There was a distinct edge of panic in my friend’s voice yesterday as she told me her local supermarket had run out of pumpkins. The kids would be devastated if they couldn’t carve up an over-sized squash, she said, especially since all their wee pals already had very professional-looking lanterns to go trick or treating with. My hackles immediately shot up. Unknowingly, my friend had just succumbed to one of my least favourite developments in modern life: the Americanisation of Halloween.

Maybe you could just get turnips, I suggested with fake nonchalance. More traditional. And cheaper, too, I added for emphasis, actively testing her now. The appalled silence and subsequent condescending chorus of “Oh, no, no, no, no,” told me all I needed to know. My friend has totally sold out. Sigh.

She, like me, spent many happy(ish) hours 30-plus years ago hollowing out rock-hard turnips with spoons and other implements so we had a lantern to go out guising with. The eyes, noses and mouths of these turnip heids may have been poorly realised, but this just made them all the more ghoulish. When the lit candle was put inside the smell of the burning turnip flesh was as distinctively seasonal as mulled wine.

Once your turnip lantern was done you’d be honing your dooking skills, putting the final touches to your homemade costume (preferably, but not necessarily scary) and preparing a repertoire of jokes, songs and dances to perform at the houses you went guising around. The entertainment was an important part of the package, of course. Your endeavours would be judged on the doorstep and sweets, monkey nuts and, if you were a particularly talented performer, cash, would be dispensed in return.

These traditions are part of what make us Scottish. They stretch back through the centuries to the Celtic Samhain festival and All Hallows Eve, the “disguising” of children in costume to dodge evil spirits, all put through the evocative filter of Robert Burns. We’d heard that the Americans did this thing called “trick or treat”, we’d maybe even seen it in John Carpenter’s scary Halloween films, but that didn’t mean we wanted to swap guising for it. Did it?

I know, I know, nostalgia can rot the mind as efficiently as sweets rot teeth, but oh, how I long for the good old days of Halloween. I admit I find the American version – shouting “trick or treat” as loud as you can at whoever answers the door – thoroughly irritating. Demanding treats under threat of a trick all feels so extortive. So, well, capitalist.

But what annoys me most about all this is that we in Scotland invented Halloween in the first place. The rituals no doubt made their way to America with Scots immigrants in the 19th and early 20th century, and are now being sold back to us as authentic. Why do we fall for this stuff? It’s the same with Christmas - the Santa we all know and love was invented by Coca-Cola as part of an advertising campaign back in the 1930s, even though St Nicholas had been part of western European folklore for centuries.

So, will I be the Halloween Grinch tonight when the trick or treaters come knocking on my door? Ach, I suppose not. I’ve got plenty of sweets in. Hell, I even made the effort to buy fairycakes with scary blue icing. And no doubt I’ll admire all those beautifully scooped-out pumpkin lanterns.

But I will be keeping the cash treats for those who are savvy enough to perform a song, joke or dance - children of Glasgow’s south side, take note.