Raisins!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Halloween in Madison Wisconsin=not fun

Did it once while in college. Nearly ended up in the middle of a riot.

[Becks]

Rabbit/gerbil/other small mammal droppings?

:snicker: In my annual Easter greetings to friends, I warn them and the Easter Bunny might not be leaving REAL Raisnets.

[tollbaby]

Last year, some vandals threw a pile of what looked like poop onto my front step on Devil's Night (October 30th - do other countries have this horrid tradition too?)

errr I live in the same country you do, and I've never heard of it!

[tollbaby]

Not that I know of. Certainly when I was a kid going trick or treating in costume (in the Home Counties, i.e. just outside London, UK), I had to explain to people what halloween was, most of the locals refused to buy into what was seen as an only american tradition, and that's if they understood/had heard of it.
Now November the 5th, that's a very different ball game.

scruff, Halloween is on October 31, not October 30 (thus my puzzlement). What does Guy Fawkes day have to do with it?

[wagegoth]

I think Devil's Night started in the Detroit area here in the U.S. It's been spreading slowly around. Maybe that's why it's only in certain parts of Canada.

October 30: Devil's Night
October 31: Halloween
November 5: Guy Fawkes Day

I wish we had Guy Fawkes here. A co-worker who's English told me that the government and companies are pushing Halloween in the UK, in an attempt to make more money and cut down on the bonfires of Guy Fawkes celebrants.

[ArenaBoy]

I think Devil's Night started in the Detroit area here in the U.S.

Correct. Growing up I used to see news reports about it a lot around the middle to the end of October. While egging or TPing may be popular in some places; the bastards in this town will go as far as committing arson. It's declined in the last 10-15 years and in order to counter it some people started Angels Night. On the week of October 30th volunteers go around to keep the city safe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Night

Arenaboy, who hates living in Metro Detroit.

[myswtghst]

Yep, to my knowledge, Devil's Night is a MI thing. I've lived in IL most of my life, and it wasn't until I moved to MI for college that I was introduced to the tradition. However, we usually celebrated by getting drunk and dressing up an extra night.

[tigerlily0]

In the northeast, the night before Halloween (Oct 30) is called Cabbage Night. I think my father told me once that years ago (in the first half of the 20th century) all the mischief-making was on Halloween itself, then there was an effort to clean up Halloween for the little kiddies, so the older kids just moved their egging and TPing to the previous night. We don't get too much of it around here any more, I think it has pretty much gone by the wayside, along with trick-or-treating.

[repsac]

Don't forget, there are those giant raisins. Things are the size of a prune.