I've never like trick-or-treating. As far as I am concerned it is an imported American habit (much like those ghastly school "proms" that seem to have sprung up every summer complete with screaming girls hanging out of limo windows) with little to recommend it. No doubt it has been imported through endless teen movies, although there doesn't seem to be the full follow-through.
My recollection for Halloween is toffee apples, costumes, carving pumpkins (or in our family swedes because they were much cheaper), parties and ducking for apples - what was wrong with that? OK, I can't really take offence at a few tots dressing up and being escorted round knocking on doors in the hope of a handful of sweets. But more usually it's a gang of teenagers demanding money with menaces, the "tricks" being thinly disguised vandalism and any offer of sweets as treats being turned down with a sneer.
So thank God for Siberia, or more particularly Siberian winds, because that seems to have done the trick and I've not been treated to any unwelcome visitors tonight.
Update: Oh Dear.
