The only good thing about Halloween is that it makes people hate bats

I always dread Hallowe’en. It may have originated in Europe as a Christian celebration for remembering the virtuous dead and wishing them on their way to heaven, but its origins have been long forgotten. Now, more even than Christmas, it is a secular festival sustained by commercial greed. In its modern form, it is an American import, its main inspirations being Count Dracula and horror movies (and perhaps now also Harry Potter).

Hallowe’en is a time for the exploitation of children’s love of ghouls and magic and dressing up. Long before the day arrives, the supermarket shelves are stacked with pumpkins carved with the grimacing features of Jack-o’-lanterns, once meant to frighten away evil spirits, and with black witch’s costumes of cheap polyester fabric. Other symbols of Hallowe’en include skeletons, cobwebs and bats, all of them depressing.

But nothing equals the depression of the evening itself, when the doorbell rings time after time and groups of children, hideously attired, demand a ‘treat’ as an alternative to a ‘trick’. Maybe they never mean to trick you. Maybe it’s just an elaborate form of begging. But most people never wait to see what refusal of a ‘treat’ would entail, for they have furnished themselves in advance with supplies of sweets, coins or other goodies in order to hasten the children’s departure from the doorstep. Contributing to the gloom of Hallowe’en is its coincidence with the onset of winter and of the ghastly build-up to Christmas. From now on it will just be cold, darkness and futile extravagance.