Halloween in the UK

Since there is all this rubbish talks about Christmas  it's got me more paniced about Halloween...   Summer is nearing over and kids are back in school soon enough...I've got a few parties (both kiddie and adult) to go to and don't have ideas on costumes...Jess wants to go as Nightmare Sally but I haven't an idea what to do for My costume and Phil's

anyone celebrate Halloween?? How ?? Any costume makers in this forum...I absolutely love making costumes which is my hobby...I was accepted to go to RADA to be a costume designer but thought it was too risky to completely change my career path.

My dad loves Halloween used convert the house into a haunted house so I guess it's rubbed off on me 

No.  I HATE costumes and dress up.  Then you're stuck w/a bunch of useless junk you have no use for and I can't abide clutter. 

Thankfully, no one trick or treats around here. 

Would rather celebrate it as Samhain in a more traditional fashion.

hmmm...I make bucks on the costumes the following year so I can't complain

I've just always hated costumes and dress up.  If I get invited to a costume party, I don't go.  Just can't be arsed.  Then again, I can hardly thread a needle, either. 

It's another tradition I was glad they weren't into when I got here - like 'showers' for babies and weddings. 

But there are some amazing Samhain festivals up here.

*shudder* don't mention showers I gag at those ...going "oooh" and "ahh" at a bib and then when people leave bitchy talks about how they can't see such and such being a good mom ...couldn't take those from the ones I've been. 

I would however trade Halloween trick or treating for "hen nights" ... if I had the choice

I like pumpkin carving and such ...plus scarying the crap out of the annoying kids that kept kicking the fence the entire year...I think that's why my dad got such pleasure out of it...

Now carving pumpkins is cool.  So are candles.  And telling ghost stories.  Oh, yes, MUST tell ghost stories.

As a kid it was always El dia de los muertos, and no night was complete w/o the tale of La Llorona.

Halloween is my FAVORITE holiday!!!

I have bought back pumkpin carving kits from the states......if anyone wants copies of them I have a copy machine at work...I will copy them for you....

I miss having all my decorations I used to have in the states.........I would have my house decorated from October 1st all thru the month........I miss that bit...
 

Like I mentioned before, we are thinking about having a party for the boys this year. I dont like them trick or treating here. It will be my first Halloween party here. I LOVE to dress up! 

I love Halloween.

When I was in England, I did various things over the years from kid parties, to an adult pumpking carving over home made pizza evening, to a school party to an elaborate adult party.

I decorated my house there for Halloween.  The locals in the village were horrified at first, but they got used to me and when we were moving, so many people commented "It won't be the same on Halloween."

I love costumes and sewing, and in fact, just finished up for the evening on a Halloween quilt. It will be completed tomorrow.

Most of the costumes that I make are from patterns, which I buy on sale.  If you keep a sharp eye on your local fabric/sewing shops, most will honour the manufacturer's sales a couple of times a year.  So you should be able to pick up McCalls, Simplicity and Butterick patterns for around £4-5.  Failing that, just write down the pattern number and have somebody in the US ship them to you.  Thankfully, postage is cheap.

This year, my good friend that I went to school with since kindergarten, bought a house out near me and she is going to have a Halloween house warming. 

My husband is going to be Jack-the-Ripper and I'm going to be a prostitute.  I finished his costume a long time ago, but need to get cracking on mine.

Halloween has to be my fav time of the year, the only time you can legally scare the heck out of the kids!!!!!! 

I use to get dressed up along with the kids before hubby moved over from the US but now we deffinatley go further. The complete house is decorated from haunted forests in the entrance to dead bodies hanging out the upstairs windows.
Our neighbours think we're crazy but love it all the same.
My sister-in-law sends us a 'halloween care package' every year so we can stock up on all those creepy decorations we cant get in the UK.

Last year we ended up having trick or treaters run away from the house in fright!!!! It was great, who knows what will happen this year!

I love Halloween!!  I have been thinking about having a Halloween party, such good fun.

Let us know what you and Phil decide to dress as, Alicia! I usually like topical costumes, but I can't come up with anything off the top of my head right now. I once went as the falling of the Berlin Wall -- I painted an old fridge box to look like a wall, wrapped barbed wire around it and added some German graffiti (i.e., "Adolf loves Eva"). Another year we had a theme of dressing as Elvis songs. I went as Blue Christmas -- with a battery pack down my trousers so my blue lights actually worked! Another year I was Patty Hearst, but I wasn't sure if people would get it, so I added a name tag saying, "Hello! My name is Tania!"

Check the newspapers, Alicia and see who's in the news lately. A good pairing. Maybe Charles and Camilla? Or Jude Law and the nanny?? (funnier if you're Jude and Phil is the nanny, obviously)

Actually, a naked Jude Law (the famous small willie pics!) wouldn't be a bad idea. A friend of mine once went as a flasher to great raves. She used panty hose to "fashion" a penis and then attached it to her front bits. Heh heh.

I don't decorate the outside of the house other than with pumpkins carved as my husband has a stroke thinking that people might get upset Considering the number of folks that tacked "UKIP" in their front lawns....that's more upsetting...

I help out at my daughter's school by carving a bunch of pumpkins which you can find some nice gifs on google or make your own using photoshop this is my favorite site for pumpkin carving images http://www.zombiepumpkins.com/

We've had a few ideas but haven't settled on what yet. At first I was going to dress up as a fox hunter (that is a fox dressed in armour) and Phil as a country alliance mauled by his dogs but then thought it was too controversial...so now it's possibly a deceased knife thrower's assistant and a magician that's pulled one too many bunnies out of his hat...

No.  I HATE costumes and dress up.  Then you're stuck w/a bunch of useless junk you have no use for and I can't abide clutter. 

Thank you for saying that. I could have written those very words, but I was afraid to be the first, 'cause I know most Americans are very attached to Halloween. I've always hated it, to be honest.... Though I do get a little kick from seeing cute, tiny kids trick-or-treating and I always have candy just in case, but that's as far as I go....

Thank you for saying that. I could have written those very words, but I was afraid to be the first, 'cause I know most Americans are very attached to Halloween. I've always hated it, to be honest.... Though I do get a little kick from seeing cute, tiny kids trick-or-treating and I always have candy just in case, but that's as far as I go....

But dressing up isn't just for Halloween! In the US, some friends and I always had a costume party for New Year's! Is it the dressing up you don't like, Anne, or the whole Halloween thing?