The Halloween Grinch.

While doing my usual blog-rounds this week, I've once again found myself completely enthralled listening to spooky stories and special events. We don't celebrate Halloween in Australia, so it's always been a bit of a fascination of mine. I'm living vicariously through your blog entries on the subject, so keep 'em coming!

As much as I love the idea of having a costume party and indulging in horror movies and random thrills, it all seems so bizarre. Perhaps one day I'll throw my own Halloween party, and dress up in a terribly skanky costume... or not. We shall see.

Are you wondering why I've deemed myself the Halloween Grinch? Well, it all comes back to the "We don't celebrate that holiday here" theme, and it revolves about trick-or-treating. Seeing all of the overseas kidlets (and their parents!) dressed up in costumes and heading out for an afternoon of neighbourhood-walking fun is adorable. Having it happen here though? Not so cute.

(Let me just say before I begin, that I am not stereotyping all Australians as mean and nasty Halloween-haters. I'm just speaking for myself. And if I were living in America, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'd be sitting at my door with a bucket full of sugary goodness ready to give out.)

In my suburb, we've gradually started seeing more and more kids attempt to trick-or-treat. I say attempted, because they honestly have made no effort to look the part. Most have simply heard about the ritual of door knocking for free lollies, and have decided to try it themselves. Opening up the front door to see kids I don't know standing in school uniforms and asking for food? It annoys me.

Speaking of opening the door - my next gripe is the doorbell. Having the doorbell rang once is fair enough. Heck, that's what it's there for. But having it rang continuously for five minutes straight? Not on. Some kids have gone as far as walking in our garden to look through the front windows of the house, or opening up the screen door to look inside. Once again, totally uncalled for.

I suppose in all fairness, if parents are supervising the trick-or-treating, it isn't so bad. Most parents here probably realise that not everyone bothers with Halloween, and will expect some people to be uninterested in the whole thing. These are the parents that trail around with their kids, watching them go from house to house. The scary part is when kids are wandering around the streets completely unsupervised. There is no way in the world I would ever let a small child (we're talking as little as five!) go door-knocking without me present. But you'd be surprised, it happens. And it is very worrying.

Also, kids? We don't call it candy. We've never called it candy. It's chocolates or lollies, alright? And if I had chocolates or lollies at this particular time of the month, I'd be feeding them to myself and not to you. No offence. I'm just hormonal.

So there you have it; my reasons for being wary of trick-or-treaters. I am a Grinch. Honestly though, because it's not a cultural thing to do here, it worries me. There are lots of sick and twisted people around who prey on young kids, and having unsupervised children knocking on stranger's doors is ridiculously dangerous.

I swear I'm not an evil Halloween hater though; I'll no doubt scare the pants off myself watching some sort of spooky movie just to get in the spirit of things. And to further prove my point, let's indulge in a little movie montage; Happy Halloween!