Halloween wars: An American invasion or neighbourhood nirvana?
First up, a confession. I'm married to a Canadian. When I tied the knot I made a promise that if he was going to sacrifice snowy Christmases in the Great White North, then I'd be willing to take on some of his traditions in our sunny climes Down Under. One of the non-negotiables was Halloween.
I'm a first generation Australian with parents hailing from Northern England where tradition dictates at around the same time of year, everyone sets fire to an effigy of Guy Fawkes - the Catholic in charge of the gunpowder plot to blow up the houses of Parliament - and eats sticky toffee apples.
When my grandparents moved here with my father from Manchester in the 1950s as 'ten pound poms' they used to run the community Guy Fawkes night bonfire in Altona, an industrial beachside town currently undergoing fast gentrification in Melbourne's western suburbs. A place where instagrammer @tedsthetics said: "If Chernobyl and Baywatch had a baby it would be Altona."
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Neighbours dropped off all manner of things to be burnt on Grandad's Guy Fawkes pile including mattresses, old tyres and other things guaranteed to create noxious fumes. On top of this pile was a spooky wooden man representing Britain's most famous Catholic, who the local kids gruesomely burnt at the stake. All the while whooping and hollering, and letting off fireworks, while the parents looked on with rosy glows, sweating through hot November nights.
What I'm getting at is the fact that Aussies have been reappropriating other culture's macabre traditions for generations.
So when my Dad grumply tells me off for "Americanising the grandkids" with trick-or-treating taken from their Vancouverite Dad, I tell him to put his toffee apple where the sun don't shine. Our kids have as much chance of becoming Americanised as Canada does of becoming the 51st state.
How does this apply to property you may ask? Simple. Halloween is all about celebrating the neighbourhood and the places we live. While some suggest it's agnostic, we know it has strong roots in pagan mythology, but it definitely doesn't involve burning religious effigies at the stake.
The lovely thing about Halloween is the way communities come together. There's nothing sweeter than seeing a pack of primary school kids dressed up as witches, bundling down neighbourhood streets, plastic pumpkins held aloft with the promise of twilight sugar highs.
Orange balloons hang outside of street fences, indicating participation in the night's events so kids know it's ok to press the door bell and chant "trick or treat, trick or treat, give me something good to eat."
Sometimes neighbours go too far with their decorations for the littlies. I've seen a teenager running down the street dressed as Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, complete with revving toy chainsaw. I was bloody terrified and my three-year-old was freaked out - and not in a good way. The other teenagers loved it, so I guess there was something for everyone.
But on the whole, the twilight activities bring out the best in our community as grannies give out lollies, street sausage sizzles beckon, shops hang spooky decorations and neighbours try to outdo each other with frontyard creative takes on Hollywood horror classics.
Facebook groups spring up each year where, like guides to Christmas lights, locals can pin their Halloween House on Google maps to show their participation. I felt quite excited to be accepted into my local community facebook group this year and see all the effort my fellow neighbours were putting into their decorations.
Real estate agencies have been big supporters of Halloween events. Every year Ray White Highton, near Geelong holds a community Halloween party cutely called 'Ray Fright'.
They put on free face-painting, trick-or-treating and a costume contest. It's an event that sits proudly on the community calendar and local kids love it.
Caitlin Murrell, marketing manager of Ray White Highton said, "This is the first one we've done, and we are doing it as we want to be involved in what the people in the community of Highton love, it's a huge deal in the area.
"We're in a busy pocket in the village and we wanted people to come and have a good time, we wanted to nurture the community.
"I'm a local and we love it, my husband loves it. We love seeing the kids getting dressed up. It's wholesome and fun."
Wholesome is the key word here.
So before you write off Halloween as an Americanised, sugar-fuelled consumer fest, take a moment to think about what it actually brings.
It gets neighbours talking, kids and the elderly connecting, and families out appreciating the spring blooms and the front gardens we so often rush past on the daily commute.
Isn't that sense of community and connection exactly why we love where we live?
Originally published as Halloween wars: An American invasion or neighbourhood nirvana?
