The past couple of years, the amount of kids out on Halloween has dwindled down in my neighborhood. This year, my wife and I were at her cousin’s house and we saw maybe a couple of kids walking around. My wife blames people going to Trunk or Treat things. We both work in retail, so we see more of the public, and nobody was in costume. What was everybody’s experience with Halloween this year?
Unpopular opinion probably, I’m ready for the down votes: I live in Europe and I hate the fact that it has taken root here. We don’t need any more American culture to take over. I didn’t grow up with this and I don’t need my kids growing up with it. We have no connection to Halloween celebrations like this. What’s next to come, Thanksgiving?
End rant. 😅
Halloween was a pagan holiday in Europe for millennia, and even modern trick or treating is originally from Scotland
I bet that’s true, but it’s just been tainted for me by American culture etc.
Halloween is fun and I’m glad it has arrived here. The commercalisation of it is another subject for another post, but the concept of kids dressing up and asking for candy is great. Besides, with the nights getting longer and the days ending way earlier than they should, an Autumn holiday is very nice.
We already have traditions on this day, for All Hallows Eve. We visit the graves of our ancestors and remember them and and pay respects. This commercial tradition of buying a bunch of decorations and candy and costumes and shit just feels like heresy somehow. I can’t explain it. Doesn’t feel right.
The point is that All Hallows Eve is a Christian holiday, and that it isn’t comparable to Halloween in any way, because the “let’s dress up in costumes and eat way too much candy while watching scary movies” holiday and the “let’s go to the cemetery to put candles on Grandpa’s grave and honor our ancestors” holiday play very, very different roles. And guess what? Observing one doesn’t mean you have to completely discard the other.
Guess what, they’re the same holiday. We have our tradition already, of celebrating it in the way we have for a long time, by honoring the dead and our loved ones. But now gluttony, consumerism, and capitalism is creeping in from some other culture, bastardizing that beautiful celebration of family, love, and respect, and I’m not here for it. I find it appalling, quite frankly.
Like I said, not every holiday needs to be fun-fun happy time, with candy and presents and shit. We have so many of those all year already. It’s healthy for kids to learn about emotion, about loss, about love, about real shit!
Anyway, that’s my take, my opinion, and it won’t be changed in this thread, so if we disagree, we disagree, and I respect that you are fond of what you are fond of because of what you grew up with or whatever.🤝