Halloween when you were a kid....

Fat Christy

When I was a kid Halloween involved dressing up as a vampire/witch every year. Costume essentials included a black bin bag as a cape and any make up you could find. I remember getting my first proper Halloween make up set in the pound shop, delirah so I was. Among the sweets you'd get a heap of monkey nuts and some fruit, none of which you wanted.

Halloween wasn't Halloween until Hocus Pocus or The Tower of Terror was on the telly. :pac:

The only time the dog was allowed into the house was if there was thunder & lightning OR if there was fireworks going off. I loved it when the doggy was in the house. I used to snuggle up next to him in the hall until I was forced to go to bed.

What was it like for you?

Mahogany

Getting bangers fecked at me.

Leilak

l remember when we would call to all the houses in the estate u had to go home three times to get a new bag which was usually a crappy dunnes bag with a hole in it or something, ye greedy fecks we were

DazMarz

Vampire was my personal favourite costume for years. Darth Vader got a run out one year.

I used to love Halloween. Now, it's largely a pain in the hole.

saintsaltynuts

Monkey nuts,monkey nuts and more fookin' monkey nuts.

Turtyturd

Defending the stash of bonfire wood was our Vietnam.

csallmighty

Used to have a massive bonfire down the road from my house that loads of people would help build.

Shame we don't do it anymore because nobody is interested.

Simonigs1.0

A kid in my girlfriend's school legit dressed up as an Arab last Friday.

The detail in the costume was awesome, but the school were't too happy.

Definitely a first for me. Beats putting a sheet over your head and going as a ghost.

Lalealea

Fat Christy wrote: »

When I was a kid Halloween involved dressing up as a vampire/witch every year. Costume essentials included a black bin bag as a cape and any make up you could find. I remember getting my first proper Halloween make up set in the pound shop, delirah so I was. Among the sweets you'd get a heap of monkey nuts and some fruit, none of which you wanted.

Halloween wasn't Halloween until Hocus Pocus or The Tower of Terror was on the telly. :pac:

The only time the dog was allowed into the house was if there was thunder & lightning OR if there was fireworks going off. I loved it when the doggy was in the house. I used to snuggle up next to him in the hall until I was forced to go to bed.

What was it like for you?

I adore Halloween!

For me it was baking and decorating the house and collecting firewood. Dressing up and going door to door.

_Whimsical_

I grew up being told face paints were for fancy people.I always got a plastic mask from the news agent, the kind that got drenched inside from condensation from your breath and that you occasionally had to pull up too get a proper breath. Paper witches hats were always de rigueur. I and all my friends were always witches. I'd say it cost the grand total of 2 pounds.

I remember the expectation at doorways willing then to give us money with the power of my mind and being very disappointed with fruit or monkey nuts.☺

Lia_lia

My brother and I used to spend every summer in France at our Dads. Every year my brother used to buy s*itloads of fireworks and bring them back here and sell them to all his friends. So it was usually spent selling fireworks with him and setting them off. Very enterprising young fella.

We always had halloween parties too.

Thespoofer

We were poor.

Two days after Halloween ( back in the late 70's ) my younger brother put on his duffle coat backwards with the hood essentially covering his face and proceeded to a well off neighbours house a few doors up. Cue my brother coming back a minute later with a shiny 10p coin in his hand and beaming from ear to ear..

I rush to get my duffle coat, put on backwards, run up and knock at the same house only for a " no thanks " and a quickly shut door in my face.
Soo embarrassing to say the least to be left standing there empty handed.

RonanP77

Homemade masks or dirt cheap hard plastic things that cut the face off you. We used to play games at home, ducking for apples etc. When I hit my early teens then it involved building a massive bonfire that could be seen for miles. We'd have fireworks the older lads bought and we'd walk about 10 mile trick or treating, that still only meant about 20 houses.

BarryD

Dressing up from the contents of an old box of clothes kept in the attic and those plastic masks with elastic straps. None of your fancy outfits like what is sold now. None of this 'trick or treating' - you'd have to do something at each house, poem or song, joke etc

indigo twist

Simonigs1.0 wrote: »

A kid in my girlfriend's school legit dressed up as an Arab last Friday.

The detail in the costume was awesome, but the school were't too happy.

Definitely a first for me. Beats putting a sheet over your head and going as a ghost.

Errm ... your girlfriend's still in school?

Soft Falling Rain

Doing nic nacs but no egging of gafs, we drew the line there.

The Diabolical Monocle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPQz-81geTo

AllGunsBlazing

I don't remember Halloween being that big a deal in the 80's. Not so much with the costumes as it was just a night for acting the maggot.

Fat Christy

I forgot about the dodgy plastic masks!! :L

retro:electro

My costume consisted of a witches mask and a black bin bag and those witches fingers you'd get with the warts and long red nails. I'd never manage to have the full set of ten nails so I'd have like two on one hand and three on the other. One year my plastic witches mask ripped so I had to go to the local shop and buy a mask last minute but all that was left were plastic devil masks, about ten of them all hung up, nobody wanted to be a devil in our area. So my outfit one year was witches broom and bin bag and devils mask.
I remember too when we'd say "trick or treat" some houses would respond and say "trick please". We'd just look at them blankly and be like wha?? Jus gimme my sweets lady. Sweets and money only, no monkey nuts or other crap.

How Soon Is Now

Remember me ma made me a Teenage mutant ninja turtle costume one year when i was in school. Green face paint yellow shell green outfit the works!. She was great at making stuff every year actually wizard clown super mario all kinds !.

Wore it to school and remember chasing me friend up the street on the way home shouting cowabunga like a little dope!! :pac:.

One house in the corner of the cull de sac i lived on used to always put loads of horror movie posters up in the windows of there house and you got loads when you called. Her son would **** bottles of water over ya sometimes from the top window as well !

It was good when loads of kids lived there but soon as we where one the only familys left got bit ****e. Used to like going for a drive with me brother ma and da that night up to where me granny lived *Where they live now* and see all the bonfires on the way.

You never got anything like that really where i lived cause no fields so ya i never actually got to go to one!

Son Of A Vidic

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

I grew up being told face paints were for fancy people.I always got a plastic mask from the news agent, the kind that got drenched inside from condensation from your breath and that you occasionally had to pull up too get a proper breath. .

And as soon as you put the mask on, the elastic band thingy usually snapped . Thus fecking up you night, as you spent most of it trying to salvage the mask with a makeshift knot.

Uncle Ruckus

Well they wasn't Christmas decorations and Xmas ads a month before Halloween.

Fat Christy

I used to be sh*t terrified of the fireworks and walking along the country roads in the pitch black. There would be a heap of us together and my granaunt would sometimes walk with us telling us creepy stories about the old house on the bridge. :pac:

Temptamperu

Black bags and coal smudged onto the face was the order of the day when I was a kid.

Simonigs1.0

indigo twist wrote: »

Errm ... your girlfriend's still in school?

Hahaha, that doesn't look good after re-reading it :pac:

She's a teacher.

mags1962

Fook that trick or treat american shyte it was help the halloween party and give us as much stuff as we could carry and if you got some money or sweets you were delighted but usually ended up with fruit and nuts that you would be eating for weeks.
Bonfires and cider, the smell of sticks off you and your clothes and nacker drinking beside the bonfire, those were the days.

UCDVet

My best costume ever was Santa Clause.

It was great - a handful of drunk girls sat on my lap and I got to ask them if they were naughty or nice and if they wanted to see my package. I imagine that's what it's like for attractive guys all the time - but the suit turned my stomach fat into an asset instead of a turn-off and the beard covered my acne.

Pathetic? Yes.

But it was a great night.

diomed

Burning a cork to get the black for your face, and going door to door.
Trying to get a penny out of an apple floating in a chipped enamel basin with gravity taking the penny to the underside of the floating apple.
Trying to get a penny out of an apple suspended on a string, hands tied behind your back.
Eating home-made barm brack and hoping to get the sixpence.
In later years up in Dublin rich people had fireworks, and they set them off in the roundabout in the middle of the road so everyone enjoy them.

AllGunsBlazing

Temptamperu wrote: »

Black bags and coal smudged onto the face was the order of the day when I was a kid.

and what did you wear for Halloween?

McChubbin

I recall one year in the early 90s (around 1993/1994) one of my neighbours gave out full sized Mars Bars.
I'll never forget that glorious night. Sadly, she's since moved away...

Eileen Down

Can't remember for sure but it was the early eighties, a mask making company had a huge ad campaign leading up to Halloween. The deal was you wore the mask on Halloween night and watch a spectacular show on the tele that night. Well we were poor so my da only bought the one, a pumpkin if I remember rightly. Anyhow my spoilt little feck of a brother got to wear the mask to watch the show but the mad thing was when the spectacle started, snakes and stuff started pouring out of his eyes. My parents went all mental and screaming and stuff but I thought it was deadly.
True story

How Soon Is Now

McChubbin wrote: »

I recall one year in the early 90s (around 1993/1994) one of my neighbours gave out full sized Mars Bars.
I'll never forget that glorious night. Sadly, she's since moved away...

Everything since that moment has been downhill............:pac:

Aubrey loves Joe

We used to spend months collecting tyres and cutting trees. Almost every estate had one. It was great fun at the time. I don't think they allow bonfires here now.

How Soon Is Now

Eileen Down wrote: »

Can't remember for sure but it was the early eighties, a mask making company had a huge ad campaign leading up to Halloween. The deal was you wore the mask on Halloween night and watch a spectacular show on the tele that night. Well we were poor so my da only bought the one, a pumpkin if I remember rightly. Anyhow my spoilt little feck of a brother got to wear the mask to watch the show but the mad thing was when the spectacle started, snakes and stuff started pouring out of his eyes. My parents went all mental and screaming and stuff but I thought it was deadly.
True story

Halloween 3 : Season of the witch :P

Scarinae

They built a housing estate at the end of my road when I was 7 or 8, which we thought was brilliant because suddenly there were loads more houses to go to at Halloween. The best was a house that have out toffee apples, we used to go there first.

I was nearly always dressed as a witch, although I did dress as a pumpkin one year. Another year I was dressed as Princess Leia from Star Wars, I had a long white dress and did the hair and everything, but everywhere I went people kept asking me what I was supposed to be

AllGunsBlazing

I remember one year trying to carve a jack o'lantern from a turnip. Such a feckin job that was! Took forever.

Simonigs1.0

McChubbin wrote: »

I recall one year in the early 90s (around 1993/1994) one of my neighbours gave out full sized Mars Bars.
I'll never forget that glorious night. Sadly, she's since moved away...

Haha, there used to be an old giffer on our road who would give out full size bars too. That was awesome.

Mint Aero

I remember as a kid one year I was all excited about going as a vampire. So that day, as you do, prepare to go out....I realised that the whole get up would involve wearing make up :eek:

I may have been 7 but I was mans man and there was no fupping way I was putting that stuff on me. So I stayed in instead and a life long fascination with baking was born.

Miss Lizzie Jones

saintsaltynuts wrote: »

Monkey nuts,monkey nuts and more fookin' monkey nuts.

Over here it was all candy corn, suckers, and those hard toffees wrapped in orange/black wax paper that would take your fillings out.

I went out as a ghost for the longest time and always came home with a literal TON of candy in a pillowcase. Got to keep it next to my bed at night for well over a week. My parents never dipped into it as far as I could tell.

razorblunt

Getting too old for trick or treating and instead watching The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors.


They're dogs and they're playing poker!!!

How Soon Is Now

razorblunt wrote: »

Getting too old for trick or treating and instead watching The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors.


They're dogs and they're playing poker!!!

That is one of the things that reminds me of Halloween each year actually!.

--LOS--

Myself and my sister raked in the cash every halloween. My aunt started bringing us around and then it became a tradition, she took us every year. We started to take the car so we could take in more houses (this being the country). She'd wear a mask herself but then she'd park at a distance, disappear into the bushes and leave us off, then on to the next road. One of us would have a big basket for the sweets, and one a mug with some coins in it already to make a rattle while we sang and played tin whistle badly Yes she was very clever like that! We'd even always go into the local thatched pub for a collection. We could make about £40, a lot for the time at least. It was fantastic though, I'd say she got every bit as much fun out of it as us, she's a big kid really, when we started to be too cool for trick or treating, she'd still be forever trying to get us to go. At the time we were pretty much the only kids in the area so most people knew us, one particular neighbour always had 2 bags with sweets, a token mandarin and a pound coin in each ready for us, she'd just always wait for us to do our performance and go and get it

shuffles88

Back in the era of the black sack costume I got the best costume of all, I was a werewolf. I had managed to wear my parents down and they bought me a make up effects kit which consisted of a wad of hair, brown face paints and a tube of Latex glue. I made £15 trick or treating that Halloween. People who were giving out monkey nuts actually went and got their purses to give me money :cool:.

shuffles88

razorblunt wrote: »

Getting too old for trick or treating and instead watching The Simpsons Treehouse of Horrors.


They're dogs and they're playing poker!!!

Arrr! This chair be high, says I T'was the first episode of The Simpsons I ever saw

my teapot is orange

Lots of make and do. Homemade Halloween costumes and decorations. Then when we and the whole house looked ridiculous enough, we just played games for the rest of the night.

xzanti

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

.I always got a plastic mask from the news agent, the kind that got drenched inside from condensation from your breath and that you occasionally had to pull up too get a proper breath.

don't forget the little slit for the mouth where you'd try to stick your tongue through and it'd get stuck

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Paper witches hats were always de rigueur.

Those black ones with the little paper tabs cut around the base of them and a piece of white elastic to hold it around your chin.. memories

seamusk84

Used to build a huge bonfire with all the other kids in the estate and then try and ensure the kids from the rival estate didn't light it before halloween. They got us a few times and I remember one year where we had to do a complete rebuild on the 31st, the whole estate chipped in.

Also used to be mad into fireworks and would head into town and hit Moore street to buy black cats and screamers.

As for trick or treating, everyone dressed up and the estate used to come alive with us all at 6pm.

I think kids really miss out on all that fun these days. Safety gone mad.

danoriordan1402

Barmbrack with plastic rings/Sticks and cloth inside to potentially choke on, masks that were probably made of toxic plastics not to mention sending you out into dark streets with black bags over you - those were the days

kylith

Whatever happened to kids making their own costumes? I used to love artfully cutting the end of my bin liner witch's costume.

liz lemoncello

Miss Lizzie Jones wrote: »

Over here it was all candy corn, suckers, and those hard toffees wrapped in orange/black wax paper that would take your fillings out.

Molasses kisses? Did you also get mini bags of chips (crisps)?

One year I made my own clown costume from an old pair of curtains. I sewed it by hand and didn't really know what I was doing. (I was ten years, I think). The pants came apart and just fell off me. I was quite embarrassed and ran home without telling my friend why.