Some of us think kids, in their natural state, are nice. Hardwired to enjoy life, guileless in their gluttony; it’s one of life’s sweet, civilizing moments to give candy to the little monsters. And if you don’t see it that way that’s fine - you can opt out by not turning on your porch light/placing a jack-o-lantern in the window/taping a cardboard decoration to your apartment door.
But don’t exploit stranger danger, foist your tenuous anti-Satanic beliefs, boost your membership/number of envelopes in the collection basket at the expense of those of us who like Halloween.
You’re not making this world a safer, better place. You’re making it a more fearful, isolating place.
How is this even a Pit? The churches I went to as a child ALWAYS had a “Costume Celebration of Christ” or some-such every single year. It’s not new at all!
Honestly, people who are going to be attending those types of celebrations aren’t going to be letting their kids out of the house on Halloween anyway - it isn’t stopping the little rugrats from getting candy and enjoying a secular glutton-holiday, it’s letting oppressed over-religious rugrats have a chance for candy and costumes and fun and games (in church, but nonetheless) so that when they go back to school the next day, they can have a snowball’s chance in hell at not being totally picked on for being terminally weird.
It’s been going on for a while. Back when my parents could still force me to do so, I attended a couple of “All Hallows’ Eve” parties at our church. Kids could dress up, but costumes of satanic creatures like witches, devils, and Jimmy Carter were prohibited. And yeah, it was as lame as you can imagine.
I dunno, you can get around the not wearing “bad” costumes if you’re creative enough (and your parents are well-placed enough in church).
My dad was a great co-conspirator, and my mother was a clown, so there was lots of fun makeup to do effects out of.
One year we did Jairus and his daughter, so I got to be all dead.
One year we did Samuel’s Ghost and the Witch of Endor. (he liked that one because he got to get done up as a ghost)
I did Lot’s Wife one year. I thought about doing Lot’s Daughter the year afterwards (I was about 12 or so?) but my mother threatened to disown both me and my dad if we dared.
So - yes, it is hugely lame, but enough twisted imagination can make just about anything somewhat entertaining.
Yes. I liked getting candy as a kid. I like giving it out now as an adult. It’s a seasons-of-life continuity thing.
The first year I lived here, I’d bought candy and nobody came to the door. The next day I offered it to the kids who played in my yard (at least their parents weren’t that overprotective - or maybe they preferred my turf be scuffed up not theirs) They said they could accept it only if it didn’t have witches or ghost on the wrappers.
In a sane society, these kids would indeed want to dress up and go trick or treating.
BTW, “Okaaay” is a condescending put-down that marks its user as unimaginative and conformist.
It’s ok, Tove, they don’t miss what they don’t know.
And given trends, at least a decent percentage of the kids currently schlepped off to the despised “Fall Festival” will grow up to become happy, non-churched, well-adjusted candy-givers to throngs of costumed, non-churched, heathen kids in Halloweens of the future.
My church growing up had a “Fall Festival.” It was basically trick-or-treating mixed with a school Hallowe’en party in a more structured environment–with added religion. We’d wear costumes and go from room to room; it was a big freaky architectural patchwork and oddly suited to a sort of “lead kids through the haunted house” structure.
And then some kids would do regular trick-or-treating besides.
So, what I’m saying is, this might be cultish paranoia against “decadent secular culture,” or just a Hallowe’en party for churchy kids. Or a mix, anywhere on the spectrum between.
I can’t fathom why giving out candy is so important to you. But if it is, maybe you should move out of your creepy fundie neighborhood. I’ve lived in several midwestern cities, and all of them were crawling with kids on Halloween.
As kids, we always went to the church Halloween party and then went trick or treating after. Both were fun, we got candy and bobbed for apples and played some games at the church party, then ran around the neighbourhood like maniacs to trick or treat.
We were Pentecostals and didn’t know very much about Catholics so one year I went as the Virgin Mary. I got a few looks of horror from some of the people answering doors. One lady said my costume was sacrilegious.
I once attended a Halloween party(and it was definitely Halloween, not some wimpy substitute) at a seminary. The tongue in cheek theme was “Come as your favorite saint” So one guy makes up his face to look like a dog, hangs a miniature keg around his neck, and is, you got it, St. Bernard. One student was in a pink bunny suit as “St Peter of the Cottontail” One guy dressed in a white robe with a dragon hand puppet and was St. George. His wife was a devil. Bright red leotard and tights, red satin horns in her naturally red hair. The one student from England(Manchester I think) had a dry sense of humor. He dressed in elegant evening clothes, top hat and all, and said he was Yves St. Laurent.
Yup, that. I thought playing with friends and getting loads of candy was more fun than knocking on stranger’s doors and getting loads of candy anyway. Plus we played dodge ball with rolled up socks as ammo. Beats tromping around in the dark and rain any day.
On the Weird Shit Christians Do scale, this one’s pretty mild.
The local schools do a Fall Festival, and don’t allow scary costumes on Halloween. The only kids who can dress up are K-1-2, everyone else is only allowed a pre-approved "storybook character outfit at best.
So this War an Halloween has also extended to the public schools. We need to call Bill O’Relly!
A church I pass by on the way to work has had “FALL-O-JESUS” on its sign for a couple of weeks. I can’t tell if it’s a substitute celebration, or one of those threatening sermons about how the country is falling apart.
