Five reasons we don’t celebrate Halloween (and a bonus one)

We don’t do Halloween in our house. We don’t decorate. We don’t dress up. We don’t eat our body weights in sweets. We don’t buy pumpkins. Heck, we’ve never even been to a pumpkin patch. (When did this become a thing?!)

I know, I know. We’re complete and utter killjoys. Our children are deprived.

I love autumn. I love going for blustery walks. I love piles of crunchy leaves and crisp, clear days. I love the smell of bonfires. I love fireworks. I love comfort food and boots and woolly jumpers. But Halloween, not so much.

I assume most people have turned away in disgust by now, but if you haven’t here are my reasons why we don’t do Halloween:

1. I don’t get it.

I just don’t. Why is it such a big deal? Why do some people think of it as a holiday, on a par with Christmas and Easter? Why is everyone so obsessed with pumpkins? I don’t like scary films or roller coasters, so maybe that’s why I don’t understand?

2. I don’t like trick or treating.

Actually, I’ve never been trick or treating. It wasn’t a big thing when I was growing up in the UK but a few of the older children did go round. We never did because my mum thought that knocking on old ladies’ front doors in the dark and threatening to egg their houses if they didn’t give you sweets probably wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted her children to be doing. I can see her point.

3. Halloween decorations

Much like I cannot get my head around ugly fashion, I fail to see why you want a witch on your front porch. Why decorate your house with bats and cobwebs and tombstones and coffins? Don’t get me wrong, I love a good decoration; as soon as the neighbours get their Christmas lights/inflatable snowmen/illuminated reindeer up I’ll be taking the children out to visit them every day. But I like pretty things. Fairy lights, that sort of thing.

4. The costumes

I am a big fan of dressing up. I love fancy dress parties. Dressing up as a goth at one of my friend’s birthday parties as a teenager is probably a highlight…

But Halloween is different. The other day I saw a pineapple costume for a baby. A pineapple. I just… I mean… What? Is a pineapple scary? Have I missed something? According to Wikipedia, the origins of dressing up come from either dressing up as saints because churches were too poor to display martyrs’ relics, or disguising yourself so that any dead person you crossed in life wouldn’t be able to find you and take revenge. Either way, I’m not really sure how a pineapple fits into it.

5. Sugar

Yes, I’m one of those mums. My one-year old never has sugar (except what’s in fruit) and my three-year old has it rarely. My daughter turns into a complete she-devil if she has sugar and, while this may be in keeping with the spirit of Halloween, it’s really not something I want to deal with if I can avoid it. So a celebration basically centred around how many sweets you can consume in one evening doesn’t really float my boat.

And last but not least, we’re Catholic.

For us, the big celebration is 1st November, the feast of All Saints, when we celebrate the saints in Heaven and ask them to pray for us. And then there’s the feast of All Souls the day after, when we remember the dead and pray for them that they will soon be in Heaven.