American Heritage magazine this month has a good article about the history of Halloween. I would imagine that now what most of West celebrates as Halloween is influenced by the commercial frenzy that America has turned Allhallows Eve into.
No, it’s not. I lived in the Midlands until I was 18, then in North Wales for 3+ years, then in the south-south east of England.
My birthday is 27th October and we used to have traditional Hallowe’en type games at my birthday parties (bobbing for apples, etc) and eve, when I was 8 or 9, a fancy dress party. Trick or treating wasn’t common until about 10 years later and seems to have common in from America, but it certainly isn’t & wasn’t restricted to the North of England or Wales. I also remember Hallowe’en items coming into the shops as soon as the back to school items went when I was little, then the fireworks rapidly appearing straight after. It was definitely celebrated outside of the North of England.
For that matter, I only once had trick or treaters when I lived in Wales (& the same kids were back next weekend with penny for the guy scam - the kids weren’t even Welsh, they were part of a local group of gypsies), and there seemed to be no fuss made about it by local schools etc.
I’ve certainly seen more trick or treating since I’ve been down in the south, although that is partly due to the increase nationally of trick or treating.
response to Fierra
"Trick or treating wasn’t common until about 10 years later and seems to have common in from America, but it certainly isn’t & wasn’t restricted to the North of England or Wales. "
Not sure of your age, and I should have made my comment clearer in terms of the period I was referring to. Trick or Treating (and similar) was commonplace in the Northern parts of the UK many years ago (stories from relatives certainly go back as far as early 1900’s). Therefore it is almost certainly not an American import. I agree that some of the current activities may well be re-imports.
The cut off between North and South is not a clear line, so I would expect the region in the middle to have some exposure to the tradition. And by definition the midlands are just that…
I was in Ireland for Halloween two years ago and it seemed to be a pretty big deal there. However, I hardly heard it mentioned in London…
Thanks to everyone for your posts, and esp. the links! 
NZ didn’t have Halloween at all until a few years ago, when the commercial companies thought it would be a cool thing to squeeze more dosh out of people. Like England, the main festival of the period is Guy Fawkes.
Now, there are campy plastic skeletons, witches hats, cotton-wool spiders webs and other crap all over the place.
Sooner we can get back to burning people alive at the stake after trying to blow up Parliament, the better …
I spent Halloween in Madrid last year. I don’t know if there was any trick-or-treating, but the streets and bars were full of people in costume. Interestingly the costumes were exclusively ghoulies and ghosties; I didn’t see anyone dressed as, say, a policeman.
Of course, the popularity of Halloween in Spain probably has at least a little to do with the following day being a bank holiday there.
in taiwan, it’s barely celebrated (only the Bilingual Department of the school that the Big Girl and the Little Boy go to actually does something to celebrate it)
boo hoo 
Bonfires, Firework etc.
Lots of kids doing the Trick or Treat thing. In my day, I’m 30 BTW, we used the line “Help the Halloween Party” rather than TorT. If the didn’t give us anything we’d nailbomb the bastards 
Like ruadh, I spent last Halloween in Madrid. A lot of costumed adults in the bars, but I didn’t see any trick-or-treaters. (BTW ruadh, was that you in the witch’s outfit? Rowrrr.) Seems like an adult holiday.
My correspondents tell me that Halloween is starting to make inroads in Central America. Enough so that the fundamentalist missionaries in Antigua, Guatemala felt compelled to put up anti-Halloween signs. :rolleyes:
The signs say “Yo amo a Jesus” (I love Jesus). Beneath that is a picture of a jack-o-lantern with a superimposed red circle crossed through, and then beneath that, “No Halloween.”
I think the fundamentalists are fighting a losing battle, though. There are now pinatas in the shapes of witches and jack-o-lanterns!
Hello ,
Here in Brazil it’s celebrated in a sort of half hearted way, more
of an American knock off then an actual event, little kids wear
costumes to school in some places, but mostly as a cultural
exercise - as in here’s what they do in other countries -
other then that - you find bobbing for apples and what not
mostly at English schools. I think the general lack of interest
in it comes from Carnival, seriously how can you compare the
campy little outfits and bizarre parlor games to a full week
of parades where EVERY BODY is decked out in some of the
most wild costumes you can imagine (or almost nothing at all).
Think - Las Vegas stage show on speed for a week -
By the way - Halloween costumes are sold year round here,
parents buy them for their kids just as they would any other toy.
its not out of the ordinary to go to the park on Saturday
and see a few bat mans, spider mans, wonder women, or
little mermaids.
Some Sicillians certainly appear to consider “trick or treating” an unwelcome recent import.