To the seven who voted yes I say hang your heads in shame you septic lovers.

FF

Haha,I can picture you chasing em off with a shotgun BJ,in true deliverance style..:P

How did you know I had a banjo. :Up_to_som

I must admit I was anti-halloween right up until last night and even had the ####'s when my wife insisted I go out and buy lollies to give out to the kids that came knocking. "Bloody American tradition - we don't live in America" was pretty much my last thought as I walked out the door.

All up we had about 20 kids come knocking in about 5 or 6 groups through the evening, and seeing how much fun they were having changed my opinion in a big way. All of the kids seemed as happy to be complimented on how cool their costume was or how scary they looked as they were to get a handful of lollies, and in a suprising twist I don't remember any of them leaving without saying thankyou.

Personally, I couldn't care less where the tradition came from. American, UK, European - who cares? It was nice to see kids out having fun instead of being locked away in front of the TV/computer.

i picked up australian road atlas as i went past the bookcase pointed out australia,new south wales, and the town we live in, and they took off,why?a bit rude of them wasnt it.

Couldn't be stuffed. Yet another American tradition/holiday that I will take no part in.

I personally don't like Haloween but to see the little kids having fun and putting in effort just makes you feel good. I mean it's only a few lollies it aint going to hurt anyone. The kids parents are good as they take them everywhere and probably make/buy the costume.

Even though it is an American tradition I still don't see why we can't celebrate it here...

We had one lot last night, only reason I knew they were there is that they were yelling out at the top of their voices.

Should have told them that if they came in you would show them some tricks, and give them a treat! ;)

Its just another commerial day, like valantines day, anniversaries, thanksgiving, Americans jump on every bandwagon.

had several mature kids come knocking on my door last night. I just said i have nothing for you? My mum was parnoid about the whole thing and the fact that people are at our door. So she disconnected the door bell...........lol

In my neighbourhood you'd be more likely to get bashed, or have your property vandlised for not giving them anything, and a "trick" would be a molotov through your window.

Hahahahaha!!! That's so true.

I got home from work at about 8pm last night and saw a crowd of them walking down the street as i was approaching the driveway... floored it into the carpark, ran into the house and warned my housemate. We killed the lights and didnt answer the door when they came knockin'.

How's this for good form tho...

After they trick or treat a house, they walk back down to the road and jump in their parent's bloody car! They're not even getting excercise anymore...

But i guess, just kids having fun - i dont see the harm. Having said this, ive never seen any of them "trick" me. If they did something amusing to my house then i might be encouraged to keep sweets at hand on 31 oct.

Let's put the blackmail back into halloween.

Last year I saw a funny sign on a house: "This is NOT America. We don't celebrate halloween here, but we still have guns in the house, so knock at your own risk"

"Are you sure about that?".......unfortunately in this day and age those free lollies could contain anything, there's plenty of extremely sick freaks out there, remember the story a couple of years back when someone inserted razor blades into the plastic slide at the local playground......it's a sick sick world out there with even sicker beasts living in it.

No way would my kids be wandering the streets knocking on strangers doors accepting "whatever" is handed out to them......."no chance!!"

I guess at least the parents are looking after their children.

I can see both sides to the argument, but like has been said; at least the kids have fun - why take that away from them? It's not strictly an American event (they just seemed to have exploited/commercialised it) and most of Australia has Irish/Scottish/English ancestory last I checked - where it originated from.

I bet most of us Melbournians don't complain about a public holiday for a stupid horse-race!!!

The more people that hand out lollies, the more kids will expect it. I never did it when I was a kid because no one celebrated it back then. Parents can buy their own kids lollies, why burden the rest of us.

If we start to celebrate American festivities in OZ I am going to move to Tasmania..

I too can see both sides of the argument.

My initial reaction was 'no way we dont celebrate Halloween'.

But then my 3.5yr old knows the trick or treat thing from TV shows? Which spun me right out.

And then last night we got some trick or treaters and as many have said here before - I got a kick out of seeing the fun the kids are having with it.

I'd like to think it is important to us to see your/our kids enjoying themselves from time to time. We all know there is enough doom and gloom for them for when they get older - so I say give them the best time they can ever have in their childhood then. And if that means celebrating Halloween (hell these kids are that young they dont get it - can you blame them though? They want good times and lollies and I say give it to them) then hell I'm going to celebrate Halloween.

So perhaps I am converted.

There was a thread on here not long after I joined expressing dissapointment in the loss of the idea of a 'neighborhood' and the loss of the sense of community in peoples local areas. I would have thought this type of thing was a great way for people to get some of that back.

Personally I think the burden of handing out a couple of bucks worth of lollies one night a year is a pretty small one to bear if it goes some way to bringing the idea of a nieghborhood back into society.

Yeah, then the poorer people start driving their kids to rich areas to get better lollies. Its always more, more, more with kids, you have to draw the line. Soon kids will want to cellebrate thanksgiving and want presents on New Years Eve like America.

:wtf: i want to get pressies on New Years Eve :(


We had a few kids come round and i traded chocolates for lollies with them!

Any parent who would drive their kid to another suburb to get better lollies for halloween has their prioities pretty seriously out of whack and I think you'd be hard pressed to find anybody that screwed up. I agree you need to draw a line somewhere though.

Over It...
 

This crap is costing me a fortune...... :nutsycuck

We got hammered last night.... 12 groups... Started giving 2 Freddo's per kid, then it was down to 1 per kid..
Finished off handing out cash..... $2 each.. No lollies or chocolate in the house... :yummy: :yummy: :yummy:

By the Way, no kids in our house... NEVER will be... I think we are getting ripped off...

me and the girl went to the shops after work and bought a stack full of lollies & chocolates. Not that many kids turned up, so 1/3 of the lollies still got. But the kids we having a ball, all were well manered, not greedy, and said thanks and were genuinly having fun, which i loved to see.

I dont see the problem at all. i think anything that gives kids abit of fun is a good thing.

And to everyone who's decided its crap because its american, can we please remeber that this forum is called

"FORD FORUMS"

due to it being a site for enthusiasts of

FORDS

which is a car company that, if im not mistaken, began in

AMERICA!.


Im not a huge america lover, but if your going to refuse to take part in ONE form of 'amercana', dont take part in ANY form. Go and sell your ford.

My hood was very quiet. No-one ever mentioned Halloween here.

Agreed, and I hope you had a good 4th of July too. That said, Halloween's not explicitly American.

That said, being the closest thing to "International goth day", It is a chance to have fun if you're one of the darker characters about.

What a terrible analogy..

why?.

if you have a genuine reason for not liking haloween (eg. its bad for kids health, or something else) then fine. i cant argue, but...

to say "i dont like it just cause its american", then hop in your american car, i find is hypocritical.

The only ones that benefit from this are the shops selling lollies and dodgy costumes, and dentists. Ask a kid what's the origin of Haloween and they'd struggle to answer. Yank TV shows have a lot to answer for. Might as well call us the 51st state and celebrate the 4th of July. When this happens, I'm moving to Tassie and persuade the pollies there to form their own government.

If I was to recap, I guess the point of this thread is about us losing our identity as a nation, thanks to influences from the media. I am not anti-yank. I don't want to see this country losing it's unique identity. Even though I wasn't born here, I became a citizen, and am proud of this country, it's people and it's heritage. <end rant>

We are talking about holidays/festivies, not goods and services.I dont mean just because it's american (it could pertain to any country)What I am saying is that we dont have to take up their customs,character,and culture. We are australians,we dont need to import american slang/wordage either..IMO..