Halloween Apples!
I’m excited for my first opportunity to distribute Halloween candy to Winnipeg kids this coming Saturday! Why? Well, aside from my personal “one for me, one for the kids” candy distribution rule, I’m looking forward to whether any visiting trick or treaters say “Halloween Apples!”
According to my trusty “Manitoba Book of Everything” this is what kids here often say instead of “Trick or Treat!”. I’d never heard of it until I moved here, and sort of have the idea that it might be something people used to say (see Aaron Schwartz remembers Halloween in Ashern, MB and Willy Cole remembers Halloween in East Selkirk, MB) but do they anymore? I’ll find out!
Growing up in Alberta we said “Trick or Treat!”, but also joked around with a little song that went “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat” – how charming, now that I think of it.
Did you grow up saying “Halloween Apples”? Or something else?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say “halloween apples” in Winnipeg so I think that it is a pretty old saying.
I grew up in southern Ontario so I said “trick or treat”. The biggest difference there was we would ring the doorbell and wait for the door to open before saying “trick or treat”. My first Halloween here was rather weird with scores of children yelling outside my door.
My sister and I grew up saying Halloween Apples, sometimes interchanged with Trick or Treat. This is yet another thing I didn’t realize was a Manitobanism until you guys told me – thanks for filling me in!
I grew up in Ashern! Random. I said Halloween Apples all the time!
“Halloween apples” all the way. Rarely heard “trick or treat” — maybe just on American TV. It is odd that that’s a Winnipeg/Manitoba thing. May be generational. I was out for Halloween in the 70’s.
The version I remember was “trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, not too big, not too small, just the size of Montreal”
I never really knew what a treat the size of Montreal would be like – something suggests to me that it would be virtually impossible…
As a kid it was always Halloween apples, and you never used the doorbell. You just yelled louder until they answered
Maybe it’s an NK thing, too. We always called “Hallowe’en App-pulz !” at the door ! Man, would we be p.o.’d if someone gave us an apple !
I grew up in Dauphin in the late 80s/early nineties and it was always Trick or Treat. Possibly with the rhyme as well!
It’s always been Hallowe’en Apples. It’s only in the past few years that I’ve heard the kids really switch to Trick or Treat.
Mainly Halloween Apples in my neighbourhood when I was growing up although we starting using it less as we got older. The seniors just assumed that you REALLY wanted apples and that’s what you would get.
They weighed a ton and would all get thrown out when you got home.
We always said Trick or Treat or Hallowe’en Apples, in about equal measure. I liked the sound of Haloween Apples better (accent on “ween” and “pulz”).
My funniest Winnipeg Hallowee’en memory is some crazy guy on our street giving out toast!
Until I dated a girl from out of province, I never knew our traditional cry of “Hallowe’en Apples” to be colloquial…
Trick or treat and halloween apples for this guy! great blog!
I grew up in winnipeg and of course it was Halloween Apples. As an earlier poster said, you would say it louder and louder until the door was answered. Moving out of Winnipeg, you heard nothing but trick or treat, so that was really odd to me. I have lived all across Canada and never run into the great saying we said in Winnipeg. Maybe slightly ahead of our time?!
I hope the custom is fading away, as it is a great saying for a great city to be proud of.
I hope the custom ISN’T fading away – is what that should say – sheesh proofread!
Ha ! Toast ! That’s great.
So, Emma. What was the outcome?!
Thanks for the input, everyone. I am a bit sad to report that although we had close to 100 kids, not one of them said “Halloween Apples”! It sounds like a revival of the saying is in order
I grew up in Edmonton and it was nothing but “Halloween Apples”…and with no MB connection. I haven’t heard it in years. Good times.
That’s funny. Perhaps in Winnipeg we hold on to things more antiquated for a little longer… take for example all the random small-scale examples of modern architecture that have stuck around for this long: “the wave” style Safeways, anyone? too bad they’re being torn down… the route of Halloween Apples too, it seems.
I grew up in New Jersey in the US, and we had that smell-my-feet rhyme there, too. Must be a genetic legacy of being human.
I know I’m late to this, but I agree that this is a generational, rather than purely Manitoba, difference. I went “Halloweening” in Alberta from 1965- 66 and from 1969 to 73 or 74 and we said Halloween Apples. Trick or Treat, and Trick or Treating, replaced Halloween Apples and Halloweening, probably due to the influence of American television.