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Holidays

What do you celebrate?

  • Yule / Solstice

    Votes: 3 12.0%

  • Sukkot

    Votes: 1 4.0%

  • Diwali

    Votes: 1 4.0%

  • Halloween

    Votes: 6 24.0%

  • Ramadan

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Kwanzaa

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Los Dias De Los Muertos

    Votes: 1 4.0%

  • Christmas

    Votes: 18 72.0%

  • A holiday not listed here

    Votes: 5 20.0%

  • I do not celebrate any holiday

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Total voters
    25
  • Poll closed .
It's no fun getting home from a long day at work and having to spend the evening opening the door and pretending to care what other people's children are wearing and spending money that could be better used elsewhere on sweets for them to get even fatter on.

If other people get a kick out of it then that's great, but why can't they only knock on the doors of people who are obviously celebrating it rather than pester everyone? When I was a kiddy we'd have Halloween parties, but we would never go door to door begging and bothering people we didn't know.

If I buy sweets I'm damn well eating them myself.

BAH HUMBUG
 
You have a point, we had a rule to go by, which was that if the porch light was on you could knock, but if it was off then you couldn't.

I don't know how it will be over here, but where I was living for the last few years, the neighborhood went all out on decorations and candy. It was the state capital neighborhood with the governor's mansion in it and you couldn't have the gov out doing you.

There was the pumpkin house that had tons of hand carved jack-o-lanterns in front and a which doctor guy MCing out front. One house dug up it's whole front yard and made it look like a grave yard with hands and coffins sticking out and plenty of fog. The witche's house was cool and had good treats even for grown ups and my son's favorite was the castle with the mad doctor in it.

My place was covered in spider webs and I hung ghosts and bats all over inside.
 
It's not massive over here. It's getting bigger, but it seems to be the greedy aspect that's growing the most in popularity. Some people do put up decorations though and I would think it's fair enough to go knocking on their door, and if I knew the children again it would be fair enough for them to come round for sweets. But I don't put up decorations and I don't know the children so all I want is to be left alone. :(

There are some, mostly 18ish year old lads, who take any excuse to go begging. They won't put any effort into a costume, a mask if you're lucky, and go round demanding sweets. The same group also go door to door at Christmas yelling carols like they're football chants and expecting you to pay up. Which again makes me reluctant to open the door. If I lived on a street where everyone joined in and the parents were taking groups of polite children round then I probably would buy a big bag of sweets to hand out, but it's just not like that here.
 
You are supposed to give something to carolers? I've never had them so I know nothing about it.

Yes our neighbor's were mostly older, wealthier folks that we all knew like our dentist and they liked the kids to come by and would invite us (I always go with my son he's too young to go alone) in for cocoa or cider and take pics of all the costumes.
 
Now that I think of it, I bet the candy and decor was a good investment for some like my dentist. I know I spent more on fillings than he did candy:rolleyes:
 
We don't celebrate Halloween, but we always buy lots of candy in case we should have visitors. This is our 12th year here, and so far I can safely say we've had less than 20 trick or treaters total. All the neighbors go into town for their evening's activities, and we're left with a huge bowl of candy that we get to devour ourselves. So, naturally, we buy the good stuff:D
 
Ronny said:
You are supposed to give something to carolers? I've never had them so I know nothing about it.
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You're supposed to give them money. BUT! They're supposed to be proper carolers. So they'd be from the church choir and the money you gave them would then go to the church, or they'd be collecting for whatever other charity. And they sing you a proper song, all the way through and it would sound nice because they're were trained and they'd practiced.

But now they just shout at you until you pay them to shut up and then they spend the money on cheap cider. So I've since lost my festive appreciation of carolers.

A similar thing happened with 'penny for the Guy'. On bonfire night kids would make effigies of Guy Fawkes and then wheel them round the neighbourhood collecting money before they burned them. Then it turned into a bunch of kids pushing a stolen shopping trolley with one of their mates in it, and now I don't think that many kids know about anymore.
 
I find that once a couple of children have gone missing after knocking on your door, parents tend to keep them away.
 
Litany said:
You're supposed to give them money. BUT! They're supposed to be proper carolers. So they'd be from the church choir and the money you gave them would then go to the church, or they'd be collecting for whatever other charity. And they sing you a proper song, all the way through and it would sound nice because they're were trained and they'd practiced.

But now they just shout at you until you pay them to shut up and then they spend the money on cheap cider. So I've since lost my festive appreciation of carolers.
quote]

My church always has a caroling party where we go to the assisted living center next door, over to the nursing home, and to the homes of the elderly ladies in our congregation, or anyone else we think might like a visit. After everyone is sufficiently frozen, we go back to the church for cider and goodies. I've never heard of paying carolers cash either..that would feel very strange. But of course, no one wants to stand too close to me when I sing, so maybe we just don't sound that great. For some reason, no one EVER asks me to sing more than once:p
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Got some pumpkins on sunday. Painted two and carved one. We then baked the seeds and set the hollowed out pumpkin outside to light up with a candle in it. I look forward to halloween, the cool weather helps to build the anticipation of it.:)

Guy Fawkes day.....do I have to buy the weird mask or something?
 
Hmm...Interesting that Halloween still only has a few votes. I was shopping today in a large gift store and one of the clerks was telling me that Halloween is getting as big as Christmas when it comes to decorating and such.

My family was always really big into holidays when I was growing up. I've carried that over into my adult life. I don't have kids, but I still decorate and carve pumpkins for Halloween, dye eggs at Easter, and all that good stuff.

I didn't know you were supposed to give something to carolers! :eek: Oops. Well, I shall redeem myself this year.
 
The most I've ever heard of giving carolers was cookies and hot cocoa. Since one never knows when carolers might appear, that seems silly in this day and time. How could anyone possibly keep a supply on hand for an army of unknown size? I think today's carolers would be thrilled to be given smiles in return for a song or two.
 
But I thought everyone in America always kept a vat of eggnog on the go over the whole of the festive season. That would be perfect for scaring them off with.
 
Litany said:
But I thought everyone in America always kept a vat of eggnog on the go over the whole of the festive season. That would be perfect for scaring them off with.
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Maybe that's New Englanders..I was 10 years old before I ever heard of eggnog.
 
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