I wasn’t even aware of this prompt but I read it from somebody I started following, Stevie Turner, and it sounded interesting. It is called the Open Book Blog Hop, and reading Stevie’s post, it is a weekly thing.
The question which piqued my interest was:
Hallowe’en/Autumn is coming, do you celebrate? What does that look like? Is it different this year?
Okay, quickly… We (wife and I) do not celebrate anything, although we generally buy some nondescript bag of snack-size candy just in case we have visitors. We’re rural and it has never happened yet,so I generally have something to chew on through November. This year, we have a stock of facemasks instead.
As a boy, I used to celebrate hallowe’en. We would play duck-apple and bob-apple. It was never very exciting because, well, apples are boring. We used to carve turnip lanterns. I had no idea what a pumpkin was. At that time, they were not available in the shops. Besides, Bonfire Night, just a week later, was always a bigger deal.
As a parent, I was the so-and-so father who would not let my child take part in Trick or Treat. The notion that if somebody does not give you something nice, then you will do something nasty to them is… well, that’s what the highwaymen used to say, wasn’t it? That’s not the way you get through life. So this was not a value I wished to instill in my daughter.
This continued – every year she asked, every year I explained why I was refusing – until my daughter was old enough to ignore what I said.
I reckon most people just go out looking for candy, a bit of harmless fun, but for me, there is a principle involved. “Lighten up”, I hear you say. But actually, the idea is not a very nice one.
Again, though, we did celebrate Bonfire Night (5 November), and took my daughter to an organised firework display each year. Organised – I don’t think I ever bought a firework in my life.
Does that make me a slightly better person?
Oh, and thank you to P.J. MacLayne for allowing me to use their image.
Originally tagged: Open Book
Mister Bump 
We don’t celebrate it either. It’s not too big an event in the Philippines because perhaps it’s a Catholic country? What’s bigger for us is the All Souls’ Day / All Saints’ Day 1&2 November. Instead of giving candies away, we played hide and seek in a public cemetery (midnight), we were allowed by parents because we were with our young adult aunts and uncles. I remember one time, I was in second grade, my foot got stuck in a hole (of someone’s grave!) and I was so scared of the skeleton grabbing me. Growing up, I realized there could have been snakes or rats inside… I’ve never gone back to that graveyard since.
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You remind me that I once knew a guy in Tokyo who told me about the times he visited all these graveyards with the spirits of past souls in them. It surprised me, actually, how seriously they took it.
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Oh you’d really be surprised on how serious people are about it… I won’t take it too seriously but let’s just say, I keep my distance from those graveyards 😀
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Thanks for taking part in this week’s blog hop and linking up. Yes, as a kid in the UK Bonfire Night was the night we always looked forward to, as of course we kids stood on street corners for a week or so before with our guys shouting ‘Penny for the guy’ to everybody who went past. Living in a busy part of East London I made a fortune in pennies!
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I remember some terrible-looking guys up in Liverpool as a boy. As in, they looked like they had been thrown together in 2 seconds flat. And kids were hawking these awful effigies around the streets with no shame whatever. Now, down here (New Forest) some of the villages have corn-dolly festivals at the end of summer and even they are infinitely better than those guys were!
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My dad used to help me make mine, and he was a perfectionist. I lived in just the right area to make a fortune!
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Everything is driven by commerce these days, and parents feel pressurised.
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