Official Hallowe'en Thread

[Fake Messiah]

This truly is a magical time of year. All the cobwebs in my house are now officially ‘decorations’.

Boru

That's why I have ice age figurines in my house so that I can say that the dust is actually toy-snow and part of the ice age scene.

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[brewer]

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Halloween isn't really a thing in Australia although commercial interest have tried to make it so.

Some kids dress up and go around asking for candy(with an adult) The relatively few houses which participate have some kind of sign/symbol outside, such as cobwebs.

Australia simply doesn't have the tradition.  'All hallows Eve' has of course been known in the UK and Europe for centuries, but the trick or treat thing hasn't been a thing as fart as I know.. I'll look it up.



Here one reason might be that most first settlers here were convicts*** and wouldn't have been able to get time off.  


***My state of South Australia was the only state in Australia founded by free settlers. 1836, mainly Brits and Irish with a sprinkling of Germans. The Germans founded South Australia's word class wine industry. My family arrived in 1870 from County Clare. This was due to an aversion to starving to death in Ireland.

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OOPS, I wrong.  Halloween has in fact been traditionally celebrated in the UK :

"Throughout Britain, Halloween has traditionally been celebrated by children’s games such as bobbing for apples in containers full of water, telling ghost stories and the carving of faces into hollowed-out vegetables such as swedes and turnips. These faces would usually be illuminated from within by a candle, the lanterns displayed on window sills to ward off any evil spirits. The current use of pumpkins is a relatively modern innovation imported from the United States, and we can also extend the same debt of gratitude to our friends in America for that ‘quaint’ “trick-or-treat” tradition! "

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Halloween/

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OFF TOPIC but peripheral in that this is also a folk tradition.:

GUY FAWKES night is celebrated in England  on November 5 1605, when [catholic] Guy Fawkes and others tried to blow up the house of parliament, with  king James 1.  They did not succeed. The king was livid and made sure the conspirators met especially grisly ends. .  

Folk Poem ca 1870:

English Folk Verse (c.1870)
           The Fifth of November

   Remember, remember!
   The fifth of November,
   The Gunpowder treason and plot;
   I know of no reason
   Why the Gunpowder treason
   Should ever be forgot!
   Guy Fawkes and his companions
   Did the scheme contrive,
   To blow the King and Parliament
   All up alive.
   Threescore barrels, laid below,
   To prove old England's overthrow.
   But, by God's providence, him they catch,
   With a dark lantern, lighting a match!
   A stick and a stake
   For King James's sake!
   If you won't give me one,
   I'll take two,
   The better for me,
   And the worse for you.
   A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope,
   A penn'orth of cheese to choke him,
   A pint of beer to wash it down,
   And a jolly good fire to burn him.
   Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring!
   Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King!
   Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!





In England and here the night is/was celebrated by making an enormous bonfire onto which Guy Fawkes would be burned in effigy. Lots of fireworks were also set off.  Traditionally in Oz,  the fireworks would often be lit by an inebriated adult. This led to some nasty burns. The result was the banning of the sale of fireworks to the general public here in South Australia.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night.

[onlinebiker]

But somebody getting scorched is half the fun!


As long as it was that prick who lives across the way......

[brewer]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Boru

[brewer]

[Fake Messiah]

 'All hallows Eve' has of course been known in the UK and Europe for centuries, but the trick or treat thing hasn't been a thing as fart as I know.. I'll look it up.

Yeah, it seems Halloween is not big in Europe because Catholic Church forbids it.

For example,

Poland's Catholic Church has warned that modern Halloween rituals risk promoting the occult.

In a statement on its website, the Church said that celebrating Halloween could contradict Church teachings and Christianity.

"This kind of fun, tempting children like candy, also poses the real possibility of great spiritual damage, even destroying spiritual life," the archbishop of Szczecin-Kamien wrote in a letter to be read out at Sunday sermons, according to the Polish Press Agency.

He wrote that "irresponsible and anti-Christian fun" introduced young people to a "world of darkness, including devils, vampires and demons" in the name of "fun".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-20131808

They are even trying to forbid it/ change it in the USA

THE Catholic Church has called for Halloween to be scrapped and replaced with "Holyween", a night in which children would attend prayer vigils and dress up as the saints.

The Vatican's first official conference of exorcists has warned of a danger to young people at Halloween, when there is an increase in occult activity.

Father Aldo Buonaiuto, of the International Association of Exorcists, which met in Rome at the weekend, said that a spike in demonic possessions in October is down to the phenomenon of Halloween.

The organisation's emergency number receives hundreds of calls over this period, around 40 a day, especially from parents who fear that their child has been initiated into the occult, he said.

He said: "Many say Halloween is a simple carnival, but in fact there is nothing innocent or fun about it-it is the antechamber to something much more dangerous.

Participating in Halloween is "like an initiation into the occult", he said.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/529...-Halloween

Or take a look at South American countries where Catholic Church is big, they also don't celebrate by masquerading on Halloween but have some proxy in February.

[Brian37]

Pumpkin, "Never trust a human, they will always shank you."