Bridge Street businesses get into the Halloween spirit

At least two shop owners want Murray Bridge’s main street to become a safe space for families to take part in an increasingly popular tradition.

Bridge Street businesses get into the Halloween spirit
Trick-or-treaters will be getting out and about in the Murraylands next Thursday night. Photo: Bridge Trophies/Facebook.

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Justine Searby has loved Halloween since she was a little kid.

Her family has always encouraged traditions more commonly seen in American TV shows than on Australian streets, like dressing up and going from door to door asking “trick or treat?”

In recent years she has shared those customs with the community at the lolly shop she owns on Murray Bridge’s main street, something she’ll do again next Thursday night.

“Sometimes it can be scary going to (strangers’) houses with little kids,” she said.

“We wanted to make it a family thing, a bit more of a safer option.”

Her shop, Bridge Trophies and Grazingfordayz, will offer a photo booth for use by visiting families, treats for the kids and a prize draw for customers who spend over a certain amount.

It won’t be the only one this year, either.

A little way up Bridge Street, Brittany Schulz will decorate her bookshop, Fiction and Friction, too.

Murray Bridge News will join in the fun, offering families a chance to get a snap taken together in front of a spooky backdrop out the front, with photos to be published in this publication.

You could even pick up a spooky book while you're there. Photo: Fiction and Friction/Facebook.

It would be great if more main street businesses embraced the opportunity to get families out and about for an evening, Ms Schulz suggested.

“There’s a big stigma in Australia around Halloween: ‘that’s not an Australian thing, it’s an American thing’ … but kids don’t understand that stigma,” she said.

“The younger they are, the more they are on social media … they go ‘that’s cool, that’s fun, why can’t we do that?’

“I don’t think it’s ever going to be as big as it is in the US, but it can be a thing.”

Trick-or-treating might not be universal, but a number of households around Murray Bridge will have goodies at the ready for the evening of next Thursday, October 31.

Local resident Laura Firth will list as many as she can on a Facebook group, Halloween Trick or Treat Murray Bridge, earlier on the day.

Halloween was observed for more than 1000 years in Ireland and Scotland as a solemn time to remember the dead, before becoming a more commercial holiday in the United States during the 20th century and spreading around the world in recent decades.

  • Register your house for trick-or-treaters: Leave a comment at www.facebook.com or DM Lori Caroline on Facebook.
  • Visit Bridge Trophies and Grazingfordayz for Halloween: Visit 30 Bridge Street, Murray Bridge between 5pm and 8pm next Thursday.
  • Visit Fiction and Friction for Halloween: Visit 49A Bridge Street, Murray Bridge between 5pm and 7pm next Thursday.
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