Sunday 31 October 2010

Well, I'll be hallowed!

(St Stephens Newtown churchyard this morning)

Halloween; for me another one of those cultural oddities seen only in American movies and not, in my experience, practised in Australia.

But times are changing.
(Woollahra)

A few neighbour's homes have been decorated with faux cobwebs and the like presumably showing themselves receptive to a 'trick or treat'.

But all of this is a mystery to me. Who 'tricks or treats' whom; the one knocking on the door or the one who answers the knock? And what are the responses? I know that lollies ('candy' for North American readers) are a response to 'treat' but what is the response to 'trick'?

I need to know in case this 'treat', seen wandering through the churchyard this morning, should knock on my door.
(Trick or treat?)

I gather all types of costume are acceptable on this day.
(Redfern)

And it looks like cobwebs are not essential decoration either.
Meanwhile back at the churchyard it seems the artists have been busy at night.

5 comments:

  1. If memory serves, the knocker yells "trick or treat" to whomever answers the door. If no treat is forthcoming, the knocker perpetrates a "trick" on the home of the ungenerous lout.

    Teaching children extortion and bad manners. It's the American way!

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  2. What, pray tell, were you doing in the Newtown marble orchard on a Sunday morning? Trick as in trick and treat is just too dangerous to say anything about.

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  3. Ahh Andrew - I suspect the answer you want to see is that I was cruising but actually I had already decided to do a post about Halloween and as I was walking past the cemetery on my way to the movies at the Dendy I decided to stop and and get myself a photo to illustrate that post.

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  4. The first thing I thought about when I saw your Newtown photo was my visit there last year to look for skinks in the cemetery for research (and the stone I accidentally broke when I turned it over).

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