Taking away Halloween...

[Buggaboo]

I think its also become political. Extreme "good" republicans dont do it but "evil" liberals do. You have to show that you are conservative by eliminating anything fun.

Yeah...this. We have gotten so extreme. I was talking about it to a Dutch friend the other day, in terms of health care, but it fits our climate in general right now. We are so divided it's actually frightening.

[theologygeek]

The recipients of your excellent guising feats will often give you a coin for luck, quite often a pound coin. I don't know why this is lucky, but it's supposed to be. .

This was the reason my sister was robbed of her candy bag. lol She kept swinging that damn bag and the coins were making noise.

[Rosa]

our neighborhood does Halloween right, and since the houses are close together (city neighborhood) and people decorate/put up lights, a lot of people come from a few blocks north or west to trick or treat here. It's fun!

Plus there's a local puppet group that puts on an amazing outdoor in the dark performance, it's called Barebones, it's AMAZING. The counterpoint to the neighborhood May Day Parade.

But this is what I want to say to those thinking about following Kendull: I know some folks who didn't do the "pagan" parts of holidays. Just the religious stuff, all fun stripped out. No Christmas tree, no Easter eggs, no Halloween scares.

You know what? As adults they mostly have no connection to the holidays, and they aren't as religious as their parents. So their parents sit home alone on holidays, no grandbabies to coddle (why bring the kids over to No Fun Grandma's to relive the worst parts of your own childhood?) often with imploded fundy congregations instead of the admiring "I'm a purer Christian than you!" parties of the past. It's pretty pitiful.

[freejoytoo]

When I was little I wasn't allowed to go Trick-or-Treating because it was 'too American' but I did get to dress up as a witch (or a cat) and carve a pumpkin lantern. It was great.

On another note, from what I've seen on TV, Americans dress up as anything for Halloween but over here if you dress up you're meant to be scary. Is it just anything goes in the states?

[Arete]

It's anything goes in the States. Some of us do love a well executed scary though. :mrgreen:

[snarkbillie]

When I was little I wasn't allowed to go Trick-or-Treating because it was 'too American' but I did get to dress up as a witch (or a cat) and carve a pumpkin lantern. It was great.

On another note, from what I've seen on TV, Americans dress up as anything for Halloween but over here if you dress up you're meant to be scary. Is it just anything goes in the states?

Anything you want to be. That's the magic of Halloween. I can be a disco dancing unicorn dragon witch if I wanna. (and I do! so I will!)

[sparkles]

I absolutely adored Halloween as a kid. My mother spent the days leading up to it making dozens and dozens of cupcakes (this was the early 60s, before the tainted candy freakout) and she also made our costumes. I remember trick-or-treating with my Flexible Flyer wagon and always had to make at least one trip home to unload the haul. When my sister and I had kids, I carried on the costume tradition, custom making them all for my daughter, nephew and niece and they were FREAKING AWESOME if I do say so myself. I really went overboard (machine quilting silver lamé fabric for my nephew's retro robot costume, hand sewing dozens of coins, beads and pearls on my daughter's genie costume--the best was her custom-designed blue gown that exactly matched her American Girls Felicity doll). The kids looked forward to those costumes all year and couldn't wait to show them off. I was really sad when they got too old for T&T.

Unfortunately, in my area at least, Halloween isn't what it used to be when I was a kid--although very little is. Very few kids go trick or treating anymore; we only buy one bag of candy and end up eating most of it ourselves. I don't think we got more than 10 kids last year and those were the ones on our block. :(

It's become such a secular holiday now that I have trouble understanding why fundies have such an issue with it. Although very few of them take it to Maxwellian extremes--locked up in their houses praying with the lights turned off. As if they would turn to stone if they ever caught a glimpse of someone in an "evil" Pokemon costume.

[blisterine]

the church i go to has a fall festival on the saturday before halloween. kids dress up in costumes, but witches, ghosts, skeleton and devil costumes aren't encouraged- they will give you a church logo t-shirt to pt on over your costume. they have all kinds of games and a cake walk. there is a petting zoo, pony rides and one of the members rents out bouncy houses, so they bring all of that junk. there's hot dogs, drinks and all kinds of snacks. everything is free.

but the glitch is that they want the members to donate candy, but not candy in halloween decorated wrappers or even orange/black wrappers.

to me that is a bit much. they have orange and black crayons in children's church, i don't see anybody taking them away.

the pastor said this past sunday that any good christian wouldn't want their children to spend a night worshipping the devil. he said his children have woken up with nightmares from just seeing scary images at the grocery store in the candy aisle.

i think his wife needs to leave them at home and go grocery shopping alone. i need to find out where she shops if it's that scary. i love a good fright.

bring on the witch costumes and candy!

[jokersshh]

SO glad halloween wasn't taken from me

[MarsGirl]

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays!!! When else can I wear my purple or green wigs and not get second glances?? :) (Okay, maybe in a goth club or something...)

But, also, I love the opportunity to be anything I want to be for one day. It's fun!! So glad I wasnt raised fundie.

[BoomerLynn]

the church i go to has a fall festival on the saturday before halloween. kids dress up in costumes, but witches, ghosts, skeleton and devil costumes aren't encouraged- they will give you a church logo t-shirt to pt on over your costume. they have all kinds of games and a cake walk. there is a petting zoo, pony rides and one of the members rents out bouncy houses, so they bring all of that junk. there's hot dogs, drinks and all kinds of snacks. everything is free.

but the glitch is that they want the members to donate candy, but not candy in halloween decorated wrappers or even orange/black wrappers.

to me that is a bit much. they have orange and black crayons in children's church, i don't see anybody taking them away.

the pastor said this past sunday that any good christian wouldn't want their children to spend a night worshipping the devil. he said his children have woken up with nightmares from just seeing scary images at the grocery store in the candy aisle.

i think his wife needs to leave them at home and go grocery shopping alone. i need to find out where she shops if it's that scary. i love a good fright.

bring on the witch costumes and candy!

WTF?!

[Jana814]

It is strange how this have changed when in comes to Halloween, I remember reading an article online a few years back, and woman and her family moved into a nice neighborhood, w/ lots of kids, she got really excited about the upcoming holiday, well unknown to her on her street they banned everything that was Halloween related because the neighbors did not want it done. The area where I live in I am happy to say still allows Halloween and the elementary schools by me still do a parade although last year it was a few days after Halloween because of a freak snow/ice storm we had.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Anything you want to be. That's the magic of Halloween. I can be a disco dancing unicorn dragon witch if I wanna. (and I do! so I will!)

How would you be a disco dancing unicorn dragon? That's the coolest costume ever! I'm going to be Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show because I have the hair, and I'm going to see the showing on Halloween where you get to yell stuff at the screen and participate :) But when I was little I was generally some sort of princess or fairy. Once I was a fairy princess firefighter :) I was scared of the scary costumes, so I never wore one. Halloween's always been my favourite holiday, I can't imagine having it then having it taken away.

[snarkbillie]

How would you be a disco dancing unicorn dragon? That's the coolest costume ever! I'm going to be Magenta from the Rocky Horror Picture Show because I have the hair, and I'm going to see the showing on Halloween where you get to yell stuff at the screen and participate :) But when I was little I was generally some sort of princess or fairy. Once I was a fairy princess firefighter :) I was scared of the scary costumes, so I never wore one. Halloween's always been my favourite holiday, I can't imagine having it then having it taken away.

I have a dragon costume that I made a few years ago, I'm adding a unicorn horn and a mane to it and a tail with rainbow strips of fleece. I'm going to wear a disco ball necklace and dance a lot. Also I'm a witch so I'm going to wear a tiny witch's hat offset on my head. If you're following here, yes I'll have two tails, a dragon's tail and a unicorn's tail.

[AnnieC 305]

What bothers the husband and I is that the 'fundies' have shut down so much of the holiday that no one in our town goes trick-or-treating anymore. They haven't even done the pathetic mall version the past few years. And we both love Halloween and want to celebrate with our children when they get here, but we'll be the only ones left in town. Guess it will be homemade treats and scary movies for us, or something.

[Claddagh]

Our local doctor was having cute Hallowe'en decorations put up. When I was in the waiting room one person complained about it and the doctor said "As long as my kids don't dress up as anything evil what's the harm in Hallowe'en? Let them have fun and be kids!"

[VodouDoll]

This will be my baby's first Halloween. We're so excited. I bought her an adorable little old-timey pilot outfit with goggles and all and when I told my coworker she said, "Why did you buy her that? A pilot is a boy costume." Sigh.

[lilwriter85]

One of my high school teachers was an Assembly of God minister and his church didn't celebrate Halloween. He told us students that it was a devil holiday. Some kids laughed at him, but he ignored it. His church and a couple of other churches that were against Halloween held a joint potluck at his church.

[snarkbillie]

This will be my baby's first Halloween. We're so excited. I bought her an adorable little old-timey pilot outfit with goggles and all and when I told my coworker she said, "Why did you buy her that? A pilot is a boy costume." Sigh.

I would start emailing her a picture a day from the 99's.

http://www.ninety-nines.org/

Maybe start with the lovely Amelia.

[mockingbird]

I love Halloween! It's my favorite holiday. It was not big at my college at all which I thought was pretty sad (I don't even think there were costume parties) but I am really looking forward to my school's Halloween party this year. We are already starting to plan our costumes. I love any excuse to dress up.

People in my hometown went trick-or-treating all through high school if you weren't at a party. In elementary school there was usually a group of neighborhood kids who went together. We always walked (I remember the snowsuits too! LOL I would always try to plan something that could go OVER a snowsuit/coat because I didn't want to cover up my costume). Sometimes parents came, I think that was mainly if we were walking far. My kindergarten teacher lived a few streets over so I know they walked with us for that part of it. I have a grandmother who is a seamstress so she made/makes a lot of my costumes.

I am between Hermione and the girl from Black Swan this year. I found this awesome formal at Dillard's that looks like a tutu and is white and black. I can't decide if I want to use that as my costume and go all out with the Black Swan make-up, or if I want to save it for our Christmas formal dance, since it could work as a real dress and not just a costume lol. I have the whole Hermione outfit from Harry Potter parties, and I love it so I end up using it for Halloween every few years. Back when I worked at the library I think I usually changed into that one for work because it was book-related ;)

eta I went to a Catholic elementary school which was not anti-Halloween. We had to celebrate All Saints' Day the next day though and of course that was More Important (whatever). It does happen to be one of my favorite religious holidays though, mainly because I love the incantation my church sang about the saints. I also go to Easter Vigil mass just to hear that song. I think it is so silly to ban Halloween, dressing up is fun and harmless IMO :(

[Jana814]

What bothers the husband and I is that the 'fundies' have shut down so much of the holiday that no one in our town goes trick-or-treating anymore. They haven't even done the pathetic mall version the past few years. And we both love Halloween and want to celebrate with our children when they get here, but we'll be the only ones left in town. Guess it will be homemade treats and scary movies for us, or something.

That is horrible and sad!! That this one group ruins it for so many people that even a public place like the mall would put them up!

[marmalade]

I just saw on the news this morning that 71% of Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year, the HIGHEST number ever. So much for the fundies trying to eradicate it.

As for me, it ceased being fun a long time ago, although in my 20's, Halloween parties were the best parties of the year. My ex and his roomies used to throw bashes and hundreds of people would show up over the course of the night (and wee hours). ANYTHING went. And when I say anything, I mean ANYTHING.

I don't know how I survived some of those blowouts. :twisted:

[fedelm]

Halloween is alive and well here. We lucked out and moved into a neighborhood that gets vanloads of children from other areas. Every year we get ~300 trick or treaters (defined as someone in a costume holding out a bag and asking for candy; parents usually don't count).

[freejoytoo]

Why is it anything goes? I thought Halloween was meant to be scary? Anyway, it seems lame that fundies are jumping on the 'it's Pagan and evil' bandwagon when all their other religious festivals are. Reminds me of my sister's then best friend's mother who insisted in sitting in a church for Halloween and said the nursery rhyme 'Jack jump over a candlestick' was about Satan and refused to read it to her kids :shock:

[Conuly]

This will be my baby's first Halloween. We're so excited. I bought her an adorable little old-timey pilot outfit with goggles and all and when I told my coworker she said, "Why did you buy her that? A pilot is a boy costume." Sigh.

Clearly your coworker never heard of Bessie Colman, first American of any race or gender to obtain an international pilot's license. What did you say to your coworker?

As far as Halloween goes, widespread trick-or-treating is actually a fairly recent custom, I'm pretty sure. Up through the middle of the last century plenty of areas had their days of kids begging for treats (not necessarily candy, the ubiquity of packaged candies is also recent) on other days (NYC had Thanksgiving, for example) or had different customs entirely. We think it's always been universally accepted because that's how we grew up, but not so much.

On that note, the nieces and I are making our boo bags next week. I'm bound and determined to get other people in on this now that I've found out about it.