Last Saturday was Halloween. I already wrote about the history of Halloween in Germany and how it went from something completely unknown in the 1970s and 1980s to theme for student parties in the 1990s to mainstream holiday fun in the 2000s and beyond in this post from last year, so I’ll just refer you there.
By now, trick or treaters are a regular and expected thing in my neighbourhood, though I tend to remind the newer neighbours that they should expect kids on their doorstep. The number of trick or treaters has also been steadily growing and usually eclipses the number of St. Nicholas Day trick or treaters by now. Part of this is due to the weather on Halloween generally being slightly more pleasant than on St. Nicholas Day. But the main reason is due to the “Well, actually it’s Reformation Day” crowd, who pushed for Reformation Day to become a public holiday in protestant parts of Germany.
When I was a kid, Reformation Day was a kind of semi-holiday. A school, we had Reformation Day off, but it wasn’t an official public holiday, so the shops were open. Those were always the best holidays, because it meant you could take the bus into Bremen and hit the shops. Towards the end of my time at school, this was changed – most likely in response to complaints by working parents of younger children who didn’t know what to do with their kids. We were all grumpy about this, because why did we have to lose a day off, just because some people didn’t know how to take care of their own kids. Keep the younger kids in school then and give those old enough to take care of themselves a day off! Never mind that several of my classmates were latchkey kids and had gone home alone from primary school onwards, so the whining of parents who didn’t know what to do with their kids was completely alien to us. However, by the late 1980s/early 1990s, latchkey kids were becoming a thing of the past, even though more women worked then ever, and instead we got the idea that kids needed to be under constant supervision and that it was the state’s job to provide this.
Fast forward to 2017 and the five hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his ninety-five theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. For the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, the Lutheran church in Bremen, Lower Saxony and some other majority Protestant states campaigned to make October 31 a public holiday. Initially, it was supposed to be for just that one year, but then it stuck, because in Germany, public holidays are set by the individual states and the majority Protestant states have far fewer public holidays than the majority Catholic states. Plus, Repentance Day, the one Protestant only public holiday (and a good one, because it was always on a Wednesday about a month before Christmas) was phased out in all of Germany to finance public care insurance. And yes, lots of people said that the Catholics should sacrifice one of their holidays first.
However, the fact that October 31 is a public holiday in Bremen and Lower Saxony and several other states now means that the shops are closed. Which means that kids can’t go trick or treating at shops like they do for St. Nicholas Day, so more kids go trick or treating in residential neighbourhoods as a result. So the “Well, actually it’s Reformation Day” people accidentally promoted the very holiday they dislike.
We always opened the door for trick or treaters and made sure to have candy at hand, however, apart from a few Halloween parties I held for my friends in the 1990s, we never really decorated. However, when Dad died, I gradually started decorating the house for Halloween. At first, it was just a plaster skull and a pottery Jack-o-Lantern. Then more small ceramic pumpkins were added and last year, I decorated the big front window with all my spookiest action figures. I enjoyed the window display so much that it became a regular thing and I switched out the figures to match major holidays and seasons. Christmas features all the wintery characters, Easter features spring and flower-themed characters and a few bunnies and Halloween gets the spooky characters. At this year’s Toyplosion, I chanced to chat with Peer Brauner of Formo Toys and told him that while I normally don’t buy the repaints, I did get the Legends of Dragonore Glacier Mission Barbaro to add to my Christmas and winter display. Whereupon Peer went, “Wait a minute, you have a seasonal action figure display. That’s such a cool idea.”
This year, October was a busy month for me, plus I was sick for several days, so I didn’t get around to setting up the Halloween window display until a few days before Halloween. However, the window will stay up until late November, when I switch it out for the Christmas display, so I still get plenty of time to enjoy my spooky action figures.
So let’s take a look at this year’s version of the Halloween window display:
This year’s Halloween window display, featuring my spookiest action figures, with bonus Else, the department store mannequin, and some Masters of the Universe Chronicles Movie figures on the bar cart. I should probably get Else a witch hat eventually. She does have a Santa hat for Christmas.
And here are a few closer looks at the individual figures:
From left to right, we have a Schleich Rock Wolf, Mythic Legions Thorasis, the First Risen, Mythic Legions Skapular the Cryptbreaker, Masters of the Universe Classics Wrap-Trap, Playmobil Martin Luther, my Ruhrpott mug, a Schleich Shadow Lemur sitting on top of the jar of lights, the Legends of Dragonore Horri-Dame, Masterverse Scare-Glow, Schleich Shadow Wolf, and Masters of the Universe Chronicles Scare-Glow
The Mythic Legions line from Four Horsemen Studios has the best skeleton action figures you can currently get and several of them feature in my display. The two we see here are Thorasis, the First Risen, who is the arch general of the undead army of Necronominus. The banner of the undead army of Necronominus, which came with Thorasis, is sticking in a flower pot. I actually do have Necronominus and his skeleton horse, too, but they are too big for the window.
Next to Thorasis is Skapular, the Cryptbreaker. Skapular may be dead, but he wants nothing to do with Necronominus and his undead army, for why fight and kill for some weird death cult, when you could fight and kill for money? So Skapular became a mercenary and founded the Sons of the Red Star, a group of mercenaries and assassins. Skapular is also the best dressed skeleton warrior out there with lots of gold and silver details on his armour and weapons, cause just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you can’t look fabulous. The Skapular figure came with so much stuff that half of it stayed in the box, cause there’s no way to fit all of this stuff on Skapular.
Next to Skapular is Wrap-Trap, the mummy of the Evil Horde and star of this toy photo story. Then we have a Playmobil Martin Luther to remind everybody that it’s also Reformation Day. The spooky undead creatures around him have adopted the little guy, though they find the fact that he constantly wants to discuss his theses with everybody irritating. Occasionally, he gets into theological debates with Thorasis.
Then we have my beloved Ruhrpott mug, which has sprouted some tentacles (they belong to a Masters of the Universe Moss-Man figure), a Schleich Shadow Lemur sitting on top of the jar of lights and the Legends of Dragonore Horri-Dame a.k.a. Lubrinia the sexy witch. She has a face-changing gimmick similar to the Masters of the Universe Man-e-Face and Princess of Power Double-Trouble figures. One face is a beautiful, albeit green woman, the other is a monster face. Below is a better look at her:
A closer look at the Halloween window display, featuring Mythic Legions Skapular the Cryptbreaker, Playmobil Martin Luther, my Ruhrpott mug, Legends of Dragonore Horri-Dame, Schleich Shadow Lemur, Masterverse Scare-Glow, Schleich Shadow Wolf, Chronicles Scare-Glow, a Jack-o-Lantern topped by a Schleich Shadow Bat and Classics Scare-Glow.
Next to Lubrinia, we have the Lord of Subternia himself, Scare-Glow, in his Masterverse and Chronicles incarnations as well as a Schleich Shadow Wolf who is his pet. The third of my Scare-Glow action figures, the Classics Scare-Glow, guards the other side of the Great Pumpkin.
Halloween window display featuring Mythic Legions Skapular the Cryptbreaker, Playmobil Martin Luther, Ruhrpott mug, Legends of Dragonore Horri-Dame, Schleich Shadow Lemur, Masterverse Scare-Glow, Schleich Shadow Wolf, Chronicles Scare-Glow, Jack-o-Lantern with mini-skulls and a Schleich Shadow Bat, Classics Scare-Glow, Mythic Legions Maxilius the Harvester, Poor Yorick the Skull, Mythic Legions Hagnon and Graveyard Skeletons.
The Temple of the Great Pumpkin with skull offerings, guarded by two Scare-Glows
The Temple of the Great Pumpkin is the center piece of the window display. It’s a pottery Jack-o-Lantern lit by LED candles and guarded by two Scare-Glows. The mini pumpkins and skulls are accessories from the Mythic Legions line, where lots of figures come with extra heads and also hands.
Next to the Temple of Great Pumpkin we have Maxilius the Harvester from the Mythic Legions line. He roams the battlefields of Mythoss to steal the souls of the fallen. Friends call him Maxi, though he doesn’t have a lot of those.
Then there is Poor Yorick, the skull, and Hagnon, the cursed ghost skeleton from the Mythic Legions line. Hagnon was once a noble knight of the Order of Eathyron, until he was captured, tortured and killed by the undead army of Necronominus. Ever since then the poor fellow has been a ghost haunting a dungeon.
The Bone Yard featuring Masters of the Universe Classics Scare-Glow, Mythic Legions Maxilius, Poor Yorick, the Skull, Mythic Legions Hagnon, Graveyard skeletons, Tibius and Clavius, Turpiculus, Skeleton Warrior and the Unknown One
The Bone Yard features a lot of Mythic Legions skeletons. In addition to Maxilius and Hagnon, we also have the Graveyard Skeletons, a four-pack of skeleton warriors, which actually were my first Mythic Legions figures, because I wanted some skeletons for my other figures to battle. I liked them so much that I bought more. In front of the Graveyard Skeletons, we have Tibius and Clavius, captains in the undead army. Then there is Turpiculus a.k.a. Mr. Ugly, the bony horror creature from your nightmares. In the corner, there is another Mythic Legions skeleton. I got him for cheap on eBay and initially planned to add him to the Graveyard Skeletons, but his colour is different, so he stands a bit apart.
Finally, we have another Mythic Legions figure, the Unknown One, who stalks the battlefields of Mythoss and preys on warriors of all fractions. No one knows who or what he is and few who have seen him have lived to tell the tale. He’s suitable spooky at any rate.
On Halloween itself, I felt woozy, because my blood pressure was acting up or rather down, since it’s too low. Still, better than the opposite. Even lunch didn’t help much. After lunch, still feeling woozy, I got the candy from the basement.
I had bought four bags of Halloween candy, consisting of little bats with chocolate pieces and chocolate pumpkins, ghosts and eyeballs. I also got a mix of assorted candy bars as a back-up.
Halloween candy waiting for trick or treaters
I then put on my Halloween t-shirt, which features Medusa trying to be a good neighbour and accidentally turning some trick or treaters to stone – oops – and went out to sweep the steps leading up to the door, clean away some cobwebs and hang my little ghost lightstring.
Unfortunately, the lamp next to the door is broken and can’t be fixed until the leaking canopy at the front door is fixed, since the canopy leaks water into the cable ducts for the lamp next to the door and the doorbell, causing short circuits and blown circuit breakers. The electrician brother of my neighbour Vladimir managed to separate the indoor from the outdoors circuits, since the lights in the hall as well as the guest toilet and the stairs leading to the first floor were all affected as well. So I at least have the light in the hall and the stairway back (and the guest toilet, though I rarely use it), though I still have no outside lights until the canopy is fixed.
So I put up the lightstring and opened the window with the spooky display and every single light lit to show that I’m home and there is trick or treating available here. Later that evening, the neighbour teens Andrei and Karolina and their little brother Daniel brought me a battery-powered motion sensor light courtesy of their Dad, who offered to fix the leaking canopy, but didn’t get around to it yet, so I at least had some light.
While I was sweeping the doorstep, a young couple with a baby in a stroller happened to walk past. I suspect they’re new in the neighbourhood – at any rate, I had never seen them before. “Are you here for trick or treating or just taking a stroll?” I asked. The baby was about eighteen months old, a little young for trick or treating, but not that young. I’ve had kids only a little older at my doorstep. Mom and Dad replied that they were just taking a stroll.
My first trick or treaters arrived shortly after five PM. The sun had already set – it currently sets at approx. 16:50 – but it was still light outside. These trick or treaters were the neighbour kids Zoie and Louis, six and three years old, and their grandpa Gerold. Zoie and Louis were dressed up as a witch and a wizard respectively. They were very proud of their glittery pointy hats, which aren’t that different from the pointy witch hat I wore in Mississippi back in 1978. I complimented the two kids on their costumes, gave them candy and wished a Happy Halloween.
Between five and six PM, things were fairly slow, but after six PM the pace picked up. Things slowed down again after seven PM and I welcome my last trick or treaters, two girls about twelve years old, at quarter to eight. All in all, I had forty-three trick-or-treaters, more than last year, but fewer than in 2023 and 2024. My neighbour Marina, who lives one street over, had much fewer kids, but then her street has fewer houses and borders a large field. The kids ranged in age from about two to teenagers, whereby older teenagers frequently accompanied younger siblings. They still got candy.
At one point, I had a Dad with a very young kid of maybe two or so and three teen girls at my door. Because the kid was in a stroller, they couldn’t come up the stairs, so I went down with the candy. I asked the older girls if the young ladies also wanted candy or they were just chaperones. They gratefully accepted candy.
There were also quite a few kids who were likely Muslim. On social media, you saw stuff that Muslims hate Halloween and complain about it – which suddenly caused the “But it’s Reformation Day” crowd to defend a holiday they hate, because they dislike Muslims more. But in my experience, Muslim kids happily join in with Halloween or St. Nicholas Day trick or treating and always have and no one bats an eyelash.
The kids usually came in batches of three or four or even six. Thankfully, I had no bigger groups – considering that one year for St. Nicholas Day I had a whole girls volleyball team at my door. Younger kids were either accompanied by older siblings or parents and grandparents.
Costume wise, we had a lot of witches and wizards, some vampires, two Ghostfaces, a blood splattered nurse, a bedsheet ghost, a kid with a fake knife through their head and a kid in a V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask, whom I told he could wear the mask again for November 5 and explained who Guy Fawkes was. The costumes were mostly a mix of homemade and store-bought parts, which is how my childhood Halloween and carnival costumes were also made. Full store-bought Halloween costumes are still very rare in Germany. Older girls sometimes wore vaguely witchy and gothicky outfits, which is also what I did at the Halloween parties I hosted in the 1990s.
One memorable encounter involved a small group of adults and kids. There were four kids and one was dressed as Scare-Glow, Lord of the Underworld. And no, I have no idea where you can find a Scare-Glow costume in Germany. But the kid was really happy when I recognised who he was. “I saw your He-Man figures through the window,” one of the accompanying adults said, “That’s a great collection.”
When I handed out chocolate, little Scare-Glow said that he didn’t eat chocolate. “Well, what do you eat?” I asked, “Cause I might have some of that as well.” The kid said he liked gummies. “Wait a minute”, I said and ran into the basement, where I had some mini bags of gummy bears and other stray candy like individually wrapped drops that I can’t eat for allergy reasons. I picked up all of that stuff, gave Scare-Glow the gummy bears and threw the rest of the stray candy into the bowl to get rid of it that way.
As the evening went on, I repeatedly heard fireworks going off in the distance. At first, I thought someone was having fireworks or that maybe it was the fireworks from the Freimarkt autumn fair in Bremen, though those are usually later in the evening. But apparently, some older kids had gotten their hands on fireworks. I have no idea how or where, since fireworks sales are strictly regulated in Germany and limited to three days before New Year’s Eve. Maybe there was some kind of illegal underground fireworks sale somewhere or maybe the kids used up their stash, though that stash is usually gone a few days into the New Year.
At one point, I was chatting with my neighbour from across the street, who was walking her dogs, when another firecracker went off somewhere in the distance. “Are they now having fireworks for Halloween as well?” my neighbour remarked. She was worried about her dogs, especially since one of them is blind and reacts particularly vehemently to unusual noises. “Fireworks aren’t normally a Halloween thing at all”, I said, “In Britain, you have bonfire night on November 5 with fireworks and then Diwali, but we don’t celebrate either of those. So I have no idea where those fireworks even come from. I’m okay with fireworks on New Year’s Night, but I also don’t need more days to worry about fireworks setting my mailbox or newspaper tube on fire.”
While our Halloween was good and peaceful, some stray fireworks aside, there were some issues elsewhere in Germany. A group calling themselves “Gen Z Regelt” (Gen Z will fix it) had organised protests patterned after the French youth protests on October 31 in several German cities including Bremen.
There was initial confusion about this, since no one had ever heard of the group “Gen Z Regelt” before and they clearly also weren’t local to many of the cities where they organised protests, e.g. they originally announced the Bremen protest in location which is currently inaccessible due to the Freimarkt autumn fair, something locals would have known. I’m also not sure if organising the protest on Halloween/Reformation Day, which is a public holiday in several states and would involve children being out and about on the streets was a great idea.
What is more, the comparison to the French youth protest caused the media to paint those protests bigger than they actually were and also literally hope for rioting to break out. The police presence was also increased and our Secretary of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt also appeared to fear French style riots. In several cities, shops also barricaded their windows with plywood in fear of potential rioting.
In the end, there were fewer protesters than expected and the protests were mostly peaceful and ended in the early evening. There were some troublemakers – the sort of troublemakers who latch onto protest to run wild and cause property damage – though in most cities nothing more happened than a few dumpsters being overturned and set on fire. Only Frankfurt on Main saw actual rioting with smashed shop windows, injured police officers and arrests.
Of course, smashing shop windows and injuring police officers is not cool at all, but I couldn’t help but notice how the German and international media blew up those protests into something much bigger than they actually were. See this BBC article for an example – and note that the BBC is normally a reliable news source.
Then you also got completely unfounded claims on social media that the protests were islamist riots, because there were Palestinian flags and keffiyehs spotted during the protests. But then, the War in Gaza is a cause close to the hearts of many young people these days. And you see Palestinian flags and keffiyehs at all sorts of protests which have nothing to do with Palestine, just as you a “Stop the War in Vietnam” banner at every protest in the late 1960s, regardless what the protest was actually about. And during the anti-nuclear-armament protests of the early 1980s, you saw a lot of keffiyehs, too. You saw them outside protests as well, since keffiyehs were a fashion item at the time. Pretty much every kid at my school had one, even me, and we were between ten and fourteen at the time and most of us had no idea about the political background of those cool patterned scarves we were all wearing. It was only when I was an adult that I realised why our parents hated us wearing keffiyehs, though none of the adults in our lives ever explained what their problem was. So in short, Palestinian flags and keffiyehs doesn’t make it an islamist protest or even a protest against the war in Gaza – not that there is anything wrong with protesting the War in Gaza.
In general, the media overreaction to some fairly harmless protests with rioting in one city only (and Frankfurt on Main always had a reputation as a shithole outside the touristy and financial districts) makes me wonder whether the media and many people are suffering from amnesia. Because violent protests with a thin political veneer were extremely common in the 1980s and 1990s. (West) Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen regularly saw May Day protests turn violent to the point that shop windows were boarded up in advance. Then there were the Chaos Days in Hannover, Hamburg and Bremen, illegal protests, which were basically just riots with no political point at all. You also saw massive protests and riots at every G7 summit. Football matches frequently turned into street violence as well. Not to mention the huge 1968 protests which frequently erupted into violence. In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, Bremen Sielwall crossing was smashed up every year, sometimes multiple times. So has everybody forgotten about all of those protests which turned violent to freak out about something which would have been considered fairly harmless only twenty years ago?
Finally, there also was an issue with needles found in Halloween candy in several parts of Germany with one girl in Bremervörde suffering an injured tongue. Of course, moral panics about poisoned candy and needles or razorblades in chocolate bars have been a thing in the US for decades, even though there is no base in reality for any of those myths. It’s a pure moral panic about something that literally never happened.
There have been a few cases of kids dying after eating Halloween candy in the US. All but two were natural deaths due to pre-existing medical issues unrelated to Halloween. One was a case of a kid from a troubled family accidentally finding and ingesting heroin belonging to a family member and only one case in 1974 in Texas was an actual poisoning case involving cyanide laced candy. That poor kid was murdered by his own father for life insurance money, using the poisoned Halloween candy moral panic as a cover. The killer was found out, convicted and executed and not even I, who is opposed to the death penalty, has any issues with that whatsoever.
So if there have never been any actual cases of evil bogeymen manipulating Halloween candy in the US, what about those German cases? Once again, it’s extremely unlikely that there is an evil bogeyman out there manipulating candy, especially since the incidents happened in different parts of the county and involved different types and brands of candy. Luckily, the German police is not given to panic and instead believe that most cases of manipulated candy were caused by people hearing about the US moral panic and using it as inspiration. In several cases, kids have since admitted to manipulating the candy themselves to get attention, though there are also cases that don’t fit this pattern, including candy in bowls outside doors that was apparently manipulated by strangers and one adult woman who found a needle in a chocolate bar she bought at a supermarket. Here is a very good article about the manipulated candy issues which suggests that most of those cases seem to be linked to internet and social media trends.
That said, parents are understandably scared. My neighbour Marina told me that she told her kids only to go trick or treating at the houses of people they know. This is a pity, because it erodes trust and ruins what should be a joyful holiday.
But fireworks, protests and manipulated candy myths aside, this was a good Halloween, at least for me. IMO the best thing about Halloween is the sheer joy of the kids at getting to dress up and collect candy. I always tried to compliment everybody on their costumes and it was obvious how much they enjoyed it. And whenever I opened the door, you could hear the laughter of kids all over the place. And if you have a problem with that, because you think Halloween is a commercialised import from the US and doesn’t fit into our culture and anyway, it’s Reformation day, then you’re the arsehole. Because honestly, who has problems with kids having fun?
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