Reply to: Trick or Treat?

[EternalOptimist]

well, I made a ten foot wicker man in my garden. trick or treat ?? you should have seen the little buggers run

[norrahe]

Ah well, Beannachtai na Oiche Shamhan Gach dhuine

Happy new year

Stolen from Wikipedia:



Now I never knew the RCs had any ties with Halloween and cannot see what possible connection there can be from a doctrinal basis... maybe it's purely on the cultural side of Catholicism and general superstition. Interesting, you learn something every day.

Its a well known fact that a lot of Christian festivals were originally pagan festivals, in order to get the natives to convert you make their festival your festival and voilà, conversion!

Halloween was originally the new year festival for pagans.

Halloween was always a big thing in Ireland and much was made of it, but not commercially like the states, it also fitted in with All Saints and All Souls holy days.

[shaunbhoy]

Stolen from Wikipedia:



Now I never knew the RCs had any ties with Halloween and cannot see what possible connection there can be from a doctrinal basis... maybe it's purely on the cultural side of Catholicism and general superstition. Interesting, you learn something every day.

Dressing up at Halloween has feck-all to do with whether or not you are an RC or a Protestant. It is all about kids getting free sweets................they place no more emphasis on the event than that. That yearning transcends any sectarian boundaries.

[d000hg]

Stolen from Wikipedia:

Christian attitudes towards Halloween are quite diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions of All Saints’ Day,[47][48] while some other Protestants celebrate the holiday as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation.[49][50] Father Gabriele Amorth, a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[51] In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on the holiday.[52] Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy.

Many Christians ascribe no negative significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular holiday devoted to celebrating "imaginary spooks" and handing out candy. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.[53] In the Roman Catholic Church Halloween is viewed as having a Christian connection,[54] and Halloween celebrations are common in Catholic parochial schools throughout North America and in Ireland.

Other Christians feel concerned about Halloween, and reject the holiday because they feel it trivializes — or celebrates - paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[55] A response among some fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches in recent years has been the use of 'Hell houses', themed pamphlets, or comic-style tracts such as those created by Jack T. Chick in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[52] Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith[56] because of its origin as a pagan "Festival of the Dead". For example, Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween because they believe anything that originated from a pagan holiday should not be celebrated by true Christians.[57]

Now I never knew the RCs had any ties with Halloween and cannot see what possible connection there can be from a doctrinal basis... maybe it's purely on the cultural side of Catholicism and general superstition. Interesting, you learn something every day.

[MarillionFan]

WTF does their religion have to do with anything??

Godless heathen.

[shaunbhoy]

Some years children come to the door guising. With the americanisation of UK and there being a lot of roman catholics in a nearby estate there have been trick-or-treaters going round the doors in recent years, so I dont answer the door to them.

What is it with the recent trend for pumpkins anyway, the children that observed halloween used to use neeps when I was young.

WTF does their religion have to do with anything??

[EternalOptimist]

Neither my mother nor my wife's mother - because of their upbringing (one in a Yorkshire mill town and the other in a Welsh mining town) - would ever have countenanced such a waste of food.

We can both recall seeing it being done on Blue Peter but neither of us have first hand experience of carving lanterns out of any vegetable.

I never had any inclination to make one of these things for the kids. It does remind me of the old American teen joke - The police catch a spotty youth in the pumpkin patch, where he has made a hole in a pumpin and he is boning it vigorously. The police call him a pervert and he looks down and shouts, 'heck, is it midnight already?'

[MarillionFan]

Neither my mother nor my wife's mother - because of their upbringing (one in a Yorkshire mill town and the other in a Welsh mining town) - would ever have countenanced such a waste of food.

We can both recall seeing it being done on Blue Peter but neither of us have first hand experience of carving lanterns out of any vegetable.

You don't waste food. The contents make soup(which I hate but the kids will having pumpkin soup for weeks). You don't eat the rest.

[RichardCranium]

Neither my mother nor my wife's mother - because of their upbringing (one in a Yorkshire mill town and the other in a Welsh mining town) - would ever have countenanced such a waste of food.

We can both recall seeing it being done on Blue Peter but neither of us have first hand experience of carving lanterns out of any vegetable.

[d000hg]

What is it with the recent trend for pumpkins anyway, the children that observed halloween used to use neeps when I was young.

Pumpkins were de rigeur when I was a tot, more than 20 years ago. Much bigger and easier to carve than a turnip.

[Gonzo]

Where I grew up in the South/South West we marked Halloween with hollowed-out pumpkins and apple bobbing but there was never any trick-or-treating.

We never had any trick-or-treating in the part of London we lived in. All the local kids were Muslim so I am not sure whether they would be likely to get involved.

They do the trick-or-treating in New Zealand though. Last year we were living in the wild west and there were loads of them. I am not sure that they would really have gone through with any tricks though, and some of them just wished us Happy Halloween rather than anything else. One big bag of cheap and nasty sweets bought for about £2 was perfectly adequate supply for the night.

This year I am living in a better area. We didn't get any knocks on the door.

[Aman]

Some years children come to the door guising. With the americanisation of UK and there being a lot of roman catholics in a nearby estate there have been trick-or-treaters going round the doors in recent years, so I dont answer the door to them.

What is it with the recent trend for pumpkins anyway, the children that observed halloween used to use neeps when I was young.

[d000hg]

And Leeds.

And the (real) north-east. I think anywhere poor is like this.

[norrahe]

Ah well, Beannachtai na Oiche Shamhan Gach dhuine

Happy new year

[RichardCranium]

All this vicious chav mob, egging, dog poo through the letterbox must be a Southern thing.

And Leeds.