Tags
Welcome to this week’s blog hop. This week the topic is:
Halloween/Autumn is coming, do you celebrate? What does that look like? Is it different this year?
When our boys were younger they used to dress up in ghost or wizard costumes. Sam and I would then traipse around after them and their friends, as the little group would knock on neighbours’ doors and shout out ‘Trick or Treat‘. People would shove sweets at them probably in an effort to get rid of them a bit quicker, and then with carrier bags filling up we’d go on to the next house.
This novelty wore off when they were older teenagers and had discovered girls. We would then buy sweets and keep them for any trick or treaters from the next generation down who might knock on the door.
This year I don’t suppose we are going to get many trick or treaters. After all, what parent would want their little darling touching a doorbell or a garden gate that somebody with Covid might have touched? Even worse, somebody might come to the door and breathe Covid-laden air over them! What we need is an app where the poor disadvantaged kids can go virtually trick or treating…
I don’t remember anything to do with trick or treating when I was a kid. However, I do remember sitting around a Ouija board with my friends and telling ghost stories. We’d light candles, create a spooky atmosphere and scare ourselves silly, and then somebody would always spoil it by pissing about and trying to move the marker, or did a ghost do it (lol)? As far as I remember we never did contact any ghosts, but to me this activity was preferable to knocking on people’s doors which is all the kids do today. It’s not quite the same, is it?
Probably ‘Elf & Safety have stepped in over the years, because where do you see Ouija boards now? I also remember joining in with a mass séance one lunchtime in our classroom back in about 1973. A teacher came in, went absolutely ape-shit, and tore the board up in front of us. Hey ho, we didn’t contact any ghosts then either.
Do other blog-hoppers celebrate Halloween? Click on the blue button below to find out, or just add a comment.
Rules:
- Link your blog to this hop.
- Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
- Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
- Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
- Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Stevie Turner 
Pingback: Celebrating Halloween #Wednesday Words – My Corner
Thanks for linking up, Abbie.
LikeLike
Pingback: Open Book Blog Hop (wb 26 October 2020) – Mister Bump
Thanks for linking up.
LikeLike
I used to love Halloween, all the way to my 40s when friends threw big bashes – the good old days are long gone. From what I’ve been hearing, nobody is taking their kids out. In fact, in part of my city trick or treating is banned because of lockdowns. Better to let the kiddies dress up at home, do a Halloween themes treasure hunt, break open a pinata full of candies. That’s what I would do if I had young ones at home. ❤
LikeLiked by 2 people
Banned? Wow, it hasn’t come to that here yet, but I think maybe there won’t be so many trick or treaters this year due to Covid.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, in certain buroughs of the city. I can’t imagine there’ll be much of it going on anywhere anyway.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love Halloween and it was a fun time for all of us. It was as big as Christmas for us as kids. I wrote about it on my blog. https://darlenefoster.wordpress.com/2020/10/25/halloween/
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Darlene.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve had several “interesting” experiences with Ouija boards and tarot cards. I stay away from them now.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I never see any now, but have never had any messages when using one.
LikeLike
Have you any photos of yourself in a Pride parade, Phil (lol)? I’m amazed at your new-found sensitivity! Sorry but I seem to have deleted your comment by mistake. Grr!
LikeLike
We don’t really have Halloween here, Stevie, and I learned about it through American sitcoms. My mom certainly didn’t have it during her youth in the UK.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Neither did I. It happened when my eldest son was about 7 or 8 I think, round about 1990.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on aurorawatcherak.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for re-blogging, Lela.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When my mom and dad were kids, Halloween wasn’t a thing in the US either. Dad graduated 1931, Mom graduated 1942. Dad, growing up in Washington State, said he never heard of it until he was an adult and visited New Orleans where he met his first wife. Mom said Halloween was a trickster night when she was growing up on the prairie of North Dakota. Kids would drive around and try to tip cows, blow up outhouses, and soap windows. My grandparents couldn’t afford the property damage, so they’d load shotguns with rocksalt and sit on the porch to warn young people there might be consequences for targeting the Davis farm. Nobody ever got hurt, but my mom said she had at least one classmate who couldn’t sit down for a couple of days after one Halloween. Rocksalt stings.
Halloween became a “thing” when my brother was a kid in the 1950s. Mom never really adapted to it, but my brother would join friends. Then my dad really liked the playful elements of Halloween. He was familiar with the darker aspects of Santeria and Dia de la Morte and thought the fun aspects were much better. He’d take me around for candy (which I never really ate because, though not a picky eater, I am picky about my candy) and we always made an attempt at costumes.
Brad and I did Halloween with our kids, often taking them to the Fall Festival at what is now our church (we attended another church, but it is an open event), but I gradually stopped participating in secular Halloween after we had neighbors who would celebrate Samhain complete with invocations to Satan. It’s a personal choice I make. I don’t judge others, but the more I thought about it, the more Halloween didn’t seem like such a fun celebration after all. Dad’s experiences with Santeria come to mind as well. (for non-Americans, Santeria is the religious faith that voodoo grows out of).
LikeLiked by 2 people
Over here there would be so many neighbours reporting somebody carrying a gun, that the police would be knocking at the door in no time. I was a kid in the early 1960s and don’t ever remember any Hallowe’en celebrations, but we did celebrate Guy Fawkes Day which is every November 5th.
LikeLike
That’s what Mom thought it was related to when she first heard of it. I think that was the Irish people who lived in her town – they’re take on it. Dad grew up in a mostly Swedish American community and they didn’t know about Halloween. So, it’s not really that old of a tradition in the US. We now know it started in California, New Mexico, etc., as a Chicano celebration commemorating the dead (Dia de la Morte). That scared the heck out of the Yankees moving into Cali from Boston, so they tried to change it into a fun celebration. And then it just spread slowly through the country as a mix of celebrations until Madison Avenue got hold of it in the 1950s (like they did everything else) and, bam, ghouls wandering every street on October 31. In New England, where my inlaws lived, they value orderliness, so there the villages designate different nights for trick and treating and they insist you do it before it gets dark. Our daughter enjoyed it, but Halloween in the daylight missed something.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it really needs to be dark for the atmospheric effect. Ghouls wander about our village too, but usually with Mum and Dad in tow!
LikeLike
Usually parents escort their little ones, but both my kids would group up with friends after 3rd grade. My son volunteered himself from junior high to about halfway through highschool to be bodyguard for the younger kids in the neighborhood. He’d get a little candy (and often the homeowners would be like “hey, kid, have some adult candy for being a good sport” and he’d get better chocolate than his charges. And it was fun for him. Long about 16, though, he started going to parties with his own age group. I think there might have been girls.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ha ha, yes, my sons discovered girls around the age of 16. They’d both left home and were living with their fiancees by the time they were 20. I didn’t have them for very long, but now they bring their own children to Nanny and Grandad for babysitting!
LikeLike
Yeah, our daughter had to go fly be free. Our son is very practical, so spending money on an apartment doesn’t make sense to him. He’s got privacy in his tiny home. He’d have to have roommates to afford an apartment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When I was a kid this time of year was about Guy Fawkes, and Halloween hadn’t yet been imported from the States to feed corporate profits. We made attempts with our daughters but neither really took to it, so we breathed sighs of relief and forgot about it!
LikeLiked by 4 people
Yes, I remember making a guy and standing on the pavement by the Commercial Road when I was about seven. I made so much money that I had to keep going indoors and emptying my purse!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I lived in a village so our opportunities were limited. Waiting with our guy at the bus stop when people were getting home from work was quite profitable, but not as good as yours sounds!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Commercial Road was and still is very busy with many people and cars. I made a fortune.
LikeLike
It’s just another ruse to get us to buy stuff we don’t need. When I was a kid we had firework night but that’s been ruined by ‘elf and safety considerations – and, more recently for me – by the discovery that it is an anti-catholic ritual. Not that I’m not anti-all religions including catholicism, I just don’t think it’s right to burn effigies of anyone.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I didn’t know that firework night was an anti-catholic ritual. That’s a new one on me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What everyone seems to be saying is that Halloween is another excuse for a candy and greeting card holiday. Like All Saints Day was giving the newly converted access to seasonal pagan festivities in the name of the Lord. It has e or de volved into a sugar and spooky film fest that sells props and lighting and movies and an excuse for adults and children alike to use their Comic-Con costumes and be someone they’re not one more time each year. Let’s see, where did I hang my Kurt Vonnegut? I could have sworn it was right here by the bard… No, not the Rowling and Austen, I save them for infiltrating pride parades… character research. I’m working on my sensitivity and diversity and offering everyone equality and equity in my character pool…
LikeLiked by 1 person
well, that went in the wrong place, but… I had no idea about the anti-Catholic thing. Seems like fireworks and bonfires have specific geography and history links.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me either. I associate bonfires with Guy Fawkes Night on 5th November, not Hallowe’en.
LikeLike
That’s an interesting question, do you mind if I join in?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Of course you can join in – the more the merrier! Have a look at the rules and add your blog.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Stevie. I wrote something but I’ll put it live tomorrow morning. I couldn’t see a graphic in any previous prompts/responses, if one exists would you mind posting a link? Thx.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mister Bump, if you go to my blog you’ll see several. feel free to grab one. https://www.pjmaclayne.com/?page_id=36
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is brilliant, thank you very much. I don’t envy your weather one bit!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, that’s weird… the banner that I’ve been using for years now doesn’t show. Perhaps it’s something to do with the new layout. Try looking up ‘Open Book Blog Hop’ on Facebook. I’m not on it, but I’m in the MeWe group. You could join that and ask PJ Maclayne to send you the banner https://mewe.com/join/openbookbloghop
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just down/up/loaded PJ’s image from their site.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve used Kelly Williams’ banner, who also writes for the blog hop. Can you see it?
LikeLike