Q&A 24: Halloween (Patreon)

Micah C R Guy asks:

Simple question: how are you preparing for Halloween and are there arcane rituals involved? Thanks very much.

When I was growing up in the 1980s, Halloween wasn't much of a thing in the UK. There was trick or treat, yes, but it was slightly more menacing as it was still bound up in the old tradition of Mischief Night (November 4th in the north) which now seems to have vanished. My first school used to do a combined Halloween/Bonfire Night thing with a spooky costume parade on Bonfire Night, which further confused me, to the extent that I don't even really know what date Halloween is and will often think it's on November 5th, because I consider bonfires more "Octobery".

When I lived in Manchester, often on Halloween a teenager in a fright mask would knock on your door at about 9pm and ask for money. Yes. The worst time this ever happened was in 2002 or 2003, when someone in what I can only describe as a full body faceless wookiee costume knocked on the door at around 10. Now usually I would just not answer the door at all, but i had friends staying, we were playing Scrabble, and we had probably had some glasses of wine so I felt a little safer.

The faceless hairy entity just stood there, wordlessly, with no entreats for cash, sweets, or anything else. After what felt like five minutes (but may have been 30 seconds) staring into that expressionless fizog I closed the door and locked it, returning to the game with a chill in my bones.

When I was a student in the nineties, I think Halloween parties with costumes "and that" were a thing, but I really hate dressing up for costume parties. I feel very vulnerable, as if my soul has been stolen until I can put my own clothes back again and reclaim my identity. It's hard to explain, because I love puppets, which are even more enveloping of a costume.

Halloween here is now so harmonised with the American experience that if you don't deck out your house in Costco spider webs and pumpkins, kids won't knock. And if they do, they're seven littlies with their chaperone. I consider this the dagger of cultural imperialism thrust once more into our nation's minced beef heart and choose not to participate at all. I'm 48 years old. My war is over. Halloween's for teenage faceless hairy entities who come in the night.