Man, it used to be!
It would vary year to year exactly what was going on, but there was something.
In my twenties, I would mostly work my side job, as a bouncer. Since the place I mostly worked at was a drag club, it was always a party. Everyone would go all out. The queens would obviously go the extra mile ( and I do mean extra lol), but everyone could dress up, customers and staff, except for one person on the door and one inside. The rest would have security jackets to throw on in a pinch.
One year I dressed up as Jason from the Friday the 13th series, and did leatherface another year. Was going to do Krueger, but that year the boss wanted me on the door in mufti (which isn’t a costume). Decided I didn’t want to do Freddy the next time it came up.
But, sometimes it would be a party. I used to hang with a pretty wide range of people, so there were all kinds of groups the night of, or close to Halloween. My favorite ones were with pagans and wiccans. Those folk tend to go all out on Samhain lol. Feasting and fires and rituals and music and dancing. Just a damn good time.
A few years in there, I got into doing street performance. I did fire stuff. You know, breathing fire, spinning burning stuff, setting myself on fire and doing flashy stuff. Those parties were lit in multiple ways lol. There was usually some performance going on, but that crowd tended to get rather crazy. I’m talking people dancing on roofs, mini orgies, fireworks; you know, the usual :)
As I got into my thirties, I didn’t exactly settle down entirely, but I was in a long term relationship, and we tended to hang out with more sedate crowds. Our friends were getting into their thirties or forties, had kids, etc, so the parties weren’t as raucous. It was more about chilling, having some good music and food while handing out candy to kids that were out and about.
But the trick or treat thing died. Nobody really does it any more (which kinda pisses me off that something so fun is just gone). Now, me and my wife tend to just hole up and watch horror movies.
This year, we aren’t even bothering to leave the light on. It’s going to be just a movie night for sure.
I keep threatening to break out my old gear and do a back yard fire show, but my wife is scared I’ll burn my beard off again lol.
You know, I tend to forget how much shit I packed into my twenties and thirties until something like this comes up. I was disabled by the time I was in my mid thirties, if not as bad as it got a little later. But fuck me, did I make some memories before that :)
I find a camping site next to a lake and hope a group of 18-25 year olds will camp…
Just remember to hold off on greeting them until they start having sex.
I enjoy the opportunity to do a little spooky stuff. We live near a primary school and there are lots of young families around so there’s always trick or treaters. We generally carve pumpkins and have a few decorations and sweets for them.
I tend to run a horror themed table top RPG for friends around the time as well which is usually good fun. I’m going to do Dread this year where you pull blocks from a Jenga tower instead of rolling dice and someone’s character dies if they knock the tower over.
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Where is “here”? You have three flags in your username 😅
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Ohh, neat! I’m so jealous, that sounds pretty cool ngl. ^^
Yes. I’m a goth sideshow performer, it lasts the whole month of October and leeches into September and November for me. October is my busiest month of the year, and I love it.
On a personal level, Halloween is the only holiday I actually enjoy. I’m a grump around every other holiday, ESPECIALLY Christmas
What does that entail? You go up on stage and act all depressed?
No, never was.
Not really. Retailers try to make it more of a thing every year though. We have Sinterklaas, Christmas and most important the Carnaval season here in the south of the Netherlands, which starts on 11/11.
More interestingly though the same day as Carnaval season starts we have ‘Sint-Maarten’, where the kids also trick and treat. This tradition is also known as old halloween.
In some German and Dutch-speaking towns, there are nighttime processions of children carrying paper lanterns or turnip lanterns and singing songs of St Martin. These processions are known in German as Laternelaufen.
There’s a yearly attempt by sellers of gadgets and disposable trash, as well as by fast food corps to make halloween a thing. So far it hasn’t worked. If anything, I see fewer decorations in Paris every year. So, luckily we’re spared most of it.
It remains unavoidable online, thanks to our US neighbours though.
Me personally? No… I haven’t been celebrating much of anything at all for the past several years, not even Thanksgiving/Christmas/other ethnic holidays. Depression & lack of friends have been rough… and the area I live in now is mostly consisted of high-end restaurants, so I don’t anticipate getting a discount for costume either
However the building I moved in seems to do lots of events, including an annual trick-or-treat for kids in the building! I’m kind of curious what the kids in the building will be up to, there is a sizable number of people in the building who have children so there’s that
Mostly I watch horror movies and Halloween specials from when I was younger.
I also still live with my folks, so I manufacture reasons not to have to hand out candy.
In Italy it wasn’t a thing at all when I was a kid, younger generations go at it more but it’s just an excuse to party dressing differently than usual. If you don’t like to party you basically don’t even know it happened.
Se non ti piace bere e non hai amici basicamente non si esce di casa, peggio se non guidi.
No, I’m an adult plus I’m broke and I don’t have friends.
Not really, we do Día de los Muertos where I live which is the day after. Halloween is celebrated here and it’s kind of become a week long event but it’s for children.
Fun fact! Halloween and Dia de los Muertoes are on the “same” day!
Halloween is “Hallow’s Evening”. ie the Evening of All Hallow’s Day, aka All Saint’s Day, and directly related to Dia de los Muertos. But it’s the calendar day before, right? October 31st? Sort of. In Catholicism, the liturgical day begins and ends with prayers at sunset. The day had ended and a new day had begun, usually between 4pm and 6pm. So the order of the 24 hour day goes: evening, night, morning, afternoon. Therefore 6pm on the 1st of November would be too late to celebrate All Saint’s Day, so it was actually celebrated the calendar day before.
The same is true of Christmas Eve. Why do we have the “Evening” of Christmas the day before? Why do many cultures begin full celebration the night before? Precisely because as a Christian event on a Christian calendar, that is when the day actually begins.
As a former Catholic it’s important I acknowledge all of this overlays the local traditions syncretised into these far more secular ‘holidays’ today. It wouldn’t be important for Halloween to be celebrated in the “e’en” if Oiche Samhain wasn’t a night time thing.
i was six years old when the first halloween event happened in this country. it was imported here in the nineties by a costume shop. it’s an explicitly consumerist thing here and i do not understand why anyone here cares for it.
Local theatre company usually puts on a fundraiser party that’s a surprising amount of fun. I like to put together a homemade costume the best I can and get juuuuust drunk enough to embarrass myself on the dance floor.
Unfortunately it’s canceled this year due to the usual party-thrower quitting the board of directors 😭 I’m a little short on time and money so it’s probably a blessing in disguise, but I’m already daydreaming about next Halloween. I’m thinking giant foam SpongeBob head 🤔
