There was a time when the major late-autumn party here in England was Guy Fawkes’ Night (or Bonfire Night) on the 5th of November—I remember that being the case during my first few years here, in the second GW Bush administration. But since 2014 or so, people in England have begun to embrace an Americanised version of the holiday that originated with their Celtic neighbours to the north and west – Halloween. There was resistance for a long time, as this old Fry and Laurie sketch demonstrates:
This year, however, the UK will spend nearly a billion pounds on the holiday. It’s hard to pinpoint just when it became mainstream, but I noticed a surge in popularity about six or so years ago. Suddenly there were Halloween displays in the supermarkets—very welcome displays, given that prior years would see back-to-school displays being replaced with Christmas goods in September.
I give out full-size candy. I’m known as the “American” house on the road as a result, and it’s pretty terrific. I like to think I’m doing my bit for soft diplomacy, even if I am giving out a lot of Cadbury products.
The Child also embraces her Americanness at Halloween. Now 15, she’s a bit long in the tooth to go trick-or-treating, but she loves to dress up to give out candy, to wit:
Last year she was the Grim Reaper, and asked kids on the doorstep whether they wanted death or chocolate. This year she will dare them to take her treasure. I’m sure they’ll chance it. Or I hope they will—my NHS dentist just went private, and if we have to eat all this candy ourselves I’ll go bankrupt from the fillings.
There’s the doorbell. Happy Halloween!
Baud
From what I can tell, Halloween has gone international.
Rose Judson
@Baud: It sure seems that way. Hollywood movies and TV shows have probably helped spread it; I know a lot of kids in The Child’s class started asking me about it around 2017-2018, after Stranger Things 2 came out.
Baud
@Rose Judson:
There was a big tragedy in South Korea when a Halloween crowd got out of control. I think I read something about Halloween in India too.
Omnes Omnibus
So that’s what The Child looks like. I see the family resemblance.
Mai Naem mobile
English Cadburys is so much better than American Cadburys. I believe it has something to do with the dairy component.
Elizabelle
Rose, I love your window! Congrats on owning your home (I think) this Hallow’s Eve.
The Child is well costumed.
Rose Judson
@Elizabelle: Almost there with the house – closing at the end of November.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: She’s got Rose’s horns!
MattF
@Mai Naem mobile: American chocolate is, in fact, different from European chocolate. Americans are accustomed to the taste of Hershey candies… but can grow accustomed to the flavor of eurochocolate, if you manage to eat enough of it.
VFX Lurker
This morning, I just started listening to the audiobook of Kelly Barnhill’s When Women Were Dragons, a fantasy about thousands of American women sprouting horns and wings and flying away in 1955.
The Child’s costume reminds me of the book.
KrackenJack
Chocolate or Death?
Wait! I’m thinking!
[h/t to Jack Benny]
Omnes Omnibus
Death or chocolate is good. By the time I was The Child’s age, I also preferred handing out candy to trick or treating myself. The little kids are fun. Also, my mom bought better candy than most houses had and there was usually enough left for my candy needs (which were never that great).
Rose Judson
@UncleEbeneezer: And my ability to breathe fire. She gets her claws from her Dad, tho.
HumboldtBlue
I’ve lived at my current location for 16 years and I have never had a trick or treater. Then again, I never do anything for Halloween, but my neighborhood has no kids, therefore, no trick or treaters.
dmsilev
@Baud: I read a story a couple of days ago that the government in China was trying to crack down on the holiday there, with the theory being that they were worried it promotes non-conformism or something like that.
“Central government mandate” vs. “Free candy”. I’m guessing the candy will win out.
Barbara
I dislike Halloween more every year. I guess it’s the curmudgeon in me. I still like the child-centered holiday I grew up with, but that seems to be less and less of its import.
Partly I think Halloween has evolved because it is another secular holiday that, as my husband smirks, allows for people to spend gazillions of dollars on crap they don’t need. No need to dance around “the reason for the season,” as they say. Just a chance to have fun!
And for the record, I loathe the emergence of skeletons as a decoration. Someone in my neighborhood has a skeleton that is taller than their house.
Steve LaBonne
Rose, I have no problem at all when kids your daughter’s age come to our door. They get candy just like the littles.
Omnes Omnibus
@Rose Judson: Well played.
Barbara
@HumboldtBlue: My neighborhood has plenty of kids, but a few blocks away from me there is a neighbor who has gone all out ever since we have lived here, with decorations (as he does at Christmas as well). There are people who drive from all over to see his house, and even those who live around here don’t bother with the “cross streets,” which includes mine. One year we even put a lighted “this way” sign at the end of our block and we still didn’t have more than five kids. I typically buy a bag of small Dove chocolates (or two) to give out if we do get a few.
Elizabelle
@Rose Judson: Yay! Proud of you! That’s an achievement.
Josie
My three boys and a few friends did a haunted house scene in our front yard and entry way for a number of years. There were graves with spooky music, gravestones, spiders, ghosts and wondering monsters and ghastly live ghosties. The kid elected to watch the candy bowl was a scarecrow that came to life when someone reached into the bowl. The were many chiidren and adults who came by, much screaming and laughter, and, occasionally candy thrown into the air. They had so much fun that they didn’t even mind cleaning up the next morning. It seemed to me that Halloween rivaled Christmas in my boys’ excitement. Thirty or so years later they still talk about it.
JCJ
@Baud: In 1981 When I was a student in Hamburg Germany the other Amis I was with from Purdue and Indiana had a Halloween party. All of the German students were puzzled, although it was fun to see people looking at us while riding the subway. This year for the first time I received a Happy Halloween greeting from the management of our condo building in Bangkok. I have never been there on Halloween so I do not know if they decorate like they do for Xmas and Chinese New Year. Maybe some day.
sab
@MattF: Back 50+ years ago when I was last in the UK they used make disparaging comments about “continental” chocolate, which they claimed was more waxy and less milky.
JMG
A church about a mile down the road from my house has, as many old New England churches do, a small graveyard. They put up a 12 foot tall skeleton in the middle of it. A church!!
We have candy for any trick or treaters (don’t expect any). Halloween was never big for me as a kid because I hate sweets. Other kids would compete for the honor of trick or treating with me because they knew at night’s end I’d just empty the bag and let ’em divvy it up.
Saw Van Morrison and the Band at Symphony Hall on Halloween 1969. Pretty much the only one I remember.
Velocifowl
@Barbara:
It’s really an adults holiday around here with plenty of sexy outfits, lots of alcohol and easy to pick someone up. Fun if your single and in your 20s and 30s but after that not so much.
We have a grim reaper skeleton with posable arms and I leave it up through Christmas hovering over our Christmas tree like death is summoning the tree from hell and put scary decorations on it to piss of my conservative in laws and point out to them the tree is pagan as well so shove it! Yes I’m that petty.
sab
@Barbara: When I was little in Florida (1960s) we cheated and did Halloween twice. The first go-round was with our Unicef boxes, which were strongly encouraged by our schools. The second go-round was for candy. Times certainly have changed.
Betty Cracker
Excellent costume on the Child! Happy Halloween! 🎃
oklahomo
@Barbara: I’ve seen some of those monster-size ones; last year a business I chanced to drive by had one that was tied to the front of the building and almost 2-stories tall. That can’t be cheap.
JoyceH
No trick or treaters here. I live in a wooded development with no sidewalks or streetlights so the parents have to drive the kids. They’ll only stop where the porch lights are on. There are some parking lots that hold “trunk or treat” events.
Chris
@dmsilev:
Must be a worldwide trigger for authoritarians of all bent. I remember when the evangelical church I attended tried to tell me that celebrating Halloween opened you up to possession by evil spirits so you should be very careful that night.
(They never specified just what “be careful” means. Is there some silver or holy water or beads you can lend me, or some sort of exorcism magic phrase you can teach me, in case I do round a corner and find myself face-to-face with an evil spirit? Inquiring minds want to know).
Of course, it wasn’t just Halloween. They told me the same thing about taking yoga classes, and reading Harry Potter books. Which makes it pretty funny to think that twenty years later, most of them are probably now brandishing Harry Potter books everywhere as shibboleths indicating their Non Transness.
hells littlest angel
After moving in to a new neighborhood in Philadelphia, I was surprised and embarrassed when trick or treaters knocked on my door on Hallowe’en afternoon. I hid behind the couch until they were gone, then rushed out to the supermarket to stock up on candy. I lived there for 14 years, and never had another trick or treater.
Sister Golden Bear
You should ask the Youngs whether they want cake or death.
zhena gogolia
@Barbara: I’m with you on that. It’s not charming or festive. I don’t mind the bigass ugly blowup black cats and such, but the skeleton thing has gotten out of hand.
Sure Lurkalot
I bought the candy just like I do every year AND there are kiddos in my neighborhood AND the weather recovered nicely from our one-day cold snap AND I live in a sea of townhouses and duplexes (I.e. multiples of candy scoring opportunities) AND YET, it is highly likely we’ll have a bunch of M&Ms, Snickers and KitKats to eat ourselves.
Kristine
@Mai Naem mobile:
Back at the old day job, we would anxiously await the arrival of the UK affiliate folks b/c they always brought a stash of English Cadbury.
Chris
@sab:
If I were British, I’d think long and hard about trashing the quality of anybody else’s food.
Marmot
@zhena gogolia: Ha! What’s the Halloween equivalent of the Grinch?
NotMax
@Kristine
Did someone say chocolate?
(couldn’t resist linking) :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Good English food can stand with just about any cuisine out there. There’s just a lot of bad English food as well. I would say that the same is true about US food.
West of the Rockies
@oklahomo:
How do you store the damn things 11 months of the year? Do they have to be reassembled yearly?
Jacel
Around 1970, there was a costumed Halloween party at my family’s house of members of my high school’s Science Fiction Fantasy Witchcraft And Weird Things Club (SFFWWTC for short). Around 7:00, we got the inspiration to go “TREAT OR TRICKING” in a nearby stretch where a number of well decorated for the season houses were. Each of us armed ourselves a supply of harmless non-food items (such as clothespins or pencils). As our group came to each house, one of the shorter girls would go up to the door and ring the bell. Then the other ten or so of us would line up behind her. When the door opened, we shouted “TREAT OR TRICK!” and, smiling, each dropped our benign items in the resident’s basket or plate, as they stood holding it dumbfounded. We noticed after visiting the first few houses that porch lights started turning off on houses down the coming blocks.
NotMax
All this skeleton talk has me wondering whatever became of commenter dance around in your bones.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Sure Lurkalot: How sad. :-)
Baud
@NotMax:
I miss her. She hasn’t been around for a long time.
Salty Sam
I’ve always loved Halloween- when I was of an age to go trick-or-treating, and when I had young’uns of my own. My first wife talked the school director of the Montessori school our boys attended into letting her put on a school Halloween Carnival. That thing took over our lives for six years running.
But probably the biggest surprise was my first year in the mid-east (Bahrain), during my first Ramadan there. Midway through the month of fasting, I got a knock at the door, and there was a passel of young Arab kids, holding out bags as if expecting something. I called up to my landlord upstairs “What’s going on!?!” He hollered back down “It’s the mid point of the Ramadan month. It’s like your Halloween, you are supposed to give them candy or treats.”
Quick trip to the corner bodega ensued!
oklahomo
@West of the Rockies: I’ve seen some yards where the owners put up over a dozen inflatable or plastic items and a small sign for a party rental company. I suspect a lot of people rent because then you can just point and say, “I want one of those here, one of those there” etc. There are also signs for Xmas decorations put up and taken down from homes.
Rose Judson
@Omnes Omnibus: I feel like the “British Food Is Bad!” thing became obsolete around the turn of this century. I’ve read (but can’t find a link to) a compelling argument that this is because the people whose tastes had been shaped by rationing during their formative years were no longer the ones driving food trends.
That includes basically everyone who was old enough to remember the years between 1914 (when WWI rationing started) and 1954 (when WWII rationing ended). To them, terrible, processed convenience foods must have seemed like a marvellous luxury.
Salty Sam
HAH! Spouse showed me a picture yesterday, of a Halloween decorated house somewhere- there were life sized skeletons crawling all over the yard, swarming up the walls of the house, and climbing on the roof. Maybe 30-35 skeletons in all. I have to admit, it sent a little shiver down my back- very creepy.
Sure Lurkalot
@Dorothy A. Winsor: It is sad! Friends who live close by in a single family neighborhood buy multiple bags and run out. Send those kiddos over here!
Omnes Omnibus
@Rose Judson: A British Sunday roast done at a good pub is exquisite. Traditional food, but with fresh vegetables and not cooked until all flavor is gone.
Betty
Halloween doesn’t seem to have reached this part of the Caribbean. Catholics here take All Souls’ Eve very seriously. Black Friday, on the other hand,is very big.
Barbara
@oklahomo: Yes, there are definitely companies that will put up your Christmas lights — maybe it’s an off season gig for landscapers? Have not seen any Halloween advertisements, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I am not a big fan of inflatables. They are loud! We were driving around a rural area of Virginia and saw a lawn full of inflatable Christmas decorations, but the owner had turned the pumps off during the day, so they were all in their deflated state. My husband and I agreed that it looked like a mass extinction event — like someone had come through with a BB gun to lay waste to the entire yard. I don’t care greatly, but it looked worse than not having anything in your yard at all.
Rose Judson
We’ve had dozens of kids so far. The Child has given them lots of good growls. A surprising number of them prefer the Cadbury Crunchies. This is what our basket looked like when full; it’s down halfway now.
Kay
I would like to alert those of you in blue or purple states to the absolutely wacky, childish way the GOP treat their voters.
Alll the GOP ads in Ohio now are “President Trump needs your help….”
This is a new horror – they were not doing this in 2020. It’s a new low of cult-like behavior among conservative voters. I would be so ashamed to be one. My God – WHERE is their self respect ?!
Phylllis
@sab: Did we go to school together? That sure brings back memories.
👻David 🎃Booooooo🎃 Koch💀
NotMax
@Rose Judson
“Please, ma’m, I want some more.”
;)
👻David 🎃Booooooo🎃 Koch💀
Dump is in Albuquerque to pick up his favorite Meth from “Heisenberg”
MattF
It’s a rather long piece of prose— but Gravity’s Rainbow has a justly famous passage on English candy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
Hell, Tucker Carlson said the other day America needs to be spanked, or something. It’s very bizarre and creepy.
I got a few texts from the Trump campaign recently begging me for money along the “President Trump needs your help” lines. No idea how I ended up on their list. I’ve never voted a Republican primary ballot in my life and have never donated money to a Republican before
Phylllis
@Rose Judson: Oh my, I need to look for the KitKat Chunky in the English food section of the grocery store the next time I go.
oklahomo
@Barbara: Part of my commute takes me along a stretch of highway where it’s a long, long line of medical marijuana and CBD and adult stores and used-car lots and small shed-things and it’s a long line of those goddam noodle-men.
Baud
@Kay:
TBH, it sounds like the type of pitch fundy churches make to their flock.
dmsilev
@Salty Sam: There’s a house a few miles from me which has skeletons out on the front lawn year round. However, they’re always posed in seasonally-appropriate scenes, a summer picnic around Memorial Day, Thanksgiving dinner, etc. etc.
It’s a hobby, I guess.
Expletive Deleted
We are on a cul-de-sac in a more suburban area now in the UK and we get a nice number of kids, a good mix of ages, and all costumed – even if that includes one or two with just smeared fake blood.
I love it, the kids seem to have fun, make good memories, run around outside (at night!), and interact with neighbours. It’s all a bit silly and a bit scary at the same time, I wish I’d been able to do it more than I did as a kid (grew up in Spain, among expats but still it was not s big thing).
I love grownup Halloween too, in San Francisco it’s practically a national holiday, and now that I can I have parties every year. But it’s really nice to get to give out candy now too (Heroes, Quality Street, Haribo).
pluky
How about Death by Chocolate?
Tony Jay
@Barbara:
I can’t help but agree. It’s transformed pretty quickly from a (mostly) sanitised festival of things that go bump in the night into an orange and black themed faux-Yuletide. I was around at the in-laws at the weekend and it was full-on. Orange tinsel. Zombie and spider hanging decorations. Skeletons instead of Santa. A Halloween Tree topped with a skull. They even had a Halloween wreath, FFS.
Somewhere there’s a plaque on the wall of a soulless glass skyscraper celebrating the advertising exec who first slapped his hand on the table and shouted “Sexy Witchy Chocolate Christmas!!”
Yes, I do want them off my lawn. Grumble.
NotMax
@Phyllis
Anyone remember Mars’ failed competitor?
Baud
Via reddit.
Very apt reddit comment.
Expletive Deleted
I guess one thing to add, I also love thta although obviously its been commercialized – it hasn’t been coopted. It doesn’t have a central message that appeals to the conservative mind, so it remains a bit anarchic/
Baud
@Expletive Deleted:
It wasn’t that long ago when there was a minor right wing movement against Halloween because it was satanic in their minds.
Raven
Speaking of England. PBS has a new masterpiece called “The Marlow Murders”. My mom was a Marlow and her people came from the town!
Betsy
@Omnes Omnibus: Gosh, I loved the English (and Welsh!) food I ate a couple of decades ago on a 2-week vacation. Crisp fish and chips, flaky steaming Cornish pasties, savory-sharp curried lamb and rice, ice cream that was nearly yellow with the percentage of scrumptious butterfat, strawberry jam and cream, tender slices of carrot cake with the headiest aromatic l cups of fragrant hot tea, nice salads of soft watercress and baby greens, delectable cheeses, soemthing called “flapjack” which was a scrumptiously chewy kind of sliceable granola … and breakfast. OH THE BREAKFASTS. Eggs theee ways and sausage four ways. Beans and grilled tomato. Ham and bacon. Yogurt and jam. Grilled potatoes and toast with orange marmalade.
Best of all, unlike here, seafood and lamb are always the cheapest items on the menu !
Capri
@Kay: i got onto a GOP list somehow, and the texts I get soliciting money are either creepy AF or full of lies.
One from Trump asked me to give him money while he “was begging me on hands and knees” another was sent at 9:00 pm and asked me to donate to Trump before I went to sleep. Don Jr particularly liked my answer #5 on the survey [Announcers voice: I did not answer a survey], while someone else would personally let Cruz know that I donated to him. The Dem texts are annoying, but at least they don’t contain downright lies.
Raven
@dmsilev: Deadheads.
rusty
We were in the UK from 2005-2009. For the first couple of years, all the Americans we knew gathered at a field and we did trunk-or-treating with the kids. By the time we left in 2009, Tesco was selling costumes and maybe one in three, or one in four, houses in the town did trick or treating (very British, they would leave the front light on and put a sign on their door letting you know they were participating). We actually went around the neighborhood the last couple of years. All my work colleagues grumped that nothing like this was done when they were growing up, just another American cultural invasion!!
lowtechcyclist
At the local Wal-Mart, Halloween displays that had been there since midsummer were being replaced by Christmas goods in September. I’ve got a picture of their aisles of Christmas stuff that I took on (checks phone) September 21.
JMG
I was just at our local pharmacy where I treated myself to my covid shot. As I was leaving, one of the aisles was occupied by a store employee who was carefully removing Halloween nicknacks and candy from the shelves and replacing them with Christmas nicknacks and Christmas themed candy. It’s like Christmas and Halloween have a plot to eliminate Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday.
zhena gogolia
@Raven: We’re enjoying it. Lovely scenery and Samantha Bond is great!
sab
@Baud: My lovely (he is!) across the street neighbor is Southern Baptist and he wouldn’t let his kids trick or treat on a Sunday Halloween. So we were all very happy when the city switched to a uniform Saturday Beggars’ Night.
Raven
@zhena gogolia: Oh, The Marlow Murder Club!!!
NutmegAgain
My Germany-dwelling offspring (been there 10+ years) usually has a dress up party with pals. Not this year, too much happening. But one year she went as “The Weimar Republic”, which confused the Germans especially …
cckids
@Baud:
When we lived in Vegas, with our 3 kids, there was a fundy family that was on the anti-Halloween kick. But instead of just not participating, they made their kids dress up as Bible characters, answer the door, and give out little scrolls with bible verses written on them.
They were not popular.
E.
Five days until the election and The New Yorker decides now is the time to bring up the question of Trump’s mental fitness. And then they admit he “has always given off Twenty-fifth Amendment vibes.”
The Audacity of Krope
My ballot has been officially counted. I’m sure this is the one that will officially put Harris over the top in…Massachusetts.
Let me dream, ok?
NotMax
@Raven
Cross-cultural adaptation of the German series Marnow Murders?
cckids
@Capri:
IDK, I keep getting some from an unidentified group that promise “an 800% MATCH to your donation! Give NOW!”
I just delete, report & block, becuz no way thats not a scam.
Raven
@NotMax: Beats me.
Rose Judson
@Phylllis: I don’t have them often, but when I do, I dunk them in coffee. Lord.
sab
@Chris: Really? I loved their food. (They got a bad rap when US servicemen were there in WWII when there were actual shortages.) Of course my family was British several centuries ago, and ethnic culture survives in family kitchens.
Villago Delenda Est
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Known Russian agent Tucker Carlson needs to be much more than “spanked”.
rusty
@Rose Judson: British Kit Kats always seemed better than the American version.
Omnes Omnibus
@NutmegAgain: You have to explain the Weimar Republic costume.
Barbara
@cckids: One of my au pairs came to us after working for a family of Orthodox Jews, and she told me how disappointed she was on her first American Halloween, because they made sure all of their lights were turned off and put their garbage wheelie bin in front of their door just to make it extra clear that they were not participating. I am honestly not exactly sure what they had against it. It’s possible that year it fell on a Jewish holy day — they celebrated many more holidays than the high holy days most of us know about, and all holidays usually start after sundown.
Chief Oshkosh
@rusty: That’s because they’re made from real kats. And kits.
Also, their perennially favorite confection, Crunchy Frog, are really crunchy frogs.
sab
@Phylllis: Were you in Florida, or was that elsewhere also? Our schools used to train us to care about people in the rest of the world.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, I am having difficulty with that one. Even if it was meant ironically (well I hope it was meant ironically) it does not seem like it would be a good idea. Not as bad as Prince Harry dressing up as a Gestapo but still too likely to trigger a negative reaction in an event intended to be fun. I don’t truck with the “but it was just a joke” response as adequate recompense for insulting someone even in jest.
MattF
Speaking of candy… Back when the web was young and stupid, there was a site called ‘bad-candy’, which the Wayback Machine has preserved for posterity. Some of the supposed candy-objects displayed on that site were genuinely disgusting. You have been warned.
sab
@Barbara: My city’s Beggars Night is Saturday before October 31. And Saturday is always the Sabbath. So Orthodox Jewish kids could never participate. They shouldn’t anyway since it’s a pagan/Christian holiday, but that is a different issue.
Gloria DryGarden
@VFX Lurker: we need a side at link that lists all the book people recommended here, and who recommended them.
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: it’s a Pagan. Holiday.
Velocifowl
@rusty:
You want the Japanese kit-kats. They are insane. Both in quality and variety.
https://www.japancandystore.com/blogs/okashi/kit-kat-flavors?srsltid=AfmBOopwvDl47irMzECM0oMr-uMMLgz2RbxSHDE-L0ue38vMiOCY17C3
Buy it now and thank me later. It’s serious over there and cult status like nowhere else.
sab
@sab: And then there is their pub food. Scotch eggs. Cornish pasties.
I joked to my husband about British baked beans on toast, and now he is hooked. ( “This is actually really good.”)
Kent
Most certainly. It is big in Chile now. At least in upscale leafy neighborhoods. My in-laws get lots of trick or treaters these days.
JMG
We had a family vacation in England and Scotland in September and the food was excellent. Some meals were better than others (one or two truly outstanding) but none were less than good eating.
Gloria DryGarden
@Barbara: I find just having my lights out works. I’m usually focused on my “cultural observances”
Barbara
@sab: My last really good memory of Halloween was when I took my nine year old daughter to Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh), and while I canvassed for John Kerry the weekend before the election, she visited with my mother. We brought her costume so we could go around the old neighborhood. The BIG CONTROVERSY was that municipalities pegged the official start of the neighborhood trick or treating at 6:00 pm Sunday — which was estimated to be the time at which the second half of the Steelers/Patriots game would start!
My daughter had a great time and it was like being in a time machine for me.
sab
@Gloria DryGarden: Agreed about pagan, but Christians co- opted it. Samhain to All Hallows Eve.
Phylllis
@sab: Yes, grew up in Bradenton. And yes to learning and caring about people in other parts of the world as well.
Kay
@Baud:
They have an ad against Issue One in Ohio (redistricting) and it’s so embarrassing to me just as a person. Deep, booming voice “President Trump needs your help…”
This is literally how I get small children to cooperate with me.
Gloria DryGarden
@Villago Delenda Est: we could all start knitting and sewing voodoo dolls.
Sigh, it’s just a fantasy, I’m not allowed
Baud
JD Vance is weird and creepy.
different-church-lady
We’ll know Halloween has become a major holiday when they decide it falls on a Monday every year.
Baud
@Kay:
Wilford Brimley Ai voice?
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m thinking Liv Lisa Fries in Babylon Berlin. Rowr.
Villago Delenda Est
@Baud: He makes troglodytes look like Oxbridge grads.
Gloria DryGarden
@Barbara: it’s a religious holiday for me. Makes more sense, for me at least. And for my cohort.
TBone
@Baud: I want to dance on his forehead and will indeed celebrate my anatomical autonomy when it is restored. Loudly and with gusto. What a putz!
Once again, I wish my uterus fired bullets so it wouldn’t be regulated.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: can you stage this like the wizard behind the curtain, projecting the big head in is… Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain….
NotMax
@sab
Not so much unless earthbound.
;)
Baud
@TBone:
See, I’d watch that superhero movie.
John Revolta
I was staying with a family in Belgium about 20 years ago in October and they had bought some pumpkins and they were getting ready to carve them, but they didn’t know you had to hollow them out first! We had to show them the procedure.
TBone
@Baud: 😆 I’d scatter like birdshot and then take aim!
Gloria DryGarden
Miss Rose, I do think we Americans (USians) will need a Nice bonfire celebration nov 5. Perhaps it’s time for us to learn about your Guy Fawkes day, and your traditional bonfire.
Weird that American Halloween is international now. Weird. Like McDonald’s in so many countries.
I have a cartoon for you, Let me find it. It’s the grim reaper, tall, behind the kids. Mrs Smith is giving out candies, he says,
” I’m not a trick or treater, I’m here to…. Holy shit, full size Snickers! Nevermind, we’re good.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Layer8Problem: Is that who plays Charlotte Ritter? She might be the only TV character that I have emotionally invested in years. I want her to survive and not become a Nazi. The second part I am pretty confident about, but the first?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Omnes Omnibus: there’s no excuse for mushy peas IMHO
different-church-lady
@Kay: He sure needs help, but it’s not of any kind I’m able to provide.
Baud
@TBone:
The people who brought you James Bond 007 present a new hero for our time: Pussy Galore: The Antifacist!
TBone
@NotMax: 🤭
TBone
@Baud: YES, now that is a script I should flesh out 😆
Wag
My family moved to Newcastle upon Tyne for a year in 1967. I was 5, my sister 4, and our mom arranged with a small group of neighbors to have candy so my sister and I could trick or treat. We also carved a jack-o’-lantern out of a turnip. So I take credit for introducing the UK to American Halloween traditions.
witnessing the burning of Guy Fawkes in effigy the next week complete with rockets and pinwheels was fun as well!
pieceofpeace
BettyC, I’m guessing seeing Badger and Pete would be kids’ treat tonight (uhhh, probly not)…..may Badger be feeling up for wagging his way to the door…..
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus: Yup. I’m invested in her navigating her way out of all that and for her to become the first female police detective, if not in Berlin then in New York.
Kayla Rudbek
@zhena gogolia: I saw a clever skeleton setup close to my sibling’s neighborhood (one skeleton falling out of a kayak, one skeleton fishing in an inflatable pool, fish skeletons hanging from the trees as well) The massive skeletons are a bit much, I would agree. And the longer I live in Virginia, the more uneasy I get about seeing ghosts/skeletons decoration hanging from the trees.
TBone
Headline: *chef’s kiss!
Gloria DryGarden
@different-church-lady: i sewed him (an imaginary) orange jumpsuit, with gold monograms. Does that count as help?
I’ll even pay shipping and handling, soon as he gets to his more permanent address
sdhays
@Baud: Rogan is pro-choice?
Wag
@Rose Judson: Can you please send any leftover Crunchys to me in Denver?
Omnes Omnibus
@Layer8Problem: I think the writers see her as the embodiment of the spirit of Berlin. She’s from the streets. She’s indomitable. She goes through horrible experiences, but she comes through intact.
NotMax
@TBone
Gotta watch out for that recoil.
;)
TBone
@NotMax: I once saw a guy, half drunk and feeling his beer muscles, pick up a buddy’s rifle that had a scope on it. He fired and put that gun down in a hurry. He came away with a scope circle cut neatly around his eye socket 🧐 😆 it was a bloody mess!
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: a. Who buys what the press is obsessed with? If it’s true, At least there’s press about the abortion issue
b. Voters don’t care?
His wife hasn’t offered to divorce him?
Obviously he doesn’t think it matters a damn. Maybe women are an illusion. And men who care about the women in their lives, perhaps that’s another illusion.
Vote him out. Hope this silly evasiveness and BS helps Allred.
Jeepers. Ted’s not good enough for Cancun
TBone
Field report from someone watching a rally so we don’t have to:
KenK
@KrackenJack: Death by Chocolate will be my preferred way of shuffling off this mortal coil.
NotMax
@Wag
Turnips were the traditional medium of choice.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: in Oz.
Fixed typo/ autocorrect. Not sure which
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Just cast my vote, so that’s done. God, the ballot language for Issue 1 in Ohio was absolutely horrific, LaRose and the rest really don’t want it to pass. I don’t remember the Abortion Rights amendment ballot language from last year being as bad. Just outright lying about what the amendment will do
Kay
Ugh. Bill Clinton wagging his finger and tendentiously lecturing Arab Americans in Michigan.
E.G.O.
The Clintons haven’t really covered themselves in glory on Gaza. Their treatment of Palestinian civilian deaths is disgustingly cavalier. Does help one understand how the US got to the place where we now completely ignore the laws of war, even our own laws of weapons supplying.
Gloria DryGarden
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): it’s why I rely on my study guide booklet that the state sends out, and why I go to the library to get a league of women voters leaflet, to read through their pros and cons too. And there’s always the Denver sun
We had a ballot issue 15-20 years ago, worded so that people would vote the opposite of what they wanted, vote yes, but yes meant no, not for the thing, but For the not of the thing. For a ban or a repeal. I remember trying to explain it to clients.
Colorado got boycotted for it until we changed it back, too
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I agree. It worries me a little. We have not had a Sec of State as corrupt as LaRose. I hope they don’t break laws on voting.
Thank God Ohio is no longer a swing state. It’s corrupt as fuck now.
lowtechcyclist
@JMG:
That’s what I love about Thanksgiving, it seems to be practically immune from commercialization. The closest they can come is starting Black Friday practically before you’re done with Thanksgiving dinner.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: has he gotten permission to use YMCA?
I assume Harris campaign gets permissions for their music..
NotMax
@JMG
Isn’t 3 to 4 months of pumpkin spice everything enough?
//
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t care for turkey. I like stuffing and cranberry stuff. I WANT MINCEMEAT PIE!!! I am out voted though.
Gloria DryGarden
@Wag: seems there are a lot of people fr Denver, here. We could have a big meetup, if there were time.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
How ya feel about soda?
:)
Jay
@NotMax:
Pumpkin Spice is good for jokes and memes.
One of the local Autoshops has a sign up, hyping the return for a limited time, of Pumpkin Spice Brake Pads.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: I doubt it. When my family used to vacation at the beach in New Jersey (when the YMCA song first came out), our next door neighbors there had a loud party and played it over and over, all night long. I thought my dad was gonna blow a gasket, and to this day whenever I hear it, I see my dad trying to contain his rage and stop himself from busting heads. It was the cop in him that prevented his breaking their door down at 4am.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
I’m confused about this. The Sabbath runs from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown; once the sun sets on Saturday, it’s not the Sabbath anymore. So unless Beggars Night is actually celebrated in the afternoon rather than after dark, the Sabbath shouldn’t be an issue for Jewish kids.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Warmed Mincemeat tarts with Hard Sauce,…………..
Kirk
@Omnes Omnibus: with meat or meatless?
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
No kidding! The only question is, do I really want to know about the latest manifestation?
Rose Judson
@NotMax: I tried a sip of someone’s pumpkin spice latte once and it was like someone had soaked potpourri in the coffee. No thanks.
Gloria DryGarden
Great quote
“Blessed Samhain
The veil is thin,
And so is my patience “
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
That’s what happens when you don’t know the territory!
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Beggars night ends at 7:00 which is about sundown. Whole point is to get the littles home and the adolescents off the street before dark.
Gloria DryGarden
RE pumpkin spice:
I love eggnog, but can’t have dairy. I discovered the fake milk eggnogs at the store, but now I make my own: almond milk, with maple syrup, and nutmeg. It tastes great.
Lots of those pumpkin spice things, it’s just sweet, nutmeg, and ginger added.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
Well, Hillary did say Henry Kissinger was a friend of hers. Guess some of that rubbed off on her.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: I love mincemeat pie!! It makes the rest of holidays tolerable.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kirk: My grandmother used to make the real stuff with venison. But I would take either at this point.
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus: You got it. If she doesn’t escape it she’s going to be pushing a wheelbarrow full of shattered bricks in Berlin in the summer of 1945.
Old School
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: 😂
Omnes Omnibus
@Rose Judson: I brought my s-i-l some pumpkin spice caramel chocolates a couple of weeks ago. She loves the flavor. I can’t abide it except in pumpkin pie or muffins. I wanted to rent my brother from her for an afternoon.
Kirk
@Omnes Omnibus: Venison is good. Beef has been easier for me to get and it works.
But anyway, if you /really/ want it, why not bake one yourself and enjoy it over several days? I mean, nobody’s going to take it from you, right?
Central Planning
@lowtechcyclist: Well played!
Velocifowl
@Kirk:
You can order venison online pretty easy.
lowtechcyclist
Turkey is the weak spot at the center of the Thanksgiving meal: most people cook it until it’s too damn dry. The rest of the stuff is pretty damn good! Mincemeat pie is great, and if you want to bake one and bring it, you’re welcome at our table. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Kirk: That would remove my complaint about the lack of mincemeat pie that has been a Thanksgiving tradition for years. Holidays are about tradition.
NotMax
@Rose Judson
Would you believe it?
@Gloria DryGarden
Re-link. Makin’ it at home.
Velocifowl
@lowtechcyclist:
Fry it outside in peanut oil. Remember to thaw it first or it will explode and burn down your house.
TBone
I just bought new jars of ginger and nutmeg today to be sure my pumpkin pies will be tasty for TDay! I already have plenty of cinnamon for apple pies. I also make a pumpkin cheesecake that is to die for. Pumpkin spices should always be involved with real pumpkin only!
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
OK, that makes sense. (Other than the part about calling a daytime event “beggars night” but I’ll let that pass. Though I can hear Phil Collins singing, “I can see day, and you say night,…”)
sdhays
@Old School: Lawyers should get massive fines for wasting the court’s time with such a lawsuit.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: brining the turkey a day ahead is key. Plus you can add fresh sage, rosemary, bay leaves, peppercorns, etc. to the brine. I use my convection oven and it’s crisp skin and tender, juicy meat every time.
(ETA only for turkey that is not packed in brine.)
The Audacity of Krope
Not traditionally a problem in my family.
And, damn, turkey is good.
Baud
@Old School:
Probably inspired by his mentor.
Also, too, join us again tomorrow for another episode of “Can you imagine the media firestorm if a Democrat had done that?”
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
The best chance of avoiding dry turkey is to stick to dark meat. For some reason all my relatives go for the white meat, so luckily it works out.
Also my aunt gets her turkey from a BBQ place here that smokes turkeys, so it doesn’t sit in an oven for hours.
SomeRandomGuy
I’ve had UK Cadbury candy, and you’re following the important rule: giving out good candy, regardless of its origin. You’d have to go to fairly high up the US candy predator list to find one of equal quality, and then, you’d have to find it at a store that sells overpriced US candy at inflated prices. (No, that’s *not* redundant – overprice/inflation are two separate events.)
Trust me, better to be the American who gives out GOOD candy, than the one who gives out AMERICAN candy. (Why trust me? Well, all available evidence suggests I was a child once, right? Ha ha, I laugh, through my vocal cords, just like you use your vocal cords when you laugh! There’s no reason to suspect I did not do this “tricks or treats” when I, like you all, was a smaller, less dense, version of my current, skin covered, self….)
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus:
My mom made mincemeat pie with suet. Seeing that in the fridge waiting to be used was enough to turn me off of mincemeat pie for life.
HeleninEire
When I moved to Dublin the “holiday” that confused me was Black Friday. What? Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, which of course is not a holiday there.
We just went with it. A sale is a sale.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
I’ve always gone with the recipe on the Libby’s can (and a store-bought graham cracker crust because I’m lazy) with one key change: I double the amount of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves it says to include. (No nutmeg in the Libby’s recipe.) That gives the pie a lot more zip.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
(Of course, being twitter, there’s an awful lot of missing context…)
Good, good. Moving in the right direction, and a good sign.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
The best mincemeat I ever had, was made by T’s old boss, Green Tomato Mincemeat.
I used to push two layers of phyllo pastry into a large muffin pan, then place mincemeat filled “cinnamon roll” clones into the middle, proof it and bake it off, for Christmas.
I per guest.
SomeRandomGuy
@eclare: The reason it’s common to have dry turkey is the very reason you mention: the different meats cook at different rates. Dark meat is considered more flavorful, and since I think the breast meat is best saved for leftover turkey sandwiches, on a hearty sourdough bread, with plenty of mayo, so who cares if it was a bit dry… um. Where was I?
Smoking or other slow cooking also helps keep the meat tender, because you’re not so much past the boiling point that water is gushing out as steam. Honestly, that (a slow smoked turkey – not sure of the wood, but I’m sure there *is* one) sounds like it could be a *perfect* holiday roast.
NotMax
@TBone
Besides nutmeg and ginger, allspice kicks it up several notches.
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
When roasting, most people don’t properly seal the roaster.
I always seal the roaster with a layer of sealed aluminum foil, then place the roaster lid on top.
Keeps all the moisture in.
Jay
@SomeRandomGuy:
One can always go with Canadian Candy.
SomeRandomGuy
@Omnes Omnibus: Hee. Old catholic trivia: Why did my mom wait up until after midnight the day after Thanksgiving?
To be able to eat another slice of mincemeat pie. Catholics couldn’t eat meat on Fridays until Vatican II; AND, in those days, mincemeat pie had actual meat in it (or sufficiently-meaty substances, like suet – don’t bug me over the details, *I* don’t know them, and my dearly departed mom can’t help me).
Expletive Deleted
@lowtechcyclist: ::chef’s kiss::
Velocifowl
@TBone:
We brine suckling pig for Christmas.
mrmoshpotato
Cadbury Caramel Eggs!
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: yum! Ground cloves used with discretion, allspice too.
Oh I see NotMax beat me to it of course! ☺️
TBone
@Velocifowl: ooooooh wowyum
NotMax
@SomeRandomGuy
Costlier, but experience has shown a kosher turkey refuses to come out of the oven as anything other than most and tender and flavorful. One year I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 90 minutes after the expected “it’s done” time. Bird still came out luscious.
Sometimes I tent it with foil for part of the cooking process, sometimes I say the hell with that.
cckids
@TBone: I make great pumpkin-spiced muffins that go perfectly with turkey soup.
Kirk
@Omnes Omnibus: Point granted.
NotMax
@Jay
Or build your own.
;)
SomeRandomGuy
@Gloria DryGarden: If it helps, I know some people just call it “candymas” (Christmas is “giftmas” – I know they had other names in the same theme – maybe feastmas for thanksgiving?
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He spun a fantasy of an out of control family, pregnant 15 year old, and said she needed a “vigorous” spanking. Not the son, who, culturally, was of “spanking age”.
I know, some people think there is no proper “spanking age.” I’m just establishing that, if you weren’t entirely opposed to spanking the *son*, you’d choke on the thought of dad spanking a 15 year old young woman.
Finally, I’ve only heard crap like “vigorous” for a spanking in spanking porn. If I *needed* more proof… but I didn’t. Tucker was peddling, spanking porn, and it’s really disgusting, he’s saying “you’ve got to spank your opposition like a daddy spanks a naughty, 15 year old pregnant girl!” to get them fired up.
Also, to be clear, it’s not about the specific kink. I don’t care if he said you have to tie your opposition down and torture them with feathers and other soft, tickly implements, okay? It’s that it’s wrong to use any sex act as a sign of violent dominance against an unwilling person, and only a really sick mind thinks of such a thing as reasonable. Deliberately writing up a bit of spanko porn (spanko short for “spankophile”), to use as “we’re going to daddy spank the dems!” is *gross*. I mean, we know Carlson is so gross that normal ties withered from being too close to his… um… there’s a reason he wears a bow tie, that’s all I’m saying, okay?
(That’s “parody,” ol’ Tucks-for-tucker_failson. No one would believe your nethers were so disgusting they’d wilt a nylon clip-on. And it’s still parody when I say: “exceptin’ your sex partners, who report, well… they are pretty traumatized so they don’t want to talk too much.”)
Where was I? Right – there have got to be some old CPAC moments that are ripe to go viral again, ol’ Tucks – are Tucks(tm) a hemorrhoidal wipe? They might be – ol Tucks, or TFG, or maybe even both. Lets face it – they’ve been letting their freak flag *fly* for 10 years.
ED: Sorry folks – sometimes, I have to let my freak flag fly a bit too.
TBone
@cckids: yum, what a great idea
drdavechemist
@KenK:
Gregg’s Restaurants in Rhode Island feature a Death by Chocolate layer cake that might help you reach your goal.
TBone
@SomeRandomGuy: 😂
drdavechemist
@lowtechcyclist:
ISWYDT, with credit to Meredith Wilson
geg6
I’ve never made a dry turkey, but I always brine it for at least one day before roasting. I might change the brine flavorings from year to year, but it’s always been moist. My favorite one has apple juice, rosemary, garlic and orange peels added to the brine.
A local BBQ place smokes turkey and it is wonderful!
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
I’m gonna remember this. Buying a kosher turkey sounds like a lot less work than brining or any of that other stuff.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Velocifowl: late response, but I’ve seen them sold in stores in Las Vegas casinos recently, at the Horseshoe Casino at least
lowtechcyclist
Just got our first trick-or-treater a few minutes ago. Here in southern Maryland, it’s a pretty deep twilight already.
VeniceRiley
My wife loves Christmas.
I love Halloween.
I lost. I am on the down low here in Suffolk.
SomeRandomGuy
@VeniceRiley: Same holiday, if you ask any computer scientist.
DEC 25 = OCT 31
Um. This might not quiet down any domestic issues caused by insistence of fundamental truths by accidental numbering system collisions. Just ask poor Douglas Adams about how “no one writes jokes in base 13!”
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
Yup. The kosher birds are already brined.
Gloria DryGarden
@VeniceRiley: but, you can still go on about día de los muertos, honoring your ancestors, building altars ( decorating) to call in your ancestors to visit w you.
maybe? No?
Gloria DryGarden
@SomeRandomGuy: great idea, for the folks who object to pagan. Great reframing.
But for me, it’s ok. I like my holidays pagan. It just makes sense to me. Mostly connected to agricultural seasons in a temperate clime, the stories and the symbols and the ceremonies relate to what goes on in life and in nature. A bunch of pre Christian folkways and holidays got assimilated and absorbed, because why would anyone give that up?
trees and lights, and harvests, bunnies and eggs and fertility, and noticing the longest and shortest days , the light and the dark, the balance points, the ancestors, the plants and animals that feed us…
SomeRandomGuy
@Gloria DryGarden: Don’t get me wrong: some of these people also celebrate the pagan rites. It’s just “I bought the candles and compostable feasting supplies you asked for, for Samhain, and I bought forty Snickers(tm) full-sized, for candy-mas.”
It’s meant to strike a difference between the commercial holiday and the real one(s), and, as the example above suggests, it doesn’t really make them *different* – its more of a mental focus than anything else. I’ve heard of different celebrations on Samhain – none involved Snickers(tm), much less Chuckles(tm), though plenty involved chuckles, and a few snickers.
My friends just kinda figures, if you like handing treats to children, you can blend your candymas and Samhain, with the right focus on each activity, and no questions about which one involves bobbing for apples, and which involves… well, I wouldn’t want to ruin a good candymas secret.
glc
In any case Cadbury is owned by Mondelez (spun off from Kraft), headquartered in Chicago, so it fits right in with Halloween.
A while ago I was noticing plastic pumpkins manufactured in China appearing on the tables in French restaurants about that time of year (with candles in them). Though whether that really took hold is not clear to me.
Eyeroller
@NotMax: Yep,in the original Jack O’Lantern legend it was a turnip, because pumpkins are from the New World and would have been less common in the UK when the legend started (apparently early 1800s). The Celts apparently had a tradition of carving local root vegetables (turnips, rutabagas aka swedes, etc.) that they brought to the New World, that was transferred to pumpkins and now apparently has made the transition back to the UK.