What camp were you in on Tuesday night?
Did you stock up on sweets, don a costume, get the kids dolled up and embrace Halloween wholeheartedly?
Or did you ignore the intermittent chaps at the door, switch off all the lights and pretend you weren’t home?
It seems to me that the majority of Fifers might well have been in the latter category and that’s a real shame.
I get the fact that some people can’t stand Halloween and would top short of branding them killjoys. There is a certain hypocrisy to it — we spend all year telling children not to take sweets from strangers and then send them round the doors to do just that.
Younger children accompanied by adults are fine, but older youths can effectively terrorise householders by taking the “trick or treating” too far and that is when the line must be drawn.
But having said all that, traditions like going out guising are in danger of disappearing for the wrong reasons.
People should not live in fear of Halloween just because some cannot have fun responsibly.
There is a real lack of community spirit and togetherness these days. People don’t tend to know their neighbours as much as they used to and it’s having a negative effect on society.
That’s why I was encouraged to see some communities across Fife take an organised, safe and sensible approach to Halloween.
People in one housing estate I visited had asked those willing to participate to put special signs up outside their homes to give children and their parents an easily-recognisable signal they were up for greeting guisers.
Those who preferred not to be bothered did not stick a sign up and they weren’t pestered. It meant the children and their family and friends could approach the right homes and not meet with less enthusiastic householders.
Satisfaction was guaranteed for all and it’s approach I’d love to see taken in many other areas next year.
