When I was a little kid Halloween was a bad time of year for me because my parents wouldn’t let me celebrate it and I thought it was the end of the world because I would come to school in my regular clothes and everybody else would be dressed up but as I got older I accepted it. One Halloween I snuck some face paint with me and put it on at school, My dad had came by the school to drop something off and he saw me and made me wipe it off and I was crying in front of my whole class.
My youngest siblings seem to have no problems with the fact that we don’t celebrate Halloween, most years my mother would give out candy and these comic book like bible tracts but last year she decided that we as a family shouldn’t pass out candy. This year my family will be passing things out but no candy instead we are passing out these serious looking tracts that are saying why Halloween is “evil”.
I am all for handing out bible tracts please don’t get that twisted but handing out bible tracts on Halloween that say you shouldn’t celebrate Halloween and with no candy. I won’t be surprised if my house gets egged, toilet papered or stink bombed. This is one of the few things my step dad and I agree on, we will be forming a plan to replace the “Halloween is evil” tracts with something more colorful and of course put some candy in with it.
Then I also hate people telling my mom that she is depriving my younger siblings of something that is a big part of growing up and that she should let them celebrate Halloween. You wouldn’t believe how many people say that my brothers and sisters are being deprived of something because they can’t trick or treat. A lot of people say “oh just let them celebrate it” but that is like telling a Jewish person to celebrate Christmas.
10 years ago if someone told me I would be defending my mom on this no trick or treating thing I wouldn’t have believed them.
There were a few years when my parents told me it was my choice if I wanted to celebrate Halloween and I did go and get dressed up but I didn’t have a good time.
There is a school sponsored costume party tommorow night and even though I have the choice to go I doubt that I’m going to be there because the few times I did do the Halloween thing it just felt weird. Very awkward time of year for me and I can’t wait until it passes.
What denomination are your parents? Just curious. Do you know what their objections are, or do they care to elaborate?
For the record - in my church (Lutheran) I don’t know very many people, if any, who are opposed to Halloween. Maybe a few of the older people, but then again they may just be opposed to anything fun. :eek:
I love Halloween. It’s one of my favorite holidays. I can’t wait until my kid is old enough to dress up and do some trick or treating. 28 year old man trick or treating by himself? Call the cops. 28 year old man trick or treating with his little girl? Aww cute.
Pentecostal… The official explanation given to me when I was little was this;
“Halloween is a holiday that honors the dead and we are not to honor dead people because they are either in heaven or hell and we only give honor to God”
also that
“Halloween glorifies the occult and we do not glorify anything that has to do with the devil”.
Trick or treat: a child’s introduction to the protection racket.
“Nice house you got here. Be a shame if, say, an egg ended up all over the windows or someone were to, say, ring your doorbell and run awa. Do we understand each other?”
I hate Halloween too. I’m from NZ, and it never used to be a big deal here: a few orange cellophane jack-o’-lanterns stuck up in primary school, that kind of thing. There never used to be the American tradition of trick-or-treating, until the last few years when it started becoming increasingly hyped commercially, as a bastard clone of what some stores had seen on American sit-coms and decided was a good excuse to sell lollies and ghoul masks. Now it seem to be growing every year.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Americans or American traditions: I just object to their cynical wholesale transplantation {the customs, I mean: you guys are most welcome} to a place where they never really existed before just as an excuse to pressure kids into making their parents buy stuff.
I was raised an ELCA Lutheran, and I don’t recall there being any controversy about Halloween. Hell, we had Halloween parties in church. (Ah, the joys of being in a liberal mainline Protestant denomination.) Of course, our pastor also was sure to remind us that it’s also Reformation Day.
Well, if you and your family prefer to spend your time praying and handing out tracts, good for you. As for me, I’m going to be watching horror movies and eating candy.
I grew up Pentecostal Church of God. I couldn’t go to movies. I couldn’t go to the skating rink. I couldn’t go swimming if there were boys and girls together. I couldn’t play Little League Baseball. I couldn’t play on any sports team at school. I had to wear sweat pants in gym because we weren’t allowed to wear shorts. The girls couldn’t wear pants or makeup. We were fundaloonies.
But, dammit, we went Trick or Treating. We even had Halloween parties at church. It’s a freaking cultural holiday that is so far removed from any pagen origins that it’s absurd to object. It’s absolute idiotic to not participate because of “religion”. It’s a stupid comparison to Jews and Christmas. But you want to know something? I’ve known Jews who do participate in Christmas; because it’s as much a part of culture as it is religion.
If you don’t want to pass out candy then turn your fucking porch light off and don’t answer the damned door. Handing out Chick tracts instead of candy is vile; even worse than handing out McDonalds coupons instead of candy.
God damn fundaloonies trying to ruin innocent childhood fun. Disgusting brain-dead anti-intellectual superstitious morons.
Can you tell I still have some anger issues related to my upbringing?
This is the only part of your OP I have a problem with. Telling a Jewish person to celebrate Christmas is a lot different from telling someone who doesn’t believe in Halloween to let their kids participate in it. I mean it’s your choice what you do, but it’s not the same thing at all.
And FTR, I’m atheist and celebrate every damn holiday I can. Why not? More fun for me!
START, honey, that’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard. I’m sorry you missed out on the fun other little kids were having. All I wanted to do after reading that OP was smack a cowboy hat on your head, hand you a glowstick and a shopping bag, and take you around to the neighbor’s houses.
My girlfriend was also raised Penecostal, and has never carved a jack o’ lantern…I’m gonna fix that oversight right soon. Yesterday, I, a somewhat lapsed Baptist, went to the parking lot of a local Methodist chuch and got the cutest lil’ punkin to carve into a howling ghoul of some sort.
The point I’m trying to make here is that it’s all fine and well for your mom to hand out Halloween-is-evil tracts (even if your house then suffers the martydom of the egg and paper as others may not take kindly to such a low return-on-investment), but eventually you and your siblings will get to decide for yourselves if the modern celebration of Halloween is really in keeping with ancient Celtic ancestor veneration, or just a nod to tradition with lots of candy.
[loosely-connected rant] Back in the day, I do recall there being a certain portion of my congregation that would mention their disapproval of the celebration, but they were vastly outnumbered by more levelheaded members. Eventually, though, my church fell prey to the lameness that is “Noah’s Ark” parties, and other Halloween-lite bullshit that encourages costumes, but not those that are ‘scary.’ There is some strange mechanism in the human psyche that causes a cascade effect in groups. The most radical interpreters of the faith declare their silly position, then those around them seem to acquiesce, not out of agreement, but out of fear of beign less “right” somehow. It continues, spreading from those that almost agree, to those that are neutral, to those that disagree, leaving folks like my parents (who WISH some kids would show up at their doorstep for candy in their new, huge-lot, low-density subdivision) to suffer quietly in a place where they were once in the mainstram, but are now marginalized. Sigh. I imagine that’s why I’m still a Christian, but generally shun the “fellowship of man.” [/loosely-conected rant]
My view has always been that Halloween has exactly as much to do with the occult as Valentine’s Day has to do with saints. Think of it as a demonstration of the power and popularity of your faith: it has neutered old pagan festivals into good, clean fun and its popularity is such that practically everyone celebrates its festivals in some way, even if they don’t beleive.
Just let your parents know that, if they come carolling around my house near Christmas, I’m gonna start screaming Satanic obscenities at them. Just to, y’know, keep the force in balance.
I never did like Halloween all that much, and we most always celebrated it. I remember one year, I trick-or-treated until I got about two inches of candy in the bag, then wanted to stop. I had Mega Man on rental, for crying out loud!
The best Halloween, though, I didn’t go out. We stayed home and had a Halloween party. We never got any trick-or-treaters–living that far out in the sticks, any T-o-T’ers would have been more likely in search of directions than candy. Anyway, we always got candy Just In Case, but usually wound up eating all of it ourselves. At this Halloween party, after we’d already eaten all of the candy, we actually got a trick-or-treater.
Tentacle, I’m coming to your house for ToT this year. I love leftover pizza.
Actually, we’re having one of our church’s Seminary Field Workers (think “Student Teacher” or “Teacher’s Aide” for Pastors) and his family over for dinner and then their kids are going ToT. No problems here with it.
Weirdly enough, the most hassle I ever got about Halloween was from an ELCA (Lutheran) church - now that I’ve gone back to the more “conservative” (LC-MS) branch, there’s no hassle with it whatsoever.
Happy Reformation Sunday, everyone! And don’t nail any punkins to local church doors. That would be Wrong.
START, you said that you and your stepdad wished your mom would give out something other than tracts on Halloween. Maybe you two could talk her into handing out these cross candies next year. Everybody wins!
Do you know what their objections are, or do they care to elaborate?
