Halloween In Australia
Image by oragneacid
We are having a dilemma in our house at the moment. On October 31st it is Halloween. According to Wikipedia,
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain…… The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, into which bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.
Irish immigrants apparently brought parts of this tradition with them to North America in the 19th Century, where Halloween is still celebrated. But we are in Australia and in the part where we live, Halloween has never really been celebrated or so I thought.
We moved from inner city Melbourne to the eastern suburbs nearly four years ago. I will always remember being completely dumbfounded the first October 31st we were here and I had children come to my door trick or treating. As this was completely unexpected I quickly went through the cupboards to find something to give them.
In subsequent years I have gone out and bought treats to give the children that come to the door, which would not probably amount to more than 15 children. To be honest I haven’t really wanted to do this, but don’t like the idea of being thought of the “stingy lady” of the street.
My behaviour with the treats has however opened up a can of worms. The local traders of a nearby shopping strip have distributed fliers via the children’s school, inviting them to participate in trick or treating on Halloween.
This has occurred for the last couple of years and I have some how gotten away with a simple “no” to the request to go with “all the other children”. This year though my nearly 10 year old has mounted quite a battle. It is not just the “everyone else” is doing it line, he had pointed out my participation in previous Halloweens by supplying treats to children and thinks that it is hypocritical of me not to allow them to go.
I have to admit that I see his point, but I just don’t see the need for the children to participate in something that they have no connection to and don’t really understand. My husband thinks that I am fighting the tide on this one. I am stalling for more time and have told the children to do some research and come back and see me with an explanation of what the point of Halloween is, before I make my final decision.
What do you think? Is Halloween now a celebrated tradition in Australia? Should I stop taking it all so seriously and just let the kids go trick or treating? What happens in your neck of the woods?
Personally I really like Halloween. I’m not a follower of Christian religion, so the regular religious holidays that other Australians celebrate don’t really interest me, although we treat Christmas as the pagan feast it was originally and that’s fun too.
Personally, I’d much rather celebrate a day with some world history behind it – we are, after all, a multi-cultural society – than something that has been manufactured by the retail industry like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s/Father’s Day.
I don’t like the “trick or treating” Disney-fied nonsense of Halloween but some of the original tradition of the date was brought to Oz with immigrants in the 1800’s.
An amusing sidenote – Oz was celebrating Halloween before several states of USA ever contemplated it.
One of the benefits of living in the middle of nowhere is I’ve never really had to cross this bridge. While I don’t mind the idea of kids getting dressed up and going door knocking (with an adult of course) per se, I REALLY hate the concept of “trick or treat”. Yeah, let’s encourage our kids to “blackmail” people into giving them lollies. “Give me a lolly or I’ll do something mean to you”. That side of it I don’t like AT ALL. I know that’s not how most people actually “do” the whole door knocking thing (by throwing eggs or whatever at people that don’t give them lollies) but I do WISH we could somehow rename all that so that the association with “trick or treat” is abolished.
I occasionally have kids come to the door. I always buy a packet of freddo’s to have on standby.
And my kids are young enough to not know about it – although they are requesting to go to the daycare party tomorrow afternoon – as ghost mermaids. Erm, anyway. I wouldn’t do the whole trick or treating thing with them, but celebrate it in other ways. Maybe make them watch some Buffy episodes or something if they wanted to celebrate it LOL
I think kids who want to celebrate Halloween are being allowed to watch too many American TV shows.
When I have kids, I’ll be ensuring they don’t celebrate this tradition that’s most definitely non-Australian. Call me traditional, but the American influence on the world is too far reaching as is. It gets me when people misspell words like ‘realise’ with a ‘z’, or even pronounce ‘zed’ as ‘zee’.
Let’s hold onto being Australian. I’m half-American myself, but being born in Australia, I couldn’t think of anything worse than changing my Aussie heritage.
It wasn’t till I lived in Melbourne that I even came across Halloween being celebrated in Australia. I always told the children that came to our door that we don’t celebrate it and they went away. Our kids never participated – although they had been taught about it at school (why is this being taught in Australian schools I have to wonder?).
Now our kids are grown the street no longer has young children in it we never see anyone at the door again and I’m quite happy about it.
I find the whole embracing Halloween (by which I mean the ‘disney’ American celebration – thank you Jayne that sums that up nicely) to be as bad as the way Australian’s are getting swept up in the US elections.
It certainly interesting and all but if I see another Obama shirt in Brisbane I’ll… I’ll probably just raise an eyebrow and mutter something under my breath.
I just find the whole thing a little disappointing I guess is the word I’ll use. I watch a lot of American TV but I’m always aware that I’m looking in from the outside. Halloween certainly isn’t being celebrated because of its origins.
On the flip side though we embrace Valentine’s Day and maybe the two aren’t so different?
I will not be celebrating Thanksgiving – the line has to be drawn somewhere!!
I always think it is interesting that Australia is always being touted as being a “multicultural country” up until there is actually an opportunity to embrace traditions from around the world. Then somehow the wheels fall off the notion entirely.
I also find it disappointing that for people who exist so predominantly on the internet – the world wide web – so many of us have such a limited geographically entrenched idea of the world. What is so offensive about taking an interest in the world outside your immediate borders? What is so offensive about taking an interest in the US presidential elections for example? The outcome will have implications for all of us. Of course as Australians we cannot vote, but when did that stop us from acknowledging things in candidates that resonate with us personally?
This is a hyperconnected world now. We share ideas and data from all around the world in an instant. There is really no way to justify burying your head in the cultural sands and hoping anyone who doesn’t do or believe what you do in your street doesn’t exist. Nor should you want to! Stop thinking of it as ‘us’ and ‘them’ and realise there’s only us. We are joined together by our humanity. Think about it.
It’s been a hot topic in my rural village this weekend, ‘cos somehow quite a few of us found ourselves roaming the streets behind our “candy”-seeking offspring… There is no doubt that they are strongly influenced in this by American culture…even my wee man, who watches very little commercial TV (and who had no idea, when we set out, that “candy” is the same as “lollies”.).
The conclusion that I reached, and most I spoke to agreed, is that I like the aspects of imagination and community contained in the celebration. The kids enjoyed planning their costumes, and getting dressed up to go outside on public display, and then we all trouped around knocking on doors and chatting and laughing and connecting with our neighbours. Some of the locals really get into the spirit of the occasion, and we got a tour of a fairy garden by the Wicked Witch of the West at one home…!? She was scary and hilarious at the same time, and my little man loved it.
So we started talking about ways to make it better for the kids next year, get those that want to more involved, and those that don’t can clearly opt out. Maybe a kid’s party or concert at the end of the trick or treating, too…an opportunity to dance off some of that sugar, and once again connect as a community.
But I also draw the line at Thanksgiving…
I am an American and although Thanksgiving is specific to our culture, it is really one of the nicest holidays we have. It celebrate a time to be with familiy and friends and reflect on all the things we are thankful for but take for granted. I love it, there is no commercialization except to buy a turkey from the food store. You don’t have to celbrate on the American hoiday, make up your own in your family it really is a nice relaxed lovely day.
I was wondering what is the best time of year to plan a trip to OZ?
@ John – I am all about the embracing of cultures around the world, but not for one to feature so predominantly, we don’t have the same amount of interest in other countries elections, in fact I’m trying to remember another foreign election that has gotten so much attention through our media.
I not expecting ‘Brown’ t-shirts come the next British elections, or the same lead up and anticipation regarding the New Zealand elections. It’s odd how all hyper connected roads lead purely to the US then. Since we live in the Asian Pacific region I would have thought the politics of our neighbours would be of at least some interest?
You ask what’s so offensive then I guess what I’m saying is that the offensive part is the fact that we don’t act ‘multicultural’ and we put an awful lot of attention and emulation into the ‘US’ way of life. Yet many of us have little understanding of our neighbours and the countries of origin that make up huge cross sections of our multicultural society.
This is coming from someone who loves American comic books, science fiction and of course movies, I certainly don’t see myself rejecting the shining light of America nor putting my head in the sand, I have been following the election like everyone else however I’m also not wearing Obama t-shirts and discussing who I’m going to vote for like some Australians have. Perspective.
Going back to the topic at hand though is Halloween in Australia and for the majority of people celebrating it they are doing so purely off the superficial replication of the American model of Halloween. Someone however like goatlady will be looking at the day for as she put it the ‘world history’ behind it. This I’m all for and I wish Australia would also consider more thought into other culture’s significant days not just the glossy commercial ones (there’s still plenty of room for them too though).
I left this comment over at John’s blog which actually sums up my thoughts probably better than my previous comment
The main theme of my thoughts are that US culture has a disproportionate representation within Australian society and that we don’t embrace our truly multiculturalism by placing attention as heavily on non-US international affairs. We rarely feature more than passing mentions on elections elsewhere yet the American elections feature daily (generally directly from the source giving an impression of first hand American point of view).
That’s what my concerns are, not in the ‘value’ of embracing American culture of which I’m sure there is much value in (as I say confirmed pop culture addict – much of it stemming from the US) but in the overwhelming nature of our media’s attention of which the US version of Halloween is an example. It doesn’t happen vice versa to be sure.
So in my case I probably would prefer not to be labelled a racist or anti American because I find the idea that there is such a heavy interest in American affairs over the rest of the world.
It is just unAustralian, isn’t it?
I think the grumps banging on about American culture need to grow up. That knee jerk reaction was tired 10 years ago and frankly I think it is just a cover for general mean spiritedness. I can just hear these same people lecturing kids on how Santa is a tool of the coca cola company. Kids love Halloween and dressing up. Whingers need to think how they can celebrate it in a more Australian way, if they have time before grumbling about christmas comes up.
lmao @The Worst of Perth: you rock \m/
As someone who begged their parents to let me trick or treat, I understand your kids… While I do think it’s more a case of Australia being Americani’z'ed, I also think people tend to think too much in terms of the religious. Samhain was a celebration of the end of the harvest. It’s only become a ‘pagan’ ritual because of the development of other religious beliefs (not being religious or Christian myself, perhaps I see it differently to others). I think most kids see Halloween as just an opportunity to dress up, eat junk food and have fun. Parties are rare, even in a child’s life, so the excuse to have fun and just be kids for a while is oh so tempting. That’s how I saw it as a kid anyway; it wasn’t about a holiday… we didn’t even know what Halloween was. It was just about dressing up and being silly.
On a side note, we enjoyed Purim – a Jewish holiday where you get to dress up – just as much and for the same reasons.
Maybe we need less Halloweens and more dress up parties