Why I'm a Halloween Grinch
We live in Australia, and we don't harvest at this time of the year, well, not where I live anyway and certainly not pumpkins! We have a bastardised, multicultural history that somehow cleaves itself to Britain and America. We've somehow adopted a festivity entirely inappropriate for the season (we can't have Bonfire Night, because of fires, and we aren't allowed to have fireworks here). Whilst I did have fun listening to Halloween histories and ghost stories, a recitation of the Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, and discussions on the thin veil between the worlds and whether those born on October 31st can see the dead, I'm still terribly uncomfortable with Australian's need to celebrate it in that some do.
Me, totally skeptical about Halloween, if not totally grumpy. Image Source
Sure, if it's a cultural thing - if you're homesick for your old country and you want to educate your kids on it too, or want to connect to home, I don't have a problem with it. There's no real reason you can't have a bit of fun with your kids, or have an excuse for a party (any excuse, right?) but I'm not sure people know how much they are manipulated in celebrating Halloween in a particular way.
It does seem a bit like being sucked into a marketing scheme and entertaining the kids without thinking of how it might affect others - and the earth.
My biggest bugbear (and no, a bugbear is not a ghoul or a monster, just a pet peeve or annoyance - but I could be a bugbear at Halloween with fangs and dripping blood, and a little bit grouchier than a normal bugbear) is that it's just a hook to hang consumer culture on. Buy buy buy folks - buy capes and plastic masks, buy out of season pumpkins and plastic lanterns, buy spider webs and witches costumes, buy orange muffins with orange icing painted with pumpkins, buy orange fanta and orange and black balloons and buy lollies and treats for the kids that come a-knocking dressed as bloodied zombies and mini witches.
People say that it's great for community, but come on folk, if you're so worried about community, why aren't you doing it for the rest of the year? Why just now? Do you pop past at Christmas to wish us a good one? Do you celebrate other cultural festivities in the name of community or is just this one?
My folks got a letter in their letter box with a balloon, saying if they want to participate, put the balloon out. That's quite thoughtful, I thought - they can opt out of an event they don't really care about.
Except ... the balloons.
Balloons are basically latex death traps released into the environment. They mimic the appearance of food and thus are eaten by wildlife, as are the plastic strings and ribbons attached to them. Along with plastic bags and bottles they are one of the most three most harmful pollutants threatening wildlife. And if you've bought balloons, you've probably bought plastic cobweb stuff to hang on your fence, and plastic cups and plastic plates and plastic spiders and plastic ghosts and plastic bats.
A plastic nightmare fantastica.
And sure, it makes it pretty Halloween-y, doesn't it? Seagulls choking on shreds of plastic. Turtles bound up in plastic cobwebs. A duck wearing a halloween cape, stuck on a fence. Fits with the theme. But I'm sure that's not really what you want your kiddies to see.
So yeah, I'm a Halloween grinch.
That's simple and admirable =)
Oh, okay, what's admirable about it? What do you mean?
Things and stuff. Youll probably never get a reply
I like to poke.
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I'm the same TBH. I got back around 5.30 PM yesterday. Streets were just full of trick or treaters.
I retreated to my office, at the rear of the housr having turned off all the streer facing lights.
I just wasn't in the mood!
I hadn't really thought about the plastic issue TBH but yr right - the isles of Poundland rammed full of it and those treat packs with all the individually wrapped sweets.
Horrific.
Still? Xmas to not look forward to next!
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Oh god help us!!!
That's when I have to stay away from the shops! Or I want to kill the world! Gluttony and greed. Ugh.
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I don't celebrate it all all. As far as I'm concerned xmas day is just Tuesday. Or whatever day it falls on.
In fact I lock myself in the house for two days. It's more of a prison sentence for me.
Upside is on the 27th I'm the happiest bloke around town and not in debt.
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Ah, but now you have a new fridge to talk to!
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I'm with you all the way on this post @riverflows! It's like you're in my head and don't even get me started on how gross it is to actively get our children hooked on refined sugar, many many times more addictive than cocaine.
Start 'em young with a morbid celebration of horror and death. Fuck me.. Cheers fellow grinch 😤
Haha! Totally!!! I was the same about kids birthday parties too.. such a horrid mother. I spoilt all the fun. Oh, apart from the time they went on a feather hunt and got a book as a prize and said it was the best party ever? Oh yeah.
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Aparently Halloween has taken off here in Galicia (Spain) in the last few years - it has all been commercialised. Its a bit sad really becuase I can see over time that they might lose there tradition of Samain (similar to Halloween but more about Witches!), and become more about trick or treating etc.
We had some people come trick or treating last night and I had no candy for them, and dont speak Spanish well, so I just shrugged my shoulders. Felt a bit like the grinch of Halloween
That is a real shame .. traditions like Samhain are important. Consumerism is just god awful culture destruction.
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It seem all about getting peaple to spend there money on useless crap that just ends up in the rubbish bin or worse.
Exactly. And people fall.for it!!!!
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I'm glad I saw this, @riverflows, even if it is the day after.
I guess you can put me down as a Halloween Grinch, too. I don't really remember what it was like growing up, to tell you the truth, but I know as a parent, it was the holiday I least looked forward to. Get the kids out into the neighborhood or down to the mall to get their candy haul for the year, then get home and hand out candy (not the kids') to those who showed up. Bah humbug!
One year, I think we managed to garner the trick or treat speed record. Malls are good for that. You just go and scout ahead to where the next business is handing out candy and you point the kids in the direction they should go. :)
The commercial aspect of it doesn't grab me as much as it does during Christmas because unless you're really into it, or someone in the family is, you can generally reuse a costume for a few years (when the kids aren't in growth spurts), and candy can be bought relatively cheap.
However, just the idea of giving away candy for no other purpose than kids show up at the door? And that it's associated with all kinds of monsters and what not that we all hope never exist? Definitely strange to me.
However, I know I'm in the minority, so I generally just lay low, let people have their fun, and move on, even if it doesn't sound like I do. :)
I definitely don't mind people having fun even though it's not my thing. I think it's just the rabid commercial nature of it that upsets me, as well as the environmental impact
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I'm trying to trace back when things like Halloween and Christmas stopped bothering me like this, cause I used to hate all holidays. I think it's when I found a tribe in 3D that, like me, paid no attention to holidays or what mainstream was doing with everyone having their one or two guilty pleasures (NBA or Bojack Horseman for a few of them, youtube bs for me). The mainstream culture feels much less unbearable now that I know I have somewhere to go to escape it and still feel engaged with people. I don't live in the same city as them but they still manage to give me peace of mind.
This year Halloween passed and I was at home all day and didn't even realized it had happened. It helps that I'm somewhere that doesn't trick or treat, but I could have just as easy put on some headphones and ignored it, or go into anthropology mode and go people watching (unless I'm America cause some nutso mommies would probably accuse me of eye-ing their children)
OH my god, that happened to my Dad taking photos of my nephew at a soccer match - he was reprimanded for being a pervy old man, lol, the family has never forgotten it.
I think that's what I'm babbling about today - that ability to find a gap and get away from the unbearable aspect of culture that closes in on me - knowing you have an escape helps.
Ahhhhhh, it's international!? The "everyone is a pedophile pervert" illness? Urgh. That's what I like about Asia, I meet a mother and child and I can poke the kids cheeks and belly and no one gets sick thoughts in their mind cause it's natural to want to play with kids (PLAY, not THAT) cause that's what they're masters of, play.
I hope you can find refuge from the crazy normies!
Yeah it's crazy. Like what has happened to the world!! Poor Dad.
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