Ah Halloween, my favourite time of year. A time when I can truly embrace the weirdo inside and decorate my home with skulls, pumpkins and a colour scheme of complementary black and orange.

Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love this celebration and to be honest, the more American it gets over here in the UK the happier I am. Nothing brings me more joy than scouring the aisles of Halloween stuff in every shop I visit, even in the supermarket!

So, considering I’ve put together this Halloween advent calendar in the run up to the 31st, I thought I’d see how other people feel about the special day and all its traditions. Is everyone as into dressing up, carving pumpkins and eating enough sweets to burst as me?

Probably not.

So, for me, Halloween starts as soon as the shops start rolling out pumpkin shaped candle holders in September. Haha wait, who am I kidding? I look forward to Halloween all year round. I send out invites for my annual party in like, June.

However in my poll, which I created on Surveymonkey and distributed myself, I discovered that very few people agree with my way of thinking, just 6.67% in fact, while the majority (wrongly) believe we should start celebrating on October 31st.

*shakes head sadly*

So my next question really was to discern if people actually celebrated Halloween. It didn’t detail how, for all I know they could just be watching Hocus Pocus and eating all the sweets they bought for the Trick or Treaters, but nonethless a resounding 59.32% of people said yes, they would be celebrating Halloween. Only 15.25% said no though, while 25.42% claimed they were handing out sweets but nothing else.

I feel like I should have had an EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER box at the bottom. Maybe it’s the dressing up that puts people off? So when asked what they were dressing up as, 28.3% of people responded with ‘Something classic, like a cat or a vampire’ while 31.67% intend to transform themselves into a dead version of a popular character.

Oh and hey look, only 6.67% of those who responded are dressing up as Suicide Squad Harley or the Joker so all those haters can shhh.

33.33% of people claimed they weren’t going to dress up, which I thought was a relatively high figure. It’s interesting that this amount aren’t putting on a costume but only 15.25% said they weren’t celebrating, so are they wearing a costume while they sit inside waiting for Trick or Treaters?

Talking of Trick or Treaters, I know a lot of people think of the whole concept as ‘begging’ but I have fond memories of knocking on doors as a child, being complimented on my costume and of course gorging on all the sweets later. I did grow up in a kid friendly neighbourhood, so I guess that made a difference, but we never knocked on the houses that didn’t have lights on or pumpkins in the window – those are the universal markers for Trick or Treaters.

Surprisingly, 41.67% of those taking part said they like Trick or Treaters, while 40% ‘begrudgingly’ hand out sweets to them. Only 18.33% claimed they didn’t like them and hid inside with the lights off.

When it comes to those pumpkins Trick or Treaters look out for, people have strong opinions on what should be carved on them. Unsurprisingly, the traditional Jack-O-Lantern design won with a huge 70% of people opting to carve a grinning face in the side of their pumpkin.

I was expecting at least one vote for the ‘I prefer to paint pumpkins’. I’ve seen the trend pick up over the years for those people looking for an easier way of decorating their pumpkin but no one claimed to do this. However, 25% claim to not carve them at all and 5% would attempt to create a TV or film character design.

I don’t think Halloween is quite right without a scare or two and I was interested to discover what films people liked to watch. I was surprised that 41.38% of people don’t like scary movies at all, while the creepy factor won over gore for those who do.

I think horror is one of those marmite genres, to be honest, people either love it or hate it. I did actually change my mind over time, I hated horrors and being scared but now on a Saturday night I feel weird if I’m not watching a horror movie.

So, what do you think of Halloween? Feel free to answer these questions yourself below! Would love to know how you feel!

Jade