FALL (as in Autumn)

[LovelyLadyLux]

Fall started here with a bang. We had a long hot hot summer that broke records however just before the first day of fall it started to rain and it has literally poured down ever since. Got cold real quick too in terms of that damp dank feeling when everything is dripping wet with no hope of ever getting dry.

Pumpkins have filled our stores with hints of orange everywhere and Hallowe'en costumes are present too. Seems commercially we're moving more and more into making Hallowe'en a huge holiday and people even hang lights outside now too. Hallowe'en was never a huge holiday for me as a kid. It actually wasn't even a holiday. It was a one day after supper event that got me candy for a week or so while now this holiday seems to start in early Sept and goes for months.

[Horus]

Same here, Halloween is just another racket for extracting money from parents, it was hardly ever an event in the UK until we got all Americanised and imported another bit of rubbish, next we will be celebrating 'Thanks Giving' over here, roll on 'Bonfire Night'

[Grandad]

Is it really that time already LLL. My little Acer that has turned completely golden in the last few days confirms that it is.

Time to get the camera batteries charged. Although we are hard pressed to compete with places such as New England, we do have some Forestry Commission and National Trust locations that are spectacular when weather conditions are favourable. The National Arboretum at Westonbirt is one such place and although we have never been there I think we might make the trip this year.

But Halloween, that raises a question in my mind, 'Do any traditions from us or other countries become adopted by the Americans'?

I remember Guy Fawkes Night with the associated 'Penny for the Guy' as a lot of fun organised ad hoc in each local community and long before the PC brigade and 'elf 'n safty spoiled it. It all used to be innocent and cost very little. A cheap box of fireworks and some sparklers. A bottle of lemonade was optional.

Halloween on the other hand is SO commercialized that parents get pressured into buying outfits that will be worn just once, just to keep up with Johnny or Mary next door or down the street. I want to see kids having fun and see it as something that they lose out on nowadays but why does simple fun have to put a burden on parents?

[LovelyLadyLux]

Hallowe'en is very commercialized in the USA and Canada isn't far behind. Even in the workplace I found it objectionable that we could totally decorate for Hallowe'en but couldn't put up a Christmas tree or "anything" that might have a religious connotation to it around Christmas.

I will admit to be a bit of a bah humbug when it came to decorating for Hallowe'en. Just isn't a holiday I relate to and as for decorating for Christmas in my office - well - that took a far second to me decorating the house.

Hallowe'en has become a nightmare of buying candy to hand out to kids and I'm not really super sure how much fun it is for kids to go up and down to strangers houses to get candy only to take it home to have their parents scrutinize it (just in case it was tapered with).

When I was a kid I knew everybody in the village and they knew me which made it rather different (to me). Each person would make specific things for us that were for us cause they knew us...........ahh well. Times are different but am not too sure they're better.