Now that’s just plain cruel Fenris. 
The resident of the nursing home where i work get to have a party on Halloween with cake,which had whipped cream frosting and juice, milk or coffee to drink. Staff members were in costume and there were pumpkin and ghost decorations,
After supper the residents gathered in the dining rooms to give candy to staff’s children who had come here to trick or treat.
The Director for the Activities staff brought her baby, in costume, although he did not have any candy. Midnight staff were allowed to have leftover cake and candy.
Cite?
And I think we’re going to need a cite for that whole “chateau of the dandelions” thing too.
I have worked for a nursing home for two years, and that is an old family joke as none of us can keep a plant alive, but dandelions thrive.
I hate it when people post to threads like this and they have nothing, or something weird, listed as their location.
And California’s not weird?
How do you like California, as compared to Arrakis?
Furriners embracing American quasi-holidays, i.e. Halloween = BAD. American cultural imperialism at work!
Americans embracing furrin quasi-holidays, i.e. Cinco de Mayo, Dia de los Muertos, St. Patrick’s Day, Carnival, Bastille Day, Dingus Day, St. Joseph’s Day, Oktoberfest, etc = GOOD. Closed-minded Americans are finally recognizing diversity and looking out beyond their own borders.
In the US, “candy” encorporates chocolate, gum, mints, hard candy, lollipops, and most other things made of sugar (except for things like cake and cookies)
Here in the States, if you don’t have candy it’s considered acceptable to give out pennies. I don’t know if you have “pennies” as a distinct coin in Oz, but a couple of the smallest denomination should do, should you choose to participate.
Speaking as an American, immersed from birth in a culture that seems to happily adopt all sorts of customs and things from all over the world… sometimes it get us down, too. Too much change can be disconcerting. Like when all the local salad bars in downtown Chicago started offering take-out sushi a year or so ago. I like sushi, OK? I enjoy it. But take-out sushi (not just maki but also nigiri take-out) just seemed… odd. Out of place. Strange. And that in culture that has adopted food from pretty much everywhere.
My parents always went along to supervise. There were some houses we just didn’t visit, anything not sealed in a wrapper was thrown out unless we knew the folks really really well.
Oh, and about the drinking thing? A traditional beverage in many parts of US for Halloween is hard cider. Very hard cider. Adult Halloween parties almost always feature some sort of alcohol punch.
What you really don’t want coming over to your side of the Big Puddle is the Detroit custom of “devil’s night”, which is the night before Halloween. This involves out-and-out arson. It usually starts with burning trashcans and before the night is over graduates to burning buildings. The fire department gets hundreds of calls that night. They’re trying to stamp out the practice, of course, but it’s a tough battle. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to have spread beyond the Detroit area.
Most of the “vandalism” involved on actuall Halloween involves draping toilet paper over the neighbor’s bushes, or smashing of eggs or flour over cars or porches. Messy, yes, and tough to clean up at times (dried egg is tenacious), but not actually destructive to property. And if you catch the little devils in the act THEY get to do the clean up.
I too, have seen children trick-or-treating here in Sydney, both this year and last. I had nothing to offer them last year but the kids made me feel very guilty about it by being so nice about the whole thing. I was slightly more prepared this year but they didn’t come around to our house so it was all for nought.
As much as I might decry the pervasion of american culture into Australia, I don’t see any particular harm in kids taking up this tradition. More than it being fun and harmless, it isn’t especially irrelevant to Australian culture (we have dead people too) like gangsta-rap is, for example. Yes, it has no longer-term tradition here and yes, it is (for me) based on superstitious clap-trap but I am a believer in having kids participate in fun and social rituals whilst ther grow up. When I was young, we had the Queen’s B’day fireworks and bonfires and now that these are gone, Halloween seems like a pretty cool ritual (so long as there isn’t the egging and stuff they had when I was living in London; cleaning dried raw eggs on my many windows was pretty shit).
Mate, when I first saw those kids standing on my doorstep, I didn’t believe it either.
Hey, just wait til John Howard signs up as a member.
Now, on to other stuff… like how everyone said stuff. Uh… I’ll try to find responses for things… lessee…
Then again, Hallowe’en decorations could be a good thing. My street is covered in Santa stuff right now, so maybe giants pumpkins could hold it back a bit.
You forgot to mention Steve Irwin. Actually, if anyone turned up on my doorstep in a Steve Irwin costume, they may just sufficiently scare some candy out of me.
You are right, and I knew this even as I was posting it. No-one can be forced to take on a culture. I guess I meant… kind of uncomfortably placed upon. I’m not articulating this very well. America isn’t doing anything to force the practice, but it seems to me as if our society is simply taking on the surface qualties of Hallowe’en without having any internal connection to it. Kinda like following the actions but not really attaching any cultural importance to the tradition, making it a sort of hollow imitation of another cultural practice. Does this make sense?
I know it is strange, however I accepted to discuss why above. Of course, one of my favourite things about the SDMB is the exposure to American culture I get. I too love (many aspects of) both cultures.
I never knew it was Irish… interesting. Is it celebrated in Ireland to the extent it is in America? And why didn’t we get Hallowe’en? There’s lots of Irish in Australia.
It would be bigotry, and its source has nothing to do with my dislike of it here. And people aren’t really engaging in the custom of Hallowe’en. There’s no carving Jack O’Lanterns, preparing for weeks, or putting up the Hallowe’en tree (which is a dead Christmas tree, I have decided). Hallowe’en was a candy grab that lasted for one evening, rather than a holiday or cultural custom.
Um… What TheLoadedDog said. I agree with him.
I feel the same. Maybe that’s my problem - I don’t really see the holiday as being adopted, only the trick-or-treating. I figure, if you have the perks, you have the holiday. It’d be like just giving presents on Christmas and then not drinking lots, eating lots, putting up stupid decorations for weeks beforehand and all that fun stuff.
Princhester says some more stuff that I agree with.
King Nifty I’ve talked about. But I’ll sign an affadavit if you really want me to.
Oh no! First Hallowe’en, next take-out Sushi. I am so marching on Washington.
I didn’t know this, but it follows from this I saw in the paper recently:
(http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2002/11/01/1036027034304.htm)