Britain Embraces Halloween and Cashes In on Ghoulish Celebration

The Queen's sly grin with her little witchy-hat is just perfect.

This picture made my day. Thanks.



-Laelth

The smile spoils it a little.

My very thought. Seriously---Queenie looks great.

It certainly ain't Shakespeare....any excuse for a drunken party, I suppose; and any opportunity to indulge in "fancy dress" (the phrase over the pond for "costume" is always fun....



What genius thought that one up? Could they have been more obtuse?

When I was a child, Halloween was an occasion for children. Parents didn't wear costumes and get drunk, they stayed home and handed out candy. There might have been one or two over-enthusiastic mothers (and it was always mothers, it seemed) who would decorate their houses to the max and maybe put on a witch outfit, but adults in costume were rare in the extreme.

You were expected to "mind" an older sibling as you ran from house to house with a grocery store double-bag brown paper bag or (clever kid) pillowcase collecting the (full-sized candy bar) goods. There were no plastic pumpkins or decorated "candy" bags.

Now, the adults seem to have appropriated this child's holiday, and many use it as a "warm up" for New Year's Eve...!

Your entire post sounded rather "tisk, tisky."

I, for one, adore Halloween. I love spooky movies, pranks, candy and fall. I don't necessary get drunk because I'm usually taking the kiddies door-to-door.

Granted, the prank you posted was too over-the-top, but who gives a flying shit if adults want to have a little fun, too? The origins of Halloween certainly weren't relegated to children-only, so why should it be so now?

And adults have most certainly always dressed up. Check out these vintage Halloween costumes. I see a nice mix of children and adults celebrating here: http://www.wackyowl.com/creepy-vintage-halloween-costumes-1800-1959/



Your childhood neighborhood must have been boring. When I was growing up, most adults always dressed up and decorated - and I'm in my 40s.

That's what I was referencing.

How nice that the adults in your life partied, decorated, and dressed up, but that's not where I was going when I made those comments. And if you want to dress up and run around with your children, go to town.

No one is stopping you, and not everyone has to like what you like. You don't have to turn around and get nasty, and call me 'tisky tisky' and 'boring.' It's a big wide world, full of opinions, ya know.

Also, I can't help but notice that the "adults" in your collection of photographs predate the 1940s. The latter photos in that grouping are all of children, to include the occasional teens. That was the paradigm in USA for many, many years, that Halloween was a child's holiday.

I can't help but notice, though, that the holiday these days is as much--if not MORE-- about childless, drunken adults in all manner of outrageous or "sexy" costume as it is about little kids getting a bit of candy. It's a different emphasis than in years past.

We hardly ever get to see her "Miss Piggy" face anymore...