The horror: How Halloween hijacked my home

I detest Halloween. I never much liked it as a kid when there was nothing more than a few wonkily carved pumpkins around the streets by way of token celebration. But over the years my vague ambivalence has ballooned to full-blown hatred.

I think it was living in Hong Kong that tipped me over the edge.

The vibrant local Honkongese and expat community love a cultural/religious celebration. Whatever is going around, be it Christmas, Diwali, Lantern Festival or Buddha's birthday, they will get into it.

But Halloween is something else. It's bigger than Christmas, the streets of Lan Kwai Fong (party central on Hong Kong Island) are festooned with so many huge hairy spiders and tacky webs it's almost impossible to walk the steep, cobblestoned streets.

And the normally all-pervasive aromas of barbecued duck and goose are obliterated by the fake smoke machines.

Every towering apartment block hosts a sort of vertical street party. I took my then one and three-year-olds to a party in our block. I dressed the one-year-old in a faux-felt pumpkin costume complete with stalk hat and she spent the night crying at the indignity of it. Never again, I thought, and for the next three years we left town on October 31.

Driving to school last week the five-year-old said: "I can't decide whether I like Christmas or Halloween better." I nearly crashed the car in horror.

But now, with kids aged five, seven and nine, I cannot escape it. We have come home to Sydney and Halloween is everywhere. There are gross ghouls hanging from every second house around us and the supermarkets are filled with weirdly perfect pumpkins.

Driving to school last week the five-year-old said: "I can't decide whether I like Christmas or Halloween better." I nearly crashed the car in horror.

How has this happened? Why do we celebrate this American custom? Halloween has no cultural significance here. No one understands or cares why we do it, it is just mindless dressing-up in spooky costumes because the US does. And then there are the lollies. I am fine with them having sweet treats, I'm fine with the bags of tooth-rotting goodies that come home from a party. But I'm not fine with the bucketloads of "candy" that will come home tonight. It's just too much.

The wonderful lady who picks our kids up from school will take our girls tonight.

They are beside themselves with glee. She took them last year as well. I drove home in the evening and saw them heading up our street towards home. Their smiles were brighter than the street lights as they sailed along waving to the many neighbours spilling out into the street.

"See," said Jeanne. "It is a wonderful event that connects people and brings them together."

Yes, I saw. I just wish it didn't take Halloween to do this.

Ardyn Bernoth is editor of the Good Food section of The Sydney Morning Herald.