Autumn is my favourite time of year. I love the sense of slowly-building anticipation as the holiday season approaches, and October is really the first part of an extended holiday season that will run all the way through to New Year. As I was erecting my modest array of Halloween decorations (and window shopping for more on Amazon), it got me thinking about Halloween celebrations in years gone by.
I’ve always felt that it’s a bit of a shame that Halloween is when it is. Here in the UK, we have Bonfire Night on the 5th of November – known to some of you, no doubt, thanks to the film adaptation of V for Vendetta! Because Halloween and Bonfire Night are so close together, one often eclipses the other, and I just think that’s a little sad. In recent years I’ve felt that Bonfire Night is rather living in Halloween’s shadow, and that Halloween is the more popular event – especially for the little ones. If there was just a couple of weeks between them instead of a mere five days, spreading things out a little, that would be better. But I suppose we can’t just reschedule an historical event to suit modern times!
When I was a kid, the “Americanised” version of Halloween was just beginning to establish itself here in the UK. I don’t think I ever went trick-or-treating, but I can remember several Halloween discos and events that were organised by a kids’ club that I attended in those days. It was great fun – and a chance for me to indulge in some of the sweets and treats that my strict parents didn’t allow in the house.
As an aside, I have to confess that I’m a tad confused about the timing of modern Halloween’s arrival in the UK. My parents, who both grew up in London in the late ’40s and ’50s, seem to have competing recollections of the holiday. I know there’s always been some kind of traditional event around that time of year, but as to when modern events like costume parties and trick-or-treat made it to the UK, I really can’t be sure.
My father insisted that Halloween only became “a thing” when my sister and I were growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, and claimed never to have done anything to celebrate it before then. But my mother can distinctly remember my grandfather painstakingly carving a jack-o-lantern for her out of a turnip when she was five or six years old. In the post-war period, we didn’t have crops like pumpkins here in the UK – or at least not in large quantities. I’ve always wondered what a turnip jack-o-lantern might’ve looked like!
So even within my own family there are two competing ideas about when Halloween started to take off over here! But speaking for myself, Halloween as a holiday has existed in more or less its present form since I was a small child. I can’t remember a year without some kind of Halloween celebration, in fact. And I really do have fond memories of Halloween as a child – some of which, I fear, have rather blended in with other autumnal memories!
One of my earliest memories is actually of Bonfire Night. I can remember being perhaps three or four years old, sitting on a hay bale in a field, watching the fire. It’s one of those strangely vivid memories where I can recall the precise texture of the straw underneath me, feel the cold wind blowing through, and even taste the spongey gingerbread cake that I was holding in my hand. I associate all of those things with this time of year, and that memory is an especially cherished one. There was laughter from other kids ringing in my ears, the smell of diesel fuel that someone had used as a fire starter, and the faces of friendly neighbours and locals who are, sadly, long gone now.
Despite its themes of horror, ghosts, monsters, and the like, Halloween has always felt to me like a kids’ holiday. Getting dressed up and eating sweets are definitely things that the little ones appreciate! But those incredibly positive memories of Halloween parties as a kid is definitely part of why I feel that way. I can’t remember all of my Halloween costumes, but I distinctly remember one plastic skeleton mask that I must’ve had when I was seven or eight years old. That thing was made of the most horrible, brittle plastic – and the edges of the mask were sharp enough to cut through diamond! But wearing the mask and going to a Halloween disco at the local kids’ club was great fun, and seeing everyone else’s masks and costumes was part of that.
Another big part of Halloween for me is the food. I know what you’re thinking: surprise surprise, the fat person wants to talk about food! But it’s true: Halloween doesn’t seem like a big food holiday in the same way as Christmas or Thanksgiving, but for me the food is no less important. Those early childhood memories of Halloween all include different foods – especially sweet treats. My parents didn’t allow my sister and I to have many sweet things at home, and what they could afford was usually only the cheapest value range versions. At the kids’ club I mentioned I’d always have a few pennies (literally, just a few) to spend on penny sweets, and I took full advantage as often as I could! But at Halloween, I remember there being a buffet of snack foods that, to my young eyes, must’ve looked like an absolute feast of all the things I would never get at home!
What I remember most, though, and what I love so much about Halloween food, is how the theme of the holiday carries through. Everything is made to look or feel like something else – sausages decorated to look like bloody fingers, marshmallows with little eyes and teeth so they resemble skulls, and even bottles of pop dyed vibrant shades of green, blue, black, and other unnatural colours to look like poison or witches’ potions! Food could also be incorporated into games and challenges, like the traditional game of apple-bobbing that we used to play. There are some phenomenally creative ideas out there to make even the simplest snack fit with the Halloween theme. And I’m absolutely in love with all of them!
This might’ve been Halloween 1997 or 1998 – I genuinely can’t remember which. But as a teenager I came up with what remains to this day my best-ever Halloween costume. I got a mask at a party shop in a big shopping centre of newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair, and with an ill-fitting suit borrowed from my uncle, dressed up as the PM for a Halloween party that a friend of mine was hosting! That was great fun, and as we were all older by then, alcohol was definitely part of the equation! I can remember my friend racing around, desperately trying to give people coffee to sober them up.
Looking back now, with Blair being such a universally despised figure (at least among folks of my generation), making a costume of him seems fitting in a bitter sort of way! After all, isn’t the theme of many Halloween stories that the real monsters are us humans? I can’t think of many figures from the past thirty years more monstrous than Blair the War Criminal. I can’t believe that I voted for him at my first ever general election!
I think we’ve drifted off-topic somehow.
Ah yes, Halloween! That’s what we were talking about.
On another occasion a couple of years later, I was taking part in an exchange programme while at university. I got to spend my first Halloween in the United States, seeing first-hand how the Americans really go all-out for the event. I was shocked when I went to the local shopping mall and saw a dedicated Halloween store selling all kinds of costumes, decorations, and more… in August! Apparently these pop-up Halloween stores are an annual thing, and they begin to appear in late summer to get ready for the spooky season. I’d never seen anything like it – and in the days before social media and YouTube, seeing an all-American Halloween in person was truly something special.
The university I was visiting had several big Halloween parties and events, and I even had my first encounter with trick-or-treaters that year! Several groups of students visited the off-campus house that I was renting, and a group of younger kids did, too. By the end of the night I’d ran out of treats to hand out! Ever since, I’ve made sure to keep my pantry well-stocked ahead of Halloween.
Also in the United States I had the pleasure of spending time at Disney World in the run-up to Halloween. I was able to take a break and visit Disney with a friend, and we got to see all of the decorations and special events that the Disney folks put on for the celebration. It was great fun, and I have a particularly fond memory of riding the Haunted Mansion attraction after dark, surrounded by all of the Halloween theming at the park.
Any Halloween fan should try – time and finances permitting – to visit one of the Disney parks for Halloween. I know the parks are stupidly expensive these days, but if you’re going anyway, picking a time of year like Halloween – when there’s something extra going on – is well worth it. I think there was some kind of after-hours Halloween event that I attended that year, too… but I’m not sure if they still do that in this post-lockdown era.
These days, Halloween tends to be a quieter affair! My days of discos and parties are long gone, and after digging the decorations out of storage and making sure I’m well-stocked in the event of a trick-or-treater incursion, I tend to spend Halloween itself with a lightly spooky film or TV special. As a kind of homage to those earlier Halloween nights, I’ll often prepare a modest buffet of finger food and snacks, too. It might not be the same as a big party – but it suits me just fine!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this stumble down memory lane. I don’t have another creative outlet, and I thought writing up some of my memories and nostalgic recollections of Halloweens gone by would be a bit of fun. Hopefully it was interesting, at any rate.
Horror and jump-scares aren’t usually “my thing,” and my Halloween tastes tend to veer more towards the kid-friendly than the outright terrifying. But that’s the nice thing about Halloween, in a way: it can be whatever you want to make of it. If you want to go all out, rent the scariest film ever made, and watch it with the lights out – go for it! But if, like me, you’d rather curl up with some snacks and something a bit less frightening, that option is open too. I love Halloween.
Some photos used above courtesy of Unsplash. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 