Hallowe'en

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I got my tripod on Thursday. Couldn't be better timing, so I went out straight after work to take photos. My batteries ran out 10 minutes later. I went home for fresh ones, and picked up where I left off. I saw loads of policemen - one stopped to ask me what I was up to.
I ended up at Hilary's, and consequently didn't get home until about 11:30. After taking photos of Ben, I followed her around with my camera while she was working. Because it was dark, I had the camera on the tripod, and was doing exposures between 1/20 and 6 second exposures using the two second timer to eliminate movement from pressing the "shutter" (what are we supposed to call it?) button. You'd think this would be fine for taking pictures of mugs, but it's "interesting" when they're being packed up for the next day's market. Spot the difference:
Hilary and I had an interesting conversation about Hallowe'en. She hates it. I do in principle. Just another excuse for retailers to sell us stuff. Decorations, costumes, candy, orange clothing, pencils with pumpkins on the end, cakes with orange food colouring in and plastic spiders on top. Bah, Humbug? I get the dressing up. I think that's fun. Although Hallowe'en wasn't a big deal in England (but kind of got merged into Guy Faulk's Night) we got dressed up for the village fete and gala in the summer and rode on floats in the parade. The way I remember it though, was that your mum always came up with the costume. There were no store-bought pumpkin outfits. You decided what you wanted to be: "the tin man from the Wizard of Oz", "a sea anemone", "Noddy", "a Viking", "a starfish", or in my case: "an alien", and your mum had to fabricate a costume from card board, old tights, tin foil, and net curtains. For my alien I had a green sweatsuit, tinsel wig, and suspended from each arm were three stockings, stuffed, with bands of fake fur left over from a lion costume or something, to imitate multiple sets of arms. I'm not sure what the wig was for. The other time of year for dressing up was the Christmas nativity, which saw everyone in bed sheet tunics and tea towels on their heads because, apparently, that is what people from Nazareth wore. There were variations on this costume: shepherds would get canes if they were considered well enough behaved, Mary would wear a blue bed sheet with a white tea towel, wise men would get a curtain (usually 70's style) for a robe, a self-made cardboard crown with sequins and glitter on, and a tea bag tin covered in foil. Sometimes bed sheet tunics would be replaced with dressing gowns (house coats for you Canadians) if the main hall was a bit drafty. The angels would have silver tinsel halos and white frocks, some with wings. The costume my mum made that got used as an all purpose angel/fairy/snowflake costume has lace curtain wings that were attached to the underside of the arms and the body, which was fine until I had to put my arms vertically above my head for the snowflake dance in Babushka on year.
The only reason (that I can see) for buying a costume off the shelf is for "cuteness", and laziness. Where's the fun and creativity in that?
Why can't everyone make costumes, get dressed up, mess around and have a party without the consumerism?