IT is difficult to defend the indefensible but that has to be my mission today.
I don't like Halloween and never have.
My reasons: It is unnecessary, it gets out of hand and while you can appreciate small children getting excited about dressing up and being given treats, it is an entirely different matter when teenage boys arrive at your house a week before the event with no attempt at costumes to ask you 'Trick or Treat'.
Then there is the pumpkin - the Jack o' Lantern. I love pumpkin. I love pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin or boiled and mashed pumpkin.
In this country, or at least in this part of the world, you can only get pumpkin at Halloween and I am assured by the Internet - that font of the entire knowledge of the entire world - that Halloween pumpkins are not for eating.
Here is the exact wording I found: "Around 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin ends up in the bin after October 31", research found. "Pumpkins that are sold around Halloween are edible but they don’t taste as good as the ones that are grown for eating"
So why am I defending Halloween?
Because, looking for reasons to back my argument against the festival, I came across a website giving 13 or so reasons why not to have it.
Some of them were so ridiculous I feel I have to leap to Halloween's defence.
Children are more likely to die at Halloween, the list states - and there are many ways of death.
They could be run over in the street because they are over excited and not wearing reflective costumes.
Children could fall over or get poked in the eye.
They could develop a fear of demons, which seems like quite a sensible fear to me.
They could develop an allergy to face paint or over indulge in sweets.
And that is not all. They could end up killing a family pet by feeding it sweets that are poison to them.
There is one fear that I endorse and that is the fear of Halloween costumes going up in flames because some are inflammable.
I have children in their late 40s and early 50s.
Luckily Halloween was not a thing when they were little or they probably would not have reached adulthood.
Some of the things on that list are just stupid and would indicate that the author does not believe any parent in the world has any common sense.
Have a safe and happy Halloween when it comes!
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