Colm O'Regan: Here’s how to escape the ‘creeping Americanisation’ of Halloween 

Ah leave the pumpkins alone. You see a lot of snippiness this time of year about the ‘creeping Americanisation’ of Halloween. Yes, there is a lot more plasticky stuff bought on Ali Express than ‘our day’. Yes, there will be five-year-olds wearing bloodstained Squid Game tracksuits when all we had growing up was Quinnsworth bags and our own bloodstains. And yes the barmbrack rings are kept outside the barm bracks for insurance reasons. Ah, that wasn’t like the old barmbrack. When you broke your tooth on a ring that told you you’d get married in a year, choked on a cloth that told you you’d be a nun and a matchstick ripping your gum foretold an unhappy marriage. Isn’t that great oul banter for the kiddies hah? Shur they might as well learn about child bridery and bad spouses early.

And pumpkins are fine. I don’t buy this “You do know that in Ireland we started Halloween and we used to carve turnips?” Listen, there was no one going on about carving turnips until they started seeing pumpkins for tuppence halfpenny in Lidl. No one carved turnips in my day. When you’ve had turnip and spud for most days between September and March, there’s absolutely no recreational interest in the bollox. It’d be like bringing your Busy At Maths to the seaside. 

That’s the thing about the fetishization of a shite time. It’s rarely done by people who actually experienced the shite time when they didn’t have a choice.

I don’t mind how early it starts either. What does a season even mean anymore now that we’ve been locked down for 18 moons and you’re wearing four different jackets in the one day trying to gauge the October sultriness correctly?

Children saying trick or treat doesn’t bother me. I’ll even -and this is particularly big of me- allow a child at the door to ask for candy, provided they demonstrate knowledge of its etymology -that it comes from the Sanskrit khanda and that the word first entered the English language in the 13th century and that prior to the Industrial Revolution it was a form of medicine. If I get any sense they’re saying Candy because they heard a Youtube star say it in a billion-view video about unboxing a Paw patrol Dog-Segway, they will be politely but firmly escorted off the premises.

But speaking of trick or treaters, here’s a thing you can do to escape the ‘creeping Americanisation’. Instead of children dressing up as Disney characters, why not make these things truly contemporary and scary: here are some suggestions:

• A child-landlord saying he needs to do up the house for his son but also another child getting out of an Audi in a navy pin striped suit and carrying an A4 folder with your house listed for 400K.
• Someone who looks perfectly normal and nice but when you open the door they shout at you that you’re a sheeple and tell you to do your own research.
• With tear-stained make up and a sign saying Wine O’Clock, the child keeps hinting that they know who their true friends are, not THAT OTHER TRAMP and they don’t go away until you give them attention. But still won’t tell you what’s wrong.
• A child handing out free online bets and saying they want you to gamble responsibly while breaking their hole laughing because they don’t mean a word of it.

They could start saying a meaningful poem they’ve written or they could be announcing a plan to reopen nightclubs or they are going to suggest how you can live more sustainably such as choosing the hybrid 6-litre Humvee they have. The options are endless. Happy mid-Autumn holiday season greetings!