Bah! Pumpkin!

[caz963]

We're not great Halloweeners here in the UK. The kids love it, but a crotchety old thing like me remembers the days when we didn't bat an eyelid on 31st October. Now, of course, you can't move for bats in the shops from about July onwards.

It's not that I object to Halloween itself - it's an ages old festival anyway. I just don't like the way that it's been so ruthlessly promoted over the last 15 years or so, as a purely commercial exercise.

Yes, I know. Christmas is no different. Except - that it sort of is. Because we've always "done" Christmas and it's always (for as long as I remember) been commercialised. Okay, maybe it wasn't back in the year dot in Bethlehem, but hey - presents?! And you know what I mean.

But the explosion of Halloween over the past decade or two over here is due to nothing other than greed on the part of retailers who are desperate to rake in some money before the big bang of Christmas. And that annoys the hell outta me. I'm sure that, if Christmas had just been invented, or if we were adopting it as a custom that had emerged in another country, things wouldm't be any different.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't bug me.

The good thing about Halloween is the abundance of pumpkins in the shops... which all seem to disappear on 1st November. I remember trying to get one around here the week after Halloween last year, and it was impossible! This year, however, I plan to buy a few over the weekend and either cook the flesh and freeze it or just cut it up and freeze it raw. Any recommendations?

I am also possessed of one of the biggest pumpkins I've ever seen, courtesy of a friend of my MiL. It's huge - took up about a quarter of the space in the back of the car when we came home! I haven't weighed it, but I reckon I'll get at least 6 pumpkin pies and a few pints of pumpkin soup out of it. My thoughts are also turning to things like pumpkin risotto (I'll make it up if I can't find a recipe) and pumpkin ravioli. Yum.

Half-term means that it's time to make the Christmas cake and pudding, both of which have duly been done. Well, the pudding has a few hours left to steam, but that's it.

Right - the kids want to make Halloween biscuits, so I'm off.

Comments

[foreverdreaming.livejournal.com]

It's weird, I know I'm a bit younger than you, but I ALWAYS remember trick or treating. But then I grew up in Scotland until I was 8, and the other day I heard someone make a comment about how Halloween is a bigger deal in Scotland than in England. I'd never really been aware of that before, but maybe that is part of it?

I'm sure trick or treating is a bit different in Scotland too (or at least it was in the 80s!). We all had to tell a funny halloween joke to get whatever goodies people were handing out. And invariably those goodies ended up being about 50% monkey nuts. And when we moved to the north of England I seem to remember being puzzled my first halloween there by neighbours handing out pennies....

[hooloovoo_42]

Even when I was a kid (looooong ago), I remember seeing stuff on Blue Peter and other shows about ToT being big in Scotland. In Yorkshire, 4 November is Mischief Night, which is when kids went out playing tricks on the neighbours. And in the run up to Bonfire Night, kids used to collect "Penny for the Guy".

Different areas had different traditions, all of which seem to have given way to USian imports, promoted by the purveyors of greetings card and sweets.