Color me confused - Trunk or Treating

[Witsec7]

My DD was raised rurally outside of a town under two thousand. Every year the HS students would host a HUGE Halloween party across three school facilities. Great haunted houses for the big kids and wonderful games for the little ones, massive quantities of processed sugar. When it was over kids would break up and the older ones would TorT in town house to house. All the businesses in town would then open their doors and hand out candy to the little ones. It was a great way of handling TorT in a small town where 90% of the kids lived in the boonies.

[clibbyjo]

Call it what you want, its still trick or treating and you are still celebrating Halloween. Its just the Christian attempt to take over another Pagan holiday,whats new. There is nothing evil about little kids trick or treating, it is no different than trunk or treating. Trunk or treat is boring because you just walk through a parking lot and your candy is limited to the people at the church. Its fine for tiny kids who get scared or tired fast or people in rural areas,but call it Halloween and trick or treating because that is what it is. :evil:

[Guest Anonymous]

Another culture question: do American kids actually play tricks if they don't get candy?

One of the problems round here is teenagers who don't actually bother with soliciting treats, they just go full out on the tricks. In some villages, the shops won't sell eggs or flour to anyone under 16 in the fortnight before Halloween, because teenagers love to throw them at cars for the hell of it. My sister sent my (relatively well-behaved) niece to the shop for eggs last year, with a note explaining that it was to bake a cake, and she was sent back with another note saying that her mother would have to collect them herself. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[ADoyle90815]

By giving out candy in a church parking lot, it's still a form of trick-or-treating, although it's a popular event for churches where it's considered a sin to have fun on Sundays, so when Halloween falls on Sunday, they host their "trunk-or-treat" on Saturday. In the end, those "trunk or treat" events aren't exactly safer than the tradition of going door to door since predators can just join churches that host those events to gain access to children by becoming a trusted adult.

One thing is that a few years ago, teenagers ruined trick or treating in one neighborhood in my city by beating up some other kid. Since then, people in the area don't bother to decorate at all, and they leave their lights off on Halloween. Before that incident, that neighborhood was known for elaborately decorated houses on Halloween.

[JesusFightClub]

Out of interest, don't you have Harvest Festivals as a separate event in the USA?

When I was growing up, Harvest Festival when there was a special church service and people brought gifts of food to church which was then distributed to elderly or sick people in the neighbourhood. We lived in a city so most kids brought tinned or packet food :lol: but my dad would make us a basket to take from his allotment. Then all the kids would go out, walking crocodile style and distributing the boxes. By the time I was a teenager, it was all less popular and some 'elderly' local people complained about the humiliation of getting a harvest box when they didn't consider themselves old or needy... so they changed it a bit and sent the food to a homeless shelter to be made into meals. But we still had the service where we sang "We plough the Fields and Scatter" and we still had a special communion loaf made in the shape of a wheatsheaf...

Halloween was completely separate and we had an early All Saints Party on All Saints Eve and we did Halloween stuff and games but in non-scary fancy dress. In the UK it is cold and dark and often wet at night in October, so it is easier for the Church to persuade local kids to come in from the cold.

Now that I'm 'out' of the Church though, I always stock up on sweets for the few kids that come, and even answer the door in a scary mask, to make up for missing out during my mis-spent youth. :lol:

I am desperate to meet a JesusWeener, but they don't seem to have reached Wales yet, sadly.

OMG! "We plough the fields and scatter, the good seed on the land...." :)

From Scotland, we had Harvest Festival too. We brought in foods of all kinds but did not know where they went, certainly did not distribute them ourselves! Only tins were allowed.

The memories!

[Kitten]

Nope, no harvest festivals here as a national tradition. Of course, we have Thanksgiving in November, which is usually when we give thanks for, well anything we want to, and it generally is celebrated as sort of a tribute to the harvest, with all kinds of "autumnal" foods generally being traditional - the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, pumpkin pies, apple pies, etc. They still teach little kids that the Pilgrims and the Native Americans celebrated the first "Thanksgiving" at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts, even though it didn't become an actual holiday until the 1860s.

Wikipedia even says that both the Canadian and American Thanksgiving holidays grew out of the harvest festivals of Europe, so I guess that's as close as we get.

Also, New Orleans (and/or Louisiana) is the only place where I've seen All Saints Day celebrated across Catholic and Protestant churches and throughout a community. Elsewhere in the US, it is usually only celebrated (in a relatively minor way) by Catholics and Episcopalians.

And of course, no Guy Fawkes day...

[emmiedahl]

One of the problems round here is teenagers who don't actually bother with soliciting treats, they just go full out on the tricks. In some villages, the shops won't sell eggs or flour to anyone under 16 in the fortnight before Halloween, because teenagers love to throw them at cars for the hell of it. My sister sent my (relatively well-behaved) niece to the shop for eggs last year, with a note explaining that it was to bake a cake, and she was sent back with another note saying that her mother would have to collect them herself. :lol: :lol: :lol:

That happens here. Smashing pumpkins and toilet papering trees is the preferred method in my town. Because it is cold and wet, the paper is almost impossible to get out of the limbs. The police take it a little too seriously in my opinion.

[dirtyhippiegirl]

Trunk or treat in my area wasn't really about religion (and I live/grew up in the bible belt) and more about capitalizing on the over-hyped razors in apples or child molesters eating yo' kids. Before trunk or treat, there was mall or treat. As a kid (ages 8-15 or so?) we'd hit the malls first, since they were open during the day and still gave candy. Or any of the over-hyped "safe" zones where, hey, free candy during the day/evening hours.

Then we'd hit the neighborhoods at night.

/hopes that is what kids these days are doing

//'cuz twice teh candy

[Guest Anonymous]

OMG! "We plough the fields and scatter, the good seed on the land...." :)

From Scotland, we had Harvest Festival too. We brought in foods of all kinds but did not know where they went, certainly did not distribute them ourselves! Only tins were allowed.

The memories!

Yeah, my Scottish friends told me that - I reckon it was to stop you distributing fried mars bars and Lorne Sausage to people already at high risk of heart disease.... :lol: :lol:

"We Plough the Fields" has such superbly loud music. It used to mask our hysterical teenage giggles very well.

[Guest Anonymous]

Nope, no harvest festivals here as a national tradition. Of course, we have Thanksgiving in November, which is usually when we give thanks for, well anything we want to, and it generally is celebrated as sort of a tribute to the harvest, with all kinds of "autumnal" foods generally being traditional - the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, pumpkin pies, apple pies, etc. They still teach little kids that the Pilgrims and the Native Americans celebrated the first "Thanksgiving" at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts, even though it didn't become an actual holiday until the 1860s.

Wikipedia even says that both the Canadian and American Thanksgiving holidays grew out of the harvest festivals of Europe, so I guess that's as close as we get.

Also, New Orleans (and/or Louisiana) is the only place where I've seen All Saints Day celebrated across Catholic and Protestant churches and throughout a community. Elsewhere in the US, it is usually only celebrated (in a relatively minor way) by Catholics and Episcopalians.

And of course, no Guy Fawkes day...

Ah yes, of course. We get a slice of 'harvest loaf' after singing "We plough the fields". You get a full on celebration dinner. :lol:

Guy Fawkes is wrong in nearly every way... but so much fun! Penny for the Guy!

[Turtle]

My former church just does a "fall festival". Most of the members participate and decorate the classrooms and have games for the kids to play. Later on they do a cake walk. It's really a lot of fun. I live in a rural area so there aren't many houses for the kids to go trick or treating.

The only rule the preacher has regarding the fall festival is you can't say halloween :roll:

That's dumb. As noted by other posters, the term "Halloween" has a Christian (Catholic) background. The word "hallow" = "saint" or "holy". Wouldn't "fall" or "harvest" festivals actually be much closer to eeeevil celtic/pagan harvest festivals anyway? If I remember right, Samhain was a harvest festival, no?