“Halloween–Love it or Hate It”

For years, I’ve been conflicted about celebrating Halloween. I used to view Halloween as a kick- off to the Holiday season–the beginning of two and a half months of parties and festivities, culminating in Christmas and New Years. I liked the make believe and the treats. I enjoyed some scary, super-natural stories like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein . The fight against evil and the struggle for good to triumph were entertaining when good always won.

Halloween has stopped being fun–things that used to be in the category of spooky are now vicious and evil. Modern films don’t always leave the idea that good should win. The spooky and entertaining have given way to oppressive and hopeless or gut-wrenching violence and satanic worship.

“Now is the Great Day of my power!” says Satan. He seems to have a grip on the whole earth, but I refuse to buy into it. I want to remake Halloween, to make it cheerfully spooky again. I want grinning jack-o-lanterns, Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin, fairy princesses, and goofy 8-year olds as “dead guys” or vampires–dressed up in costumes they made with plastic fangs, green make up, and fake blood.

Judging from the number of emails I've received over the years that I’ve been writing this column, many people are as uncomfortable as I am with the whole concept of Halloween. You’ve told me about holding parties at your homes, giving out extra treats to the most creative, happy costumes, or making trick or treating a family outing and not letting your teens go off by themselves. You’ve also had your kids collect coins for UNICEF or food for Care and Share.

Karen, a reader from Mesquite wrote: “I have long believed that just as Christmas and Easter are holidays celebrating Jesus, Halloween is a holiday celebrating Satan--it's HIS holiday, and we are little by little being conditioned to be tolerant of more and more evil and "pranks" every year. Look at the costumes: violence, blood, evil and witchcraft.  I have refused to acknowledge the day for over 30 years, wanting to give NO celebration to the day.  

Knowing that I’m a minority and most people don't understand what the holiday celebrates, I think we do need another way to celebrate.  People aren't going to give up the holiday, so let's turn it around and make it a day of goodness, fun, and happiness.  Let’s have kids' parties and dress like Bible characters or fairy tale or cartoon characters (who are not evil).  Let’s play lots of games--musical chairs, bobbing for apples, pushing a peanut across the floor, “make your own” costume parade, etc.”

I call on all parents who remember being excited about “What I’ll be for Halloween” to join my readers and me. Let’s re-establish this make-believe time for our kids. Let’s let them try out fantastic personae so that they can figure out their direction in the world. Make-believe is wonderful. Like anything else, it can be distorted, but the human imagination distinguishes us from animals and lower forms of life.

I hope that next Thursday will be a fun and memorable time for your children and you. Send comments to my email: heavenhelpusbeourbest@gmail.com.