Halloween
 

Had to deal with the trick or treat kids tonight, do their families celebrate all American holidays, or just those that give handouts ? personally, i don't believe in it.

should have told them you be round their place on the 4th of july shooting fireworks into their Prado.

They can piiss right off. I don't live in America do i.

Is tonight halloween?

Sad thing is it's getting bigger each year.

Saw three younger kids (probably 8 to 10) on their own about half hour ago as I was going to the shop.. no adults anywhere.. they were going from house to house..
I can't believe that people can be so stupid to let their kids walk around on their own :doh:

Thank God we got no trick-or-treaters this year. Ugh...

A large barking dog works well!.

8 trick or treaters tonight... We gave away all my mums lollies for her trip next week lol..

I dont know why kids celebrate these things but when i was younger i wished Australia went all out for it like USA. But now its just another day.

So far no trick or treaters at my door. Lucky for them.

FF

None so far. I just tell them to ****** off!

we had some today i wanted to answer and give them a trick hehe but mum kicked away from the door, seriously why does everyone give them treat. :dr_Evil:
Theres nothing wrong with it just another day for kids to look forward for and enjoy i see nothing wrong with that. :wink_2:

Had half a dozen teenaged girls on the door step tonight, i felt kind of strange giving them lollies.... ESPECIALLY when they yelled "trick or treat"! :dr_Evil:

Thats interesting actually. I too thought it was an american tradition, which it kind of is, but it originated from Ireland where it is most popular. It comes from yet ANOTHER pagan tradition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

So I support it in that traditional sense....but no-one celebrates it for what its supposed to be.

Definately Not!!!

"Trick!" :peepwall:

Meh, doesn't interest me at all. Good on those who take it seriously, but I buy lollies for myself, not to give away!

Nothing but little scabs running around trying to get free stuff!

what a load of bullshit, keep there dribble over there.. lets just do our own thing and stop worrying about what the yankie doodles do..

what about getting our own tradition going: same principle, except people have to hand over performance car parts?

i can just see it now ...... :yelrotflm

Can't understand how parents let their kids go around begging.

We just switch off the door bell and pretend we're not home.

'I'm sorry kids all I have is some celery and dental floss' :Whatever_

I just went to my g's for dinner

They got trick or treaters.....WHo the hell expects to get anything

Yet another reason to live out bush :p

Dont think the kids around these parts know anything about this yank tradition ...... hehehehehe

I work late, so I never see the buggers. They're more likely to play a trick around here anyway

Halloween is HUGE in Alice Springs.... We set up out the front of the house, lanterns, pumkins, get together with the neigbours, drink Jimmy Boags and wine,send the kids off in their costumes to collect "candy". We gave away about $80 worth and the kids got about $20 worth in return. But what the hell. We all had fun.

I dont believe in it, but it is fun.

i wouldnt mind it if the government actually declared it a holiday but no one ever knows about and these kids come to your door expecting lollies....we had nothing to give and i felt tight A**S so i gave them all ice blocks...i was saving them for tomorrow if it gets hot...ahwell. you dont see us celebrating thanks giving so why this holiday? its for the free stuff the kids get. what would happend if i said trick and threw an egg at the kids? id probably get charged, and for what a holiday that doesnt excist here in australia. id like to see the yanks support our holidays

it would be good enough to see our kids celebrating our holidays....we need more pride in the nation and we are losing it by taking on the yanks tradition....but i dont mind the american people just the media and the government

We had numerous kids turn up and luckily my wife was prepared with a large bowl of freddo frogs and timeouts. We had an absolute ball with my youngest four year old daughter handing out treats to all the neighborhood kids that turned up in full costume. My daughters obviously dont know or care about the reason for halloween but it was fun and something different.

spot on buddy.
personally, i dont like halloween, or any yank traditions for that matter, much at all.
but as the father of a 5yo daughter, is was fun to see her enjoying herself (and enjoying some lollies!!) tonite.
in my book, thats what it should be about. younger kids dressing up, having some harmless fun and enjoying themselves.

the ones that sh1t me, and get told to.... you know what, are the smarta55 teenagers that are just out for a freebie, are old enuf to know better, and dont make any effort like the little kids do with their parents.

basicly, i enjoy seeing little kids all dressed up and having a laugh, so if halloween was just that, then it'd be a good thing.

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.