h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here is a thing. Hallowe'en is a big thing in America, having been exported by the Celts and modified beyond all recognition. It has become a task of dressing in fancy dress, and not even linked to the theme of Hallowe'en.
But the biggest part is 'Trick or Treat'. However I have noticed it is not so much Trick or treat as purely 'TREAT'!
So, I wonder if any of my friends would be prepared to actually ask the children to perform a trick, and then post what Trick, if any, they performed.
I am going to hazard a guess the answer will be none, just a stupefied expression.

I hope some of you will partake. Thank you.

MMF

I never get any trick or treaters at my house.

The "trick" part of the equation would be an unpleasant one in the original plan. Give me a treat or else I'll give you a nasty trick. An entertaining trick would be better, of course, but how many kids are magicians?

Don't 'tricks' involve acts of criminal damage, antisocial behaviour and the like? You wouldn't encourage people to do those.

The children in Ireland all say "Trick or Treat" now, a phrase they got from American culture, but the dressing up and going around from door to door is very Irish and has been going on for centuries.

When I was a child we said "help the Halloween party", but even then many said "trick or treat". There was never any question of doing a trick if someone refused to give you nuts. You just went on to the next house.

Maybe it varies from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, but it generally involves things like emptying your dustbin in your front garden, letting the tyres down on your car, etc.

Like all acts of vandalism, this has abated somewhat since the little darlings all acquired smartphones.

We luckily don't ever seem to get any trick of treaters, in this street/area.... though I'm mildly tempted to get some of the horror style makeup they had in the shops in town, and just go to th epub like that for a laugh... - I doubt many would notice in my local even if I did though - It seems to slightly be being superceded here, as half the shops already have christmas stuff in now

I "wrapped" and egged a few houses when I was a kid. Tricks do happen. But granted, this wasn't in retaliation for not getting treats. Once was just a schoolboy feud between groups of friends, but another time was a teacher's house. She lived next to a park we teenagers like to hang out in at night and rather than call the police to chase us off, she took potshots at us with a .22 rifle. Someone brought more than just toilet paper; they brought a huge bag of the tiny chads from our computer lab. This was back in the punched tape and card programming days. Can you just imagine how hard it would be to get those out of your lawn?

Trick or treat is an odd concept...

I like to think of it as, "Do you want a trick or a treat?" so the people going door to door should give out either tricks or treats to the people in the houses!

Otherwise, it would be, "Will you give us a trick or a treat?" in the hope that the people in the houses would give them treats rather than tricks!

The accepted concept here, though very rarely applied, is blatant extortion. It's a threat. "You give us a treat, or we give you a nasty trick."


Of course, most young kids out trick-or-treating are clueless to this. It makes just as much sense to them as sitting on the lap of some white haired, costumed stranger at the mall and begging for presents. Kids don't question the cultural origins of these traditions we pass down to them, they just mimic what they see and hear.

As a kid, if there were no treats (candied apples, oranges, home made cookies, small bags of popped corn or peanuts in the shell), you could expect to find eggs, soap or mild wax drawings on your windows . . .

I had not realised it was acts of vandalism that was the concept. I was thinking more along the lin w of 'knock down ginger' or a mentioned, performing a trick or light magic schiedvlike writing a message on a window with soap or wax.

I would not condone vandalism, but neither do I sanction begging.

Thanks for the feedback.

MMF

Well, as I said above, extortion (with the threat of vandalism and the like) is the concept, but it really isn't the reality. It's all quite civilized now. For starters it's now accepted policy to simply leave your porch light turned off if you're not giving out candy to let the little beggars know to not waste their time ringing your doorbell and move on to the next house with lights on.

And that's still a primitive version. Now it's much more common to have completely organized trick-or-treating. In my little unincorporated village (with a very high residency of registered sex offenders) they basically have the stores and residences on the main street set up booths and tables and the thoroughfare clogs up with minivans as the kids parade up one side of the road and down the other. Other places do their trick-or-treating in the local malls and shopping centers. Many gated communities do halloween parties in the community and rec centers.

It's all rather dull and boring now.

"Will you give us a trick or a treat?" in the hope that the people in the houses would give them treats rather than tricks!" [Sasha]

Given the fear of receiving an apple with a razor blade in it, or a poisoned candy bar, many parents only go to the homes of people they know. The parents accompany the children so they can be safe. Kids of five or six aren't really capable of mean tricks.

In fact, this thread marks the first time I've heard the suggestion that tricks be done for the kids. I don't really know any card tricks, but I can tell a joke or two, or be a ventriloquist. Really, I never imagined I'd have to prepare anything like that.

Well if the kids come wanting tricks... I could always dance them the new rumba we wrote about the postman that oughta frighten the out of the s

Thanks for the reminder. I must remember to close the windows upstairs at the back of my house. 2 out of the last 3 years I have come home to find mine and my neighbours house have been egged. Takes bludding ages to get it out of the carpet.

PP.

It must be noted, regarding the fear of tainted Halloween candy, there has never been a confirmed case of a child being poisoned or injured randomly by Halloween candy.

In 1974, there was a child that died from poisoned Pixie Stix, but that was a case of premeditated murder. His father laced the Pixie Stix with cyanide to collect on a lucrative insurance policy. There was also a kid died in 1970 from what was originally reported to be heroin laced candy, but that turned out to be a case of an accidental heroin overdose after the kid got into his uncle's heroin stash. The family tainted his candy in attempt to exonerate the uncle.

Needles, razors and poisons have been found after screening for tainted candy, but these have invariably been cases of the kids tainting the candy themselves as a prank.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/halloween.asp

The equivalent here used to be on Walpurgisnacht, 30 April (There are four of these nights, always on the last day of every third month, April, July, October, and January. At least, that's what I heard somewhere, but I've forgotten what they were called and whether the concept comes from the occult, or a mixture of occult and religion - as "all hallow's eve" would suggest.

Anyway, on 30 April, kids would go round throwing rolls of toilet paper into people's gardens or draping it over the fence, squirting cars with ketchup or shaving foam, or even some quite dangerous "tricks" such as removing man hole covers or garden gates. The older the kids, the dastardlier the deeds. I once came a cropper in the morning of 1 May when I stepped out of the front door and the steps had all been smeared with slippery soapy stuff.

They did not ring the bell and ask for protection money - sorry, sweets - to stop them doing it; they just crept around in the night doing it.

I use the past tense because this has died out a little over the past couple of years and now they seem to have caught the American Hallowe'en custom. This is usually done by 6-year-olds, in the company of their parents. Not many people actually answer their doors, though, so this may die out soon, too.

Halloween is devoted to things that have died out.

I can't respond to the Snopes report, as I do not know how wide and far they looked. I do know that the 2nd year that pins and horse liniment were found in oranges and apples, my little village of 300-some people opted for a community kid's party. I think that began around 1974, and runs to this day. There is a single small grocer that takes donations, and the community council, the LIONs and the Catholic Women's League assure a full evening of fun and treats for all ages from 4 to 18 . . .