Well it’s over for another twelve months. It is not as dramatic as it sounds, but I hate Halloween. I didn’t used to. It was great when I was a child. We used to go to a neighbour’s house and have a party. We would get dressed up and play games for a couple of hours. Eat party food and generally have fun.

But it has all changed! We now have imported from America Trick or Treat. In Britain, this basically involves kids dressing up in cheap, dangerous fancy dress costumes (usually imported from Chinese sweat-shops) going round the streets knocking doors and asking for sweets. This is now accompanied by the phrase “Trick or Treat. Smell my feet…..” which then trails off into nothing as the kid has not bothered to learn the rest of the rhyme.

Now whilst this is all seen as harmless fun, it has quite serious undertones. For some kids, it teaches that it is okay to make demands with threats. How far is it from “Give me some sweets or I’ll play a trick on you” to “Give me your wallet or I’ll hit you with this brick”. It is that that worries me when I see these kids out there having so called ‘a bit of fun.’

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Now the other thing Halloween gives, is the right for everyone to get into the ‘Christmas Spirit’. Christmas lights can now be officially turned on. You’ll start to hear ‘Christmassy’ songs on the radio. Prices will start to rise as stock become apparently shorter. Christmas stuff will now start to take a more prominent place in the shops. I could go on …. and on …. and on …. and I have not even mentioned the ubiquitous Christmas Present Lists.

Rants are now over. I shall now sit back and relax with my favourite seasonal novel which is ?????