You have to realise; Hallowe’en is new in Australia, and no one knows what’s going on or how to do it properly.
Twenty years ago, a normal Trick or Treat incident would go like this:
Kid: Trick or treat!
Australian: What?
Kid: Trick or treat!
Australian: What’s that mean?
Kid: It means you’re supposed to give me candy.
Australian: Why?
Kid: It’s Hallowe’en!
Australian: Oh, okay. Well, do a trick first.
Kid: What?
Australian: You said ‘trick or treat’. Do a trick and I’ll give you a treat.
Kid: That’s not how it works! You’re supposed to give me a treat or I play a trick on you!
Australian: (utterly mystified) Are you sure you’ve got this right?
Kid: I think so.
Australian: Go on, do a trick.
Kid: Oh, all right. (Does unconvincing little dance.)
Australian: Not bad. Here’s some candy.
That’s the way it was; you had to explain the concept to every house you visited.
I still keep some Hallowe’en candy at the ready, though. If no one comes, I eat it all.
No chance of that last night, though; Hallowe’en and trick or treating are catching on. About twenty kids in costume showed up (in one big group). So I said to my two boys, “How about it?” They were in costume in seconds. Youngest boy was a Native American, and Oldest Boy was…
“What are you?” I asked. He had his hoodie on, and was wielding a hammer he found in the shed.
“I’m a hammer murderer,” he said.
“That’s awfully strange. I don’t know if that’s on the list.” I said. “But it’ll do. Let’s roll.”
And would you believe, every house we stopped at had candy. Even more unbelievably, people were dishing out candy to the boys by handfuls. Good stuff, too. None of the chalky rolls of ‘Smarties’ that I remembered from my youth; this was fun size candy bars and Easter eggs. Could it be that Australians are overdoing it because they’re new at this?
If so, we must never tell them.
1 November 2006 at 6:36 am
hammer murderer :S
we only had 2 kids come by last night. Even though we were unprepared for Haloween we ALWAYS have sweets and chocolate in the house… mainly thanks to Fiona and her honours thesis 🙂
I was never allowed to go trick or treating when I was young cos my parents thought it was evil or something (pastor’s kid) and by the time i was able to do my own thing i was over it 🙂
But it seems Daniel that no matter how old some people are they never get over it 😉
1 November 2006 at 6:37 am
I use smilies way too much 😀
1 November 2006 at 7:00 am
All that sugar.
How could you get over Hallowe’en? If people giving me chocolate is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
I used to hate Hallowe’en — maybe I thought it was wrong to celebrate the Forces of Eevil. But now that I think metaphysical entities are all just made up, I find I don’t mind Hallowe’en so much.
Or else I’ve just become eevil.
1 November 2006 at 9:56 am
haha
I vote eeeviiil…. mwuhaha
1 November 2006 at 4:14 pm
Oldest boy as a hammer murderer. Let him know when he gets a bit older I have some movies for him. I love it! That is not one you would have done.
Do you remember the male Vs. Female university student apts. we got into a candy escalation war with. We were like Cuba during the cold war.
1 November 2006 at 6:10 pm
“we ALWAYS have sweets and chocolate in the house… mainly thanks to Fiona and her honours thesis”
Oh, I remember only too well.
Except I used to blame Andrew as well. He would get annoyed when we all ate the chocolate he left at the house, but what did he expect when leaving it unsupervised in a house of 3 females? No sympathy from me, that’s what.
2 November 2006 at 2:48 am
We never did Hallowe’en at all. Until this year when my 14-year-old brother went out dressed as I-don’t-know-what. Is he too old?