Every year the British press publishes an article by some Little Englander nutcase attacking Halloween as a gauche American invention that's all about requiring you to spend, spend, spend. This year it was AN Wilson's turn in The Daily Mail. What's interesting about Wilson's lazy article is how similar it was to Andrew Martin's piece in the Guardian last year. It's almost as if Wilson had Martin's article in front of him while he was typing. Hmmm....
These columns are so tedious to me. They ignore the fact that Halloween is a Celtic invention, not an American one and thrives in the parts of the British Isles where toffs like AN Wilson obviously never travel to. Still for a man so well educated you think he at least would have dipped into The Golden Bough now and again where the multifarious British manifestations of Halloween are well documented. I'd love to rehash all my arguments from November 2008, but the articles are so suspiciously similar, perhaps you should just read my post from last year instead.
33 comments:
I'm from Hartlepool in the North of England and we always DID halloween when I was kid although we used a turnip and not a pumpking. Oh, and no trick or treating.
Oh, and no trick or treating.
More proof of the fact that Americans have shifted the emphasis of the feast to candy consumption and crass overcommercialization and lost sight of the true meaning of Halloween.
Ha! You're just unhappy because YOU didn't get the good candy this year!
Halloween, alas, was dead this year. Thanks, swine flu! I was throwing handfuls and handfuls of candy into the buckets and sacks of the few children who did show up.
It warmed my heart a bit when some kids dressed up like the baseball team from The Warriors showed up.
It's funny that though the text is quite curmudgeonly, the pictures make it seem as though all the other Londoners are having quite a lot of fun.
Halloween is pretty over the top here in Santa Cruz, as you might imagine. We are having Indian summer kind of weather and as it was on Saturday, the downtown afternoon trick or treating for kids was very lovely, although I think swine flu worries might have kept attendance down here a little too. Night is always even a bigger scene than daytime, though with adults, and a couple of years it's gotten a bit ugly-- gang-related stabbings and such. And there has been some weird, bad stuff going on downtown over the last few weeks, I'm sorry to report. But on Halloween, it all went well, partly because the police presence was very visible, and they basically just tailed around any likely troublemakers all night. As one of my friends said, THAT must have been annoying.
The trend, I think, at least in this American town, is for more parents of young children to take them to sponsored events like our downtown one, and to hit only a few known streets at night. The last four places I've lived,there have been few to no trick or treaters at all. And there is a move back toward 'wholesome parties', where I'm sure there is enough apple bobbing to satisfy even A.N. Wilson's saintly soul.
Only a few brave souls trick or treated in our neighborhood this year - the weather was lousy, cold, windy, and raining pretty heavily at times.
I felt bad for the kids. But then I didn't, because I thought back to my days as a youngster, dressed up in my homemade Indiana Jones outfit, when I braved the elements better than the mailman.
This year, we did manage to brew some cider on the porch, so all was not lost.
This was the first year my wife and I (no kids yet) were able to participate in the 'treating'. Having just moved to a small town subdivision with a lot of families nearby and having perfect pillaging weather in our parts we had a lot of visitors. Given my experience, I can safely say it's much more fun to give than receive on this day and I'm already looking forward to next year and seeing all the wee ones decked out and wandering up and down our street in search of their next sugar score.
Paul
In The Golden Bough there are quite a few Halloween ceremonies in the north of England. But Wilson etc. are journos who are very London and Home Counties centric so they wouldnt know that. Its almost as if Lancashire and Yorkshire are foreign countries.
Marco
Thats funny. The Onion always brings it.
In Ireland Halloween did have a scary vibe. There was something about it that wasnt quite wholesome.
Corey
Looked high and low for peanut butter cups in Australia. They do not exist.
Matt
I remember one year when I lived in an apt building in Harlem only two kids came to our door the whole night. They went away with a gigantic bag of Snickers bars each.
Seana
I think its a generational thing. Young people seem to be buying into it in a way older generations do not. For me thats good. I've never liked Guy Fawkes night, November 5, which is an ugly sectarian holiday, all about burning Catholics.
Those wholesome family gatherings may satisfy the prudish ANW but only if its nice English children from the Cotswolds, not boorish Americans.
Brian
The kids must have loved the cider. You cant start them drinking too soon! Its just like the olden days when you couldnt trust the water supply and everyone was on small beer.
Ryan
It is fun to give out. Especially if you make the effort. I used to take my kids to this house near Cheesman Park in Denver and they spent a month decorating it, getting a dry ice machine etc. I think they had as much a blast as the kids.
In Ireland Halloween did have a scary vibe. There was something about it that wasnt quite wholesome.
By the way, a friend of mine who has been to Ireland came back with a Leprechaun T-Shirt. He said there were countless Leprechaun-themed shirts in every shop you looked at.
Way to embrace a National Stereotype.
November 5, which is an ugly sectarian holiday, all about burning Catholics
I think the key of a successful November 5 depends on the careful choice of the right Catholics to burn.
You cant start them drinking too soon!
I bet you already introduced Sophie and Arwynn to the joys of alcoholic beverages, then.
Marco
Well, they do have wine at shabbat dinner. I do like the French idea that you encourage your children to drink wine with dinner so they dont become binge drinkers. Saturday night in Lyon is a very different experience from Saturday night in Leeds.
All the money from those leprechaun t shirts goes straight back to the leprechauns.
When I was in high school there was one year when I was in drama club and we did one of the rooms in the local Haunted House. I don't know how the rest of the rooms were, but even you could have probably handled ours, Adrian, as we did a musical number based on a parody of the Love Story theme. Since we did probably 100 performances of it, I could probably recite it even now, though it was my friend who wrote it, but will spare you. I think we were probably really only amusing to ourselves, but we were pretty darn amused. And in high school, that counts for a lot.
Adrian -
I think the Europeans have it right: let the kids have a drink with dinner. I didn't partake until I was 21, out of an overly healthy respect for the law and fear of being caught, and now I'd be considered an alcoholic if I bothered going to those dreadful meetings.
Halloween in Japan was SO MUCH FUN. They have several parades and parties, but the best part is the Halloween train. People (mostly adults) dress up in costume and jump on the Yamanote subway line at 9:00 pm in Shinjuku. The Yamanote line circles Tokyo, and more and more people in costumes started taking over the train cars every year I was there. I’m back in the States now but I’m assuming they’re still continuing this fun ritual; probably taking over the entire train by now.
I wonder if even now the Emperor is decrying the abandonment of Japanese youth to these decadent American ways.
What am I thinking? Of course he is.
You’re probably right, Seana. His Imperial Majesty the Emperor is probably cursing the dastardly Americans, but who knows? He could be costumed up and on board that Halloween train, too. Sort of like how Peter the Great disguised himself and traveled around Europe... ;->
Oh, I really hope he was on the train. I always feel a bit sorry for the Emperor of Japan, I don't know why.
Brian
Someone, I dont remember who, said something like "no good thing was ever made by drinkers of water".
The pyramids of course were built by beer drinkers.
Holden
Thats great. I havent been to Japan, but the missus said that Sinjuku is pretty weird to start off with, so Halloween must add a little frisson of weirdness.
Seana
Did you ever read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy? The first one in particular always makes me feel a bit sorry for monarchs.
I didn't read Gormenghast, although the name does kind of fit in with the theme here, doesn't it? I did start it and loved the description of the castle. I watched the televised version on TV when it came out here though. It was pretty good, but I think it would have been better to have read it first. It's all a clean slate with me by now, so it won't suffer. The only thing I remember is that Dot Cotton from Eastenders had a very non-Dot Cottonish role.
We had a Fruits craze at our store some years ago. People got really into it. I look back nostagically at that era sometimes. It was a high point.
Must have been before Kindle.
It's easier to put a pumpkin in the window and buy some cheap sweets, than to sit and steam over horrible children all evening.
That said, I object to Americans criticising the British for getting Halloween wrong. Maybe the US way is better. It probably is. But things evolve, and the people in the UK do the best they can. How about giving us some lessons in how to Halloween properly?
Seana
If you get the chance you could give them a go. I remember really liking books 1 and 2, but not 3 for some reason. Wonderfully gothic stuff and Steerpike was a terrific character.
Miss Witch
I would have thought a witch would know what to do on All Hallow's Eve.
Even easier to put a turnip at the doorstep than a pumpkin. I may try that next year.
And interesting that trains should play a role in the Japanese celebration, as they do in a number of Japanese mysteries and, I have read, in Japanese culture at large.
I suppose I could make it a swede...
I will try to get back to the Gormenghast trilogy. I wanted to read it--don't know what happened. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident.
Bookwitch, I think it's only the Irish born, English influenced among us Americans who respond heatedly to England's disdain. We're all too busy running around that night having fun to really care what they think. Actually, I wasn't, but I'm a contrarian. If I was living among some fundamentalist Christian sect that believes Halloween is the work of Satan, I would probably be running around in a white sheet and demanding treats and egging houses if I didn't get any.
A swede sounds good, even though I don't actually know what they are.
Satan: He's the reason for the season.
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