It wasn't like that in our day

As kids in 1970s Ireland, our typical Halloween costume was a bin bag with cotton wool or random pieces of coloured paper glued to it. Our face paint was dad’s black shoe polish and a red lipstick stolen from my mother’s makeup bag and we collected out trick or treat booty in plastic St Bernard bags.

 

We all knew the houses where the best goodies were given out and the ones to avoid – those houses where the doors were never answered or the resident Halloween humbug would let a roar at us to “get away from the door”. At some doors, we got a handful of sweets and a lolly, at others we got satsumas and monkey nuts and at others, some small change. When we got back to the house to examine our spoils, we would throw the fruit and nuts into the fruit bowl and tuck into the sweets.

 

There was always great excitement over who would get the ring from the barn brack, even though we hated the fruit bread itself. Every year, the games were the same and generally involved apples. Our mother hung apples from the ceiling in the kitchen and we played snap apple. She put apples into a bowl of water and we bobbed for them with our hands behind out backs, a lot harder than it looked. The winners got 10p and by God, did we compete ferociously for those coins.

 

Fast forward a few decades and following on the heels of our American cousins, Halloween has become an industry of its own, second only to Christmas. The kids have been looking forward to it for weeks, their costumes bought since mid-September. I learnt my lesson last year when I left it so late that there was nothing left in their sizes but tacky over-priced costumes.

 

Last year, I stole the idea from a neighbour of pre-filling little trick or treat bags for callers to our door and it worked out really well. The only problem was that as usual, I overestimated the number of callers we would get, and ended up scoffing most of the extra bags myself over the following weeks. It put me off jelly eyeballs for life!

 

Michelle McDonagh is a freelance journalist working from Blarney, Co Cork. She’s a mum of three children aged 2, 4 and 5, and a firm believer in 'good enough' parenting, bribery and the healing powers of chocolate.