Trick Or Treat
Oct. 31st, 2011 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguist(an LJ Idol entry)
I.
It wasn't too bad this year.
We managed to get to the middle of October before, cuddled up watching a DVD with Andrew on the couch one night, I heard something tapping on our windowpane.
A hideous parody of a face, pale and with grotesquely elongated black holes where eyes and a mouth should have been, hovered directly in front of me in the darkness of an early autumn evening.
My heart wanted to leap into my chest, and my breath wouldn't have stained a mirror. My mouth opened but before I could do anything useful with it, the specter before me ominously intoned three little words.
"Trick or treat!"
Andrew* had three words of his own: "It's not Halloween!" he shouted. The kid in the mask moved away from our window and we went back to watching our DVD. Neither we nor the kid considered for a second that he'd take his three words literally: since we offered no treats, he should have played a trick on us.
Sometimes it's a good thing that these kids today don't know their heritage.
British people complain that Halloween is an American plague that is infiltrating their shores. I used to argue about Celtic Samhain, and All Saint's Day being a holy day of obligation in Europe by the 12th century, long before America was a glint in anybody's eye, but these objections were always brushed away. In Britain, the thing had been Guy Fawkes' Day, or "bonfire night," on the fifth of November, whose celebrations share a few traits with Halloween (especially when you count in Mischief Night).
It may be that trick-or-treating originated in the English custom of "souling," children going from door to door singing songs in exchange for soul cakes, but its popularity ebbed in England and Guy Fawkes' Night took over.
But the example set by American movies and TV, and perhaps the lack of interest in the historical and religious context of bonfire night (though the interest in fireworks is, unsurprisingly, stil strong: I hear them many nights all through October and well into November), have ensured that trick-or-treating has make a prodigal's return, barely recognizable now.
II.
The kids barely seem to know what they're doing themselves. Some friends down the street had a party on Saturday and as I walked over I saw three little kids. The tip of one's pointy witch's hat wouldn't have even come up to my shoulder, holding the hand of a tiny boy whose feet were shuffling to keep up with two bigger girls. I'd been behind them, but when they stopped I walked around them, and as soon as they saw me, they said "Happy Halloween!" I repeated it back to them, almost reflexively. Such lovely children, spreading good cheer! It wasn't Halloween, but never mind; I was on my way to a Samhain/Halloween party myself. But they seemed frustrated, and tried again.
"Trick or treat!"
They held out plastic bags. I was stunned, which was good because if I'd had the power of speech I'd have shouted "You don't just accost people on the street! Do I look like I have any candy? This is not how Halloween works! And it's not even Halloween!" (Yes, now it bothered me that it wasn't Halloween; it's funny how perspective can change so quickly isn't it?) I ended up shrugging elaborately like I do when, as happened today, a man on the street kept shouting "10p! Do you have 10p? 10p! Can you give me 10p?" It felt weird to have to use this defense against three such tiny people, though.
"You're supposed to give us money, or sweets," the little witch informed me.
"It's not even Halloween!" was the least-mean thing I could think of to say to this. Their faces stared up at me, uncomprehending. I turned back the way I was going and kept walking.
I just saw this on Twitter: person on @bbc5live just emailed in saying she greets trick-or-treaters with a carrot and an article about the americanisation of UK culture. As if there were no troubles in the world before trick-or-treating, no societal ills, no minor annoyances caused by children or teenagers.
III.
I was at a posh tea room with friends a week or so ago, and halfway through our elaborate meal of little sandwishes and scones, I overheard the distinctive sound of young voices muffled by masks.
"Trick or treat!"
I couldn't see well from where I was sitting and had no reason to look anyway; I assuemd they belonged to the people sitting at the table they went for. And at least I caught a glimpse of someone in a proper costume, fuzzy pajamas to look like a cat or dog or something. But then I heard them again, at another.table, and couldn't figure it out.
I resisted the idea that they'd just barged in as long as I could, but there started to be murmurings amongst my friends by the time these kids got to their third table. "You don't expect this at a restaurant!" " 'Trick or treat' is quite nasty when you think about it; 'if you don't give me something I'm going to do something bad to you.' " "Yeah, like blackmail." Our table was a bit secluded from the others, so we only got one child coming up to us with a perfunctory "trick or treat" on his way out, and one of my friends just said "no" with a dismissive head-shake before I could give the little brat a piece of my mind.
Which is just as well, really.
And now a phenomenon that includes teenagers harassing people for money (not een in costumes!) all through the month of October is criticized for being American, despite my protestations that the American version is about tiny children in cute costumes, it's only on your actual Halloween, it's only houses that have their porch light on.... I always wear myself out long before I seem to make an impression on anybody else.
There are plenty of aspects of Uncle Sam I'd be happy to burn in effigy -- the fast food, Starbucks, keeping TV shows going long past their best-befeore date, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but to blame everything bad on America ignores the complicated history and nuanced traditions of the British Isles and Europe, and that's a shame.
And not just because there's a lot of good stuff there, but because there are a lot of Anglophile Americans who'd love to copy it! Get them to carve faces in turnips, carry flaming tar barrels through their towns, set off fireworks at a time of year where you don't have to wait until eleven o'clock for it to get dark (the Founding Fathers really didn't think through their revolution very well in that respect, I think), make cinder toffee and at least they can learn to call their trick-or-treating guising.
It'd be a trick on the Americans, a treat for the British.
* No doubt able to react sooner only because he recognized the mask as from the movie Scream, which I haven't seen. I just thought it looked horrific.
I.
It wasn't too bad this year.
We managed to get to the middle of October before, cuddled up watching a DVD with Andrew on the couch one night, I heard something tapping on our windowpane.
A hideous parody of a face, pale and with grotesquely elongated black holes where eyes and a mouth should have been, hovered directly in front of me in the darkness of an early autumn evening.
My heart wanted to leap into my chest, and my breath wouldn't have stained a mirror. My mouth opened but before I could do anything useful with it, the specter before me ominously intoned three little words.
"Trick or treat!"
Andrew* had three words of his own: "It's not Halloween!" he shouted. The kid in the mask moved away from our window and we went back to watching our DVD. Neither we nor the kid considered for a second that he'd take his three words literally: since we offered no treats, he should have played a trick on us.
Sometimes it's a good thing that these kids today don't know their heritage.
British people complain that Halloween is an American plague that is infiltrating their shores. I used to argue about Celtic Samhain, and All Saint's Day being a holy day of obligation in Europe by the 12th century, long before America was a glint in anybody's eye, but these objections were always brushed away. In Britain, the thing had been Guy Fawkes' Day, or "bonfire night," on the fifth of November, whose celebrations share a few traits with Halloween (especially when you count in Mischief Night).
It may be that trick-or-treating originated in the English custom of "souling," children going from door to door singing songs in exchange for soul cakes, but its popularity ebbed in England and Guy Fawkes' Night took over.
But the example set by American movies and TV, and perhaps the lack of interest in the historical and religious context of bonfire night (though the interest in fireworks is, unsurprisingly, stil strong: I hear them many nights all through October and well into November), have ensured that trick-or-treating has make a prodigal's return, barely recognizable now.
II.
The kids barely seem to know what they're doing themselves. Some friends down the street had a party on Saturday and as I walked over I saw three little kids. The tip of one's pointy witch's hat wouldn't have even come up to my shoulder, holding the hand of a tiny boy whose feet were shuffling to keep up with two bigger girls. I'd been behind them, but when they stopped I walked around them, and as soon as they saw me, they said "Happy Halloween!" I repeated it back to them, almost reflexively. Such lovely children, spreading good cheer! It wasn't Halloween, but never mind; I was on my way to a Samhain/Halloween party myself. But they seemed frustrated, and tried again.
"Trick or treat!"
They held out plastic bags. I was stunned, which was good because if I'd had the power of speech I'd have shouted "You don't just accost people on the street! Do I look like I have any candy? This is not how Halloween works! And it's not even Halloween!" (Yes, now it bothered me that it wasn't Halloween; it's funny how perspective can change so quickly isn't it?) I ended up shrugging elaborately like I do when, as happened today, a man on the street kept shouting "10p! Do you have 10p? 10p! Can you give me 10p?" It felt weird to have to use this defense against three such tiny people, though.
"You're supposed to give us money, or sweets," the little witch informed me.
"It's not even Halloween!" was the least-mean thing I could think of to say to this. Their faces stared up at me, uncomprehending. I turned back the way I was going and kept walking.
I just saw this on Twitter: person on @bbc5live just emailed in saying she greets trick-or-treaters with a carrot and an article about the americanisation of UK culture. As if there were no troubles in the world before trick-or-treating, no societal ills, no minor annoyances caused by children or teenagers.
III.
I was at a posh tea room with friends a week or so ago, and halfway through our elaborate meal of little sandwishes and scones, I overheard the distinctive sound of young voices muffled by masks.
"Trick or treat!"
I couldn't see well from where I was sitting and had no reason to look anyway; I assuemd they belonged to the people sitting at the table they went for. And at least I caught a glimpse of someone in a proper costume, fuzzy pajamas to look like a cat or dog or something. But then I heard them again, at another.table, and couldn't figure it out.
I resisted the idea that they'd just barged in as long as I could, but there started to be murmurings amongst my friends by the time these kids got to their third table. "You don't expect this at a restaurant!" " 'Trick or treat' is quite nasty when you think about it; 'if you don't give me something I'm going to do something bad to you.' " "Yeah, like blackmail." Our table was a bit secluded from the others, so we only got one child coming up to us with a perfunctory "trick or treat" on his way out, and one of my friends just said "no" with a dismissive head-shake before I could give the little brat a piece of my mind.
Which is just as well, really.
And now a phenomenon that includes teenagers harassing people for money (not een in costumes!) all through the month of October is criticized for being American, despite my protestations that the American version is about tiny children in cute costumes, it's only on your actual Halloween, it's only houses that have their porch light on.... I always wear myself out long before I seem to make an impression on anybody else.
There are plenty of aspects of Uncle Sam I'd be happy to burn in effigy -- the fast food, Starbucks, keeping TV shows going long past their best-befeore date, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but to blame everything bad on America ignores the complicated history and nuanced traditions of the British Isles and Europe, and that's a shame.
And not just because there's a lot of good stuff there, but because there are a lot of Anglophile Americans who'd love to copy it! Get them to carve faces in turnips, carry flaming tar barrels through their towns, set off fireworks at a time of year where you don't have to wait until eleven o'clock for it to get dark (the Founding Fathers really didn't think through their revolution very well in that respect, I think), make cinder toffee and at least they can learn to call their trick-or-treating guising.
It'd be a trick on the Americans, a treat for the British.
* No doubt able to react sooner only because he recognized the mask as from the movie Scream, which I haven't seen. I just thought it looked horrific.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 08:47 pm (UTC)Most of us Brits don't call it guising, though, so I'm not sure what benefit Americans learning to do so would have. ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 08:53 pm (UTC)And yes, I know most Brits don't call it guising, but a couple of my Twitter friends did so at very nearly the same time tonight and I thought it a good thing to add to my list. Cinder toffee (for which I use the name my husband called it) is apparently a northern-England thing and the tar barrels certainly don't happen everywhere either!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 08:57 pm (UTC)Fireworks is definitely something we will continue to find reasons for even if Guy Fawkes were banned tomorrow.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 11:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 11:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 11:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 11:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 11:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 11:50 am (UTC)I come from a background that means lots of other Brits dismiss my traditions as "we don't do that any more" and I sometimes have to speak up and say "actually, some of us still do!" but I'm under no illusion that my area/background is in the majority (even if it used to be: Mummers plays, maypoles, and turnip carving - that kind of thing), and I'll never leave out the qualifier.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 09:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 09:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 09:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 10:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 02:26 pm (UTC)Thank you! And good luck in the voting :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-10-31 11:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 08:30 am (UTC)In addition to knee-jerk anti-Americanism, I think the Hallowe'en bashing is also a good example of the UK's notoriously child-unfriendly culture. Greeting trick-or-treaters with a carrot and an essay about the americanisation of UK culture? That's so obnoxious, I would egg your windows, and I'm 30. Trick-or-treat is blackmail? For Christ's sake, the kids aren't threatening to show the pictures of you and your mistress to your wife. By all means, don't give out candy if you can't afford it, or you get home too late, or whatever, but I'm always amazed at how gleeful people are about not giving candy to children. You've shown those kids!
Well, actually, you have shown them. You've shown them that they aren't valued by society. Plus, you don't just teach manners and respect by telling children how to behave; you teach them by example too. And then we wonder why so many teenagers and young adults feel so alienated that they'll riot.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 02:26 pm (UTC)That's so obnoxious, I would egg your windows, and I'm 30.
That's exactly what I was thinking! Well I won't be 30 until next month, but the point stands. This isn't going to change anyone's perspective on Halloween; it's just going to make that person gleeful in their spite. And to be proud enough of that to tell a national radio show... well, I suspect she, like I, was expecting people to agree with her and be on her side. It made me feel very alien, reading that.
And then we wonder why so many teenagers and young adults feel so alienated that they'll riot
Indeed. A lot of good can be done by putting on a costume (a lot of trans people and organizations pointed out on Twitter yesterday that it's a really useful concept for people to be able to dress up as whatever they like!) and bending the rules of society a little. I can't help but think of things like the Lord of Misrule and other socially-sanctioned kinds of chaos that act as a-release valve on the pressure that otherwise erupts much more disastrously and spontaneously.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-01 05:11 pm (UTC)::puts on flat cap, moans, "this were all fields, when I were a lass"::
Date: 2011-11-01 05:15 pm (UTC)But I'm glad it made you happy! Thank you for saying so.
Re: ::puts on flat cap, moans, "this were all fields, when I were a lass"::
Date: 2011-11-01 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 09:08 pm (UTC)Absolutely, and I do worry that if they're given a carrot and an article (about anything), the closest they're going to get to a good memory there is, as my friend said, righteously egging that person's house :) And it doesn't have to be like that!
Anyway, I think grown-ups need memories of special days like that, too :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 04:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 09:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 07:29 pm (UTC)Also very interesting to read about Halloween from a different cultural perspective. Reading the comments has also been quite fun. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 09:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-02 09:59 pm (UTC)I tend to think of other just different, not necessarily better or worse. Though I've traveled enough to be able to be surprised at what things I take for granted for being "standard" in the U.S., while at the same time being surprised at what is "standard" in other countries. I don't judge these differences, though I am often interested to learn about them and am sometimes amused by them.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 08:09 am (UTC)I was too. It's because people assume things are the same other places that they think America must also be full of teenage hooligans harassing people door-to-door for money for the month of October without so much as a plastic pound-shop mask, and this just irritates me to no end.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 04:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 12:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 06:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 08:04 am (UTC)I never had, until this year! (but then maybe I just don't get out enough)
In comments above, a friend of mine, who used to live a couple of bus stops away from me and still is only a few miles away, talks about completely different experiences she's had with Halloween and Guy Fawkes' Night. It seems very patchy, varying hugely with location and chance encounters.
most of the trick-or-treaters I noticed this year seemed to be teenagers (as opposed to small children) which I think goes against the spirit of the day.
This is something I've noticed as long as I've been here (six or seven Halloweens now :) ).
Thanks for reading and commenting.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 08:10 pm (UTC)Thanks for commenting :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 08:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 09:19 pm (UTC)One of the things I like about Britain is that pagans/wiccans/etc don't have to be so reactionary: some whole communities turn out for an Imbolc festival I went to a couple of years ago, people in the military can be officially pagan, I think even the druids are making a comeback (of sorts). It's one of the things I like about living here; no religion is terribly popular, so they're all treated more fairly than in the U.S.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 12:11 pm (UTC)I guess in a way that's what I was writing about in the first place: not that Halloween is important to me, but America is!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-03 10:19 pm (UTC)I love Halloween. I do understand there's history behind it, but, with most any holiday, I generally tend to adopt the traditions that suit me and those with whom I celebrate, and the spirit of the event, without feeling I have to give homage to the story of the day. Halloween has been twisted out of proportion from what it once was, as has most every day we recognize for any reason, especially the further we get from its origins, but, I love having a night for the children to be playful and creative with their imaginations without having grownups in authority look down on them; to be comfortable in their neighborhoods spreading and receiving joy just for its own sake; and for adults to remember to shrug off the shackles of responsibility for a night, just to be goofy again like they once were as kids.
These last few years we've given out candy at our door, because the bird goes bonkers for it. She sits at the window and calls "How are you?" to anyone in the street, hoping they'll come up and ask for candy. It's such a treat for us to see how excited she is by all the bright colors and fun, sparkling accessories, and it's a delight to watch the children ooh and aah over her. She will spend the next few days asking to step and go to the door, in the hopes we can make more trick-or-treaters come, before she forgets about it until next year.
Maybe some part of me should give more respect to some of the inceptions of remembrance for particular days in our celebration calendar, but, to me, I think it's important that with each recognition, we find a way to first celebrate life.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 12:07 pm (UTC)Thank you for not attributing this weirdness to all of us, lock stock and barrel.
I don't attribute it to any of us, but not because I'm magnanimous or clever, just because it is a particular weirdness I've never seen or heard of in America.
I'm not sure I'd agree that Halloween's been twisted from its original intent:sounds to me exactly what the point has always been of this sort of festive space that transgresses societal norms, a necessary release in order to be able to keep things going along in a more or less orderly and peaceful way the rest of the time.
So while you're quite right in thinking the importance of celebrating holidays should be whatever we decide is important, I don't think you're so far off the original point of this one anyway :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 12:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 11:43 am (UTC)Turns out it was almost different enough to get me knocked out in the vote! Oh well. I'll try not to have such a weird perspective this week ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-05 04:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 12:50 am (UTC)I've been in Sweden and Egypt for halloween as well. In Sweden young people will have costume parties that night but that's about all I saw. In Egypt I myself didn't even think about the fact that it was halloween in America until I was out at the clubs that night wondering why the hell there were people in costumes!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-11-04 12:09 pm (UTC)I think so too, but then I don't get a lot of things people in Britain think are foolishly obvious, so I think this is a way in which all humans are silly.