
    LemonPoppySeedMuffin Posts: 302
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    My mum is a manic depressive, and every Halloween we where put in the front garden to sweep up the leaves, with the instruction to tell everybody that mum was not at home
    she never gave out sweets, no decorations no fun allowed.

    Fast forward 20 years trick or treat is in full swing here my kids are out on the street with there friends, i'm manning the door giving out the treats,our house is like the set of a horror movie, my kids love it. it is fantastic not to follow in my mothers foot steps.

    Halloween was born from the Celtic druids, the carved pumpkin was originally a hollowed out turnip to bring home some of the flame from the bonne fire, which is supposed to bring good luck to your home for the coming year.

    My family are Celtic so she deprived us our ancestors :P
  • stormieweather
    stormieweather Posts: 2,549 Member
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    Me.

    If I tell you why, it would involve religion, so I will let you guess.

    But I encourage my kids to enjoy the heck out of all holidays and celebrations!! We even make up some of our own :drinker: :laugh:
  • sjohnny
    sjohnny Posts: 56,142 Member
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    Disregard. Might have been religious.
  • LemonPoppySeedMuffin
    LemonPoppySeedMuffin Posts: 302
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    I see a lot of post from people in the UK who say they don't like Halloween. I watched a program over the weekend and the day originated in the UK and was bought here by the puritans.

    Its not halloween we don't like, its trick or treaters. We Brits don't like people knocking at our doors without a prior appointment :laugh:

    Haha, we don't like getting off the sofa for no reason :tongue:
  • Pocket_Pixi
    Pocket_Pixi Posts: 1,167 Member
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    I grew up in a very religious conservative family and we celebrated the hell out of halloween. My dad (a Catholic deacon) would decorate the whole house and put a blacklight up in the front porch with a cauldron of dry ice and records with spooky sounds. He'd have all kinds of scary props and stuff out in the yard and would dress up in a scary costume and scare the crap out of all the trick or treaters (he was so scary one year that my little sister wouldn't even go back in the house). We got turned loose on the neighborhood to trick or treat until we wore the soles off our shoes. It was a different world then and I take my kids trick or treating but I wouldn't let them go by themselves in this day and age. I feel like by the time they're old enough to trick or treat by themselves they're probably old enough to not trick or treat any more. I don't know what the cut off should be but it's annoying when 17 year olds are trick or treating.

    This is fantastic!! I think it is great that your father put aside the religious side so that you and your neighborhood kids could have a blast. I do agree that there should be a cut off, because I do not think I should have to give candy out to a 17 year old. My mom had a rule and that was once you were 13 you were done trick or treating and could hand out candy instead.

    I didn't grow up in a religious household so Halloween was never an issue for me. Being as I grew up in a small town (less than 500 people) we were aloud to go out from the time school got out until almost 9 o'clock at night with out any worries. However; now not so much parents take their kids around but its still fun.
  • debswebby
    debswebby Posts: 326
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    Disregard. Might have been religious.

    Love this. Very true. Well said :drinker:
  • debswebby
    debswebby Posts: 326
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    I see a lot of post from people in the UK who say they don't like Halloween. I watched a program over the weekend and the day originated in the UK and was bought here by the puritans.

    Its not halloween we don't like, its trick or treaters. We Brits don't like people knocking at our doors without a prior appointment :laugh:

    Haha, we don't like getting off the sofa for no reason :tongue:

    Uh huh. That too :laugh:
  • LemonPoppySeedMuffin
    LemonPoppySeedMuffin Posts: 302
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    I wasn't allowed to believe in Santa either haha. Well not that I wasn't allowed, my mother never talked about Santa.
    When I was 6, I told my whole class that their parents had been lying to them & Santa wasn't real.
    I had a ballocking off a few parents for upsetting their children.
  • rbryntes
    rbryntes Posts: 710 Member
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    I am in the UK, and while we don't do Halloween anything like as big as in America, the whole 'trick or treat' thing is catching on here. I have to say I am a bit of a grump and don't do anything, and I won't be encouraging my son to either! Sorry! Just find the idea of knocking on strangers doors a bit scary... and I really do NOT want anyone freaky knocking on my door either!!

    I'm also from the UK. If I had children, I wouldn't want them trick or treating either. Don't we encourage kids not to take sweets off strangers? I think it's a bit freaky too. I've seen some kids so young on their own, it scares me! There's always creeps about.

    Okay, as someone who went trick or treating every year, let me say... you usually go in your own neighborhood, and you know those people. Or you go in friends' neighborhoods, and they vouch for them. And nowadays there's a whole trick or treat at the mall thing if the neighborhood seems unsafe.
  • kimletton11
    kimletton11 Posts: 72 Member
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    I wasn't allowed to believe in Santa either haha. Well not that I wasn't allowed, my mother never talked about Santa.
    When I was 6, I told my whole class that their parents had been lying to them & Santa wasn't real.
    I had a ballocking off a few parents for upsetting their children.

    I grew up not even celebrating Christmas at all because of religious reasons. When I was 15, my family celebrated Christmas for the first time! I was so excited to be able to put a Christmas tree up and have a stocking, now it's my favorite time of the year! And yes, it never made sense to me why we couldn't celebrate Christmas when it's supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus...
  • rbryntes
    rbryntes Posts: 710 Member
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    I grew up not even celebrating Christmas at all because of religious reasons. When I was 15, my family celebrated Christmas for the first time! I was so excited to be able to put a Christmas tree up and have a stocking, now it's my favorite time of the year! And yes, it never made sense to me why we couldn't celebrate Christmas when it's supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus...

    I believe certain symbols associated with Christmas, such as Santa Claus / Father Christmas and the Christmas tree have a basis in prior existing symbols for the Pagan festival of Saturnalia.
  • LemonPoppySeedMuffin
    LemonPoppySeedMuffin Posts: 302
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    I wasn't allowed to believe in Santa either haha. Well not that I wasn't allowed, my mother never talked about Santa.
    When I was 6, I told my whole class that their parents had been lying to them & Santa wasn't real.
    I had a ballocking off a few parents for upsetting their children.

    I grew up not even celebrating Christmas at all because of religious reasons. When I was 15, my family celebrated Christmas for the first time! I was so excited to be able to put a Christmas tree up and have a stocking, now it's my favorite time of the year! And yes, it never made sense to me why we couldn't celebrate Christmas when it's supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus...

    Non religious people celebrate Christmas any ways. I feel that Christmas has become too materialised & too much pressure on parents. The tackyness drives me nuts. My mother's a nurse & works most Christmas days so our Christmas was pushed to boxing day. We had to wait until she finished work.
    Gah I've turned into such a Scrooge, don't like anything :P
  • ItsCasey
    ItsCasey Posts: 4,022 Member
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    We did when we were very young, but my parents stopped letting us dress up and go trick-or-treating at a pretty early age (I think my sister and I were 6 or 7 and my brother was around 8) because there were a lot of adults in our area who have very adult Halloween parties DURING trick-or-treating, so kids who showed up at those houses saw Playboy bunnies and male strippers and you name it. And the older kids would spread rumors about how certain houses would kidnap blonde-haired, blue-eyed children and eat them and really ridiculous stuff like that, which didn't phase me (I was always a skeptic), but it terrified my sister, so my parents nixed Halloween because of that.

    We did have a Halloween carnival at school every year that we went to, and up until we were too old to really care about the candy, my mom would make us our own candy baskets, but that was it.
  • juliecat1
    juliecat1 Posts: 3,455 Member
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    I wasn't allowed to believe in Santa either haha. Well not that I wasn't allowed, my mother never talked about Santa.
    When I was 6, I told my whole class that their parents had been lying to them & Santa wasn't real.
    I had a ballocking off a few parents for upsetting their children.

    I grew up not even celebrating Christmas at all because of religious reasons. When I was 15, my family celebrated Christmas for the first time! I was so excited to be able to put a Christmas tree up and have a stocking, now it's my favorite time of the year! And yes, it never made sense to me why we couldn't celebrate Christmas when it's supposed to be celebrating the birth of Jesus...

    ah yup, no santa here either. We did put up a tree. We got a couple of gifts but they were usually necessity things like socks or an outfit. I spent every christmas eve at a candlelight church service and most of christmas day at a soup kitchen or mission. I am actually really thankful to have gotten that perspective. I think everyone should experience that when they are going on and on about all the things they want. I do santa with my kids.... he brings ONE gift. The rest I do.
  • karenjoy
    karenjoy Posts: 1,840 Member
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    I grew up in a place where nobody does anything for halloween, and its only in more recent times that it has crossed the atlantic, but nobody in my whole estate as far as I can tell has decorated or is trick or treating, our local police have provided a poster to put up warning people NOT to trick or treat as it is threatening and scary to elderly and vulnerable people., the local church is having an anti halloween party as the Church of England and Methodists are very anti it too. I have not had a single trick or treater in 15 years living in this house and never in my other house and I am 45 years old, I live in a busy place with lots of families.

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