Must be around Halloween...

[homeschoolmomma1]

My kids went trick or treating and came home with Jack Chick Tracks in their bags grrrr. A teenage girl handed them out on her steps along with giving kids a piece of candy so she was also contributing to what she was so against not really sure that makes any sense to me. :pull-hair:

[singsingsing]

You guys trick-or-treat before Halloween?

[fullmetalheart]

Some areas don't do trick or treating on Halloween night. I know my home town usually did it a couple night's before.

[homeschoolmomma1]

Ya it is weird our area does it Sunday before (unless it falls on Sunday or Saturday) because they do it before dark I guess lol

[singsingsing]

I remember when we were kids my sister and I used to watch that Mary Kate & Ashley Halloween movie, and we could never understand why they were trick-or-treating in the daylight. Where I live the littlest kids only start to come out around sunset... and it's always October 31st, whether weekend or weekday, rain or snow. :) We also have Devils Night the night before, but I feel like that was more of a thing ten or fifteen years ago.

[Coconut Flan]

I can't remember not having Halloween on Halloween anywhere we have lived. Kids begin showing up around dusk. I guess I've been lucky living places that don't try to legislate and control Halloween. The only regulation I remember is in one city setting an end of 10 PM and age cut off.

[homeschoolmomma1]

I think our town has better attendance, since it is lighter and families can go together. The kids can also chose to go to nearby towns on Halloween for more candy ;)

[Shoes Grace]

My city's famous for "Beggar's Night," a Depression era attempt to cut down on older kids playing pranks on people and interfering with Trick or Treaters by having the door-to-door event on the 30th, usually 6-8, sometimes 9. Tradition goes that you're supposed to offer some kind of "talent" in exchange for the candy, so it wasn't *really* begging, which gave way to terrible Halloween jokes, and has been forgotten since about the time I quit Trick or Treating. But, most of the surrounding towns have adopted the 30th, and then there are places like the zoo that have Halloween events usually begin a full week before, and then there are "trunk or treating" events (which I personally think is a little silly, with the exception of more rural communities and other areas with heavy traffic and no sidewalks) which are scheduled anytime up to a week in advance of the holiday, especially those years the 30th or 31st falls on a school night. The earliest adult Halloween parties started last Thursday. Haunted houses have been open since late September- Halloween creep is getting a little out of control.

I do kind of understand when Fundies feel the country has been dipped in hell for a month. The Chick Tract folks usually visit college campuses and stand across from schools as well, so even if it's not Trick or Treating, you can still acquire a Halloween themed comic pretty easy this time of year.

[Rescinded and Mended]

I seem to remember reading awhile back where one poster recycled the Chick Tracts into paper crafts and gave them as gag/holiday gifts, something about laminating them into mats for dinner place settings. Might be a clever way to get rid of the vile things. ;)

[lilwriter85]

I remember when we were kids my sister and I used to watch that Mary Kate & Ashley Halloween movie, and we could never understand why they were trick-or-treating in the daylight. Where I live the littlest kids only start to come out around sunset... and it's always October 31st, whether weekend or weekday, rain or snow. :) We also have Devils Night the night before, but I feel like that was more of a thing ten or fifteen years ago.

I also remember watching that movie as a kid and thinking the same thing.

[Koala]

If Halloween falls on Sunday around here, the religious nuts always want to have it changed to another night. As of yet they have been unsuccessful thank goodness.

[Jana814]

I seem to remember reading awhile back where one poster recycled the Chick Tracts into paper crafts and gave them as gag/holiday gifts, something about laminating them into mats for dinner place settings. Might be a clever way to get rid of the vile things. ;)

Great idea!

[Rescinded and Mended]

I'm surrounded by enough fundie-lites in my area that you'd think they would have tried changing the day of Halloween itself, but it hasn't happened yet. Nope, the worst they try to do is hand out Bible verses instead of candy.

[ThatSnark]

All the church parking lot trunk-or-treats were this past Saturday afternoon/evening, so I think a lot of families have Halloweened already. (Bonus: local fundie Judgment House is last weekend and this coming.... but I am not sick enough to go to that!)

[Mudball]

My (pagan) husband collects chick tracts, he'd be thrilled.

In our area a lot of the townships have different nights for trick or treating, making this one long, cold, exhausting, sugar-fueled week of fun.

[Coconut Flan]

I have a friend in Ohio where they do that. I can't see it. My kids always got too much candy just going three or four blocks from our house. One night is plenty for me. I do enjoy Halloween, but I think a week of it would easily do in the enjoyment.

[Cheetah]

I remember when we were kids my sister and I used to watch that Mary Kate & Ashley Halloween movie, and we could never understand why they were trick-or-treating in the daylight. Where I live the littlest kids only start to come out around sunset... and it's always October 31st, whether weekend or weekday, rain or snow. :) We also have Devils Night the night before, but I feel like that was more of a thing ten or fifteen years ago.

We don't have Devil's night here (CA) and trick-or-treating is always on the 31st. The local school district has gotten smart and usually schedules a teacher in-service day on Nov. 1 (so no school for the kids). But now that daylight savings doesn't end until the 1st weekend in November (one or two weeks later than it used to be), we do get trick-or-treaters before dark... people start showing up around 6pm and it's still light for another half hour or 45 minutes. We (and most people I know) turn the porch light off about 9pm as everyone out that late is older teens anyway (not that I'm totally against older teens trick-or-treating. if they put a little effort into a costume...)

[Rachel333]

I encountered my first real-life Chick tract the other day, and I was kind of excited. It was just a boring "you're going to hell if you're not saved" one, though. I prefer the ones about demons or the homosexuals. Much more entertaining.

[GeoBQn]

Today, one of my Facebook friends from Milwaukee posted a status asking if anybody wanted her "leftover Halloween candy." When someone else asked about it, she explained that official trick-or-treat times in her area are daylight on the Sunday before Halloween. She said the city changed it 40 years ago after a 9-year-old girl was murdered on Halloween.

[Rescinded and Mended]

I encountered my first real-life Chick tract the other day, and I was kind of excited. It was just a boring "you're going to hell if you're not saved" one, though. I prefer the ones about demons or the homosexuals. Much more entertaining.

My first one involved kids who went trick-or-treating on Halloween. A bunch of the cartoon kids got their throats cut from eating apples with razor blades in them, and then everyone who ever went trick-or-treating was burning in the fiery pits of hell by the end of the tract. I was pretty young when I first read it, so I was confused and scared (my Catholic upbringing did nothing to help my fears at the time, either). Nowadays I just think Jack Chick is a really talented troll, and it's easy to laugh off his comics.

[FeministShrew]

Most of the local churches had their lame "Fall Festivals" or trunk-or-treating Saturday or Sunday nights. One advertised a "Holy Hayride with biblical characters along the way." I can't think of much that would be more boring, unless they include some of the gory, bloody stories of murder!

[Patsy]

Nowadays I just think Jack Chick is a really talented troll, and it's easy to laugh off his comics.

:snooty: I want to believe.

[Shoes Grace]

My first one involved kids who went trick-or-treating on Halloween. A bunch of the cartoon kids got their throats cut from eating apples with razor blades in them, and then everyone who ever went trick-or-treating was burning in the fiery pits of hell by the end of the tract. I was pretty young when I first read it, so I was confused and scared (my Catholic upbringing did nothing to help my fears at the time, either). Nowadays I just think Jack Chick is a really talented troll, and it's easy to laugh off his comics.

I read somewhere (it was probably Cracked, though, so, grain of salt) recently that Chick Tracts may actually be responsible for the widespread urban myth that there are wackos out there putting razor blades and syringes in Halloween candy. There are pretty much no documented cases of this happening, and the earliest source making any reference to this seems to be that particular tract. He is one damn successful troll.

[Minerva]

There was one year where it was proposed that Halloween be held on the Saturday before, in my area. I don't know if that actually happened, my friends and I said fuck it and went out on the 31st. I couldn't wrap my mind around not celebrating Halloween on Halloween. It's not an event, it's a day, you know? It wasn't brought up any other year, so I suspect the idea was canned.

The sun's down by 6pm around here on Halloween, so you can do your trick or treating in the dark and still be done in time for an 8:30 bedtime, assuming you don't have to drive from house to house or something. I think intentionally setting Halloween on a not-school night could be seen as giving kids license to stay out late, which could be seen as encouraging mischief. Which could explain why the idea didn't fly.

[Arete]

The only acknowledgement of Halloween in our local Greek Orthodox church is passing out the UNICEF boxes in the Sunday School classes so the kids can collect some money that goes to mundane stuff like clean water and vaccines. There is no celebration in the church but there is no preaching against it and no one pretends their kids aren't out doing the candy shakedown on the 31st. Don't start a fight, won't be a fight is the church's default policy on Halloween.

Since we have both a UN (UNICEF) and idolatrous whore of Babylon church connection, the Jack Chick tract practically writes itself.