I wonder if any other cities have “Beggar’s Night.” When I was a kid growing up in Buffalo, there were two nights where you went out in search of candy; Beggar’s Night on the 30th, and Halloween on the 31st.
Where I grew up, the night before Halloween was “Devil’s Night”, when everyone went out and vandalized the shit out of their neighborhoods. You know, TP, eggs, that sort of thing.
My mother never let me go out that night when I was still young enough to get a kick out of it, but old enough to be out (like say, 13).
My problem with it is if one is such a devout Christian, one shouldn’t want to “celebrate the devil” on any day, much less Sunday.
My sister is a fundie xtian. Her son doesn’t celebrate Halloween, period. Her choice, but at least she’s consistent.
These people who think it’s okay to celebrate Halloween on any day but a Sunday, because that’s the “Lord’s Day,” are hypocrites. Kind of makes you wonder what they do on the other days of the week.
My other peeve about Halloween is that they always schedule the time change the Sunday before, so little ghosts and princesses and goblins are wondering around in the dark.
But, but…that the POINT. For a lot of kids, this is the first time you’re allowed to be out after dark. Especially that narrow window between being old enough to go without a parent and being too old to go at all: it’s scary and neat and significant that you’re out in the dark.
Hrrrrph. Some people want to take all the fun out of childhood.
Except that not all Christians happen to think that Halloween is all about the devil. Yeah, if you do think it’s about the devil, you shouldn’t want to celebrate it on any day of the week (or perhaps you should get a clue) but not everyone thinks that.
The mere idea of doing something that pagans may or may not have done in some shape or form once upon a time does not bother all Christians. Begging for candy on a Sunday, however, often does.
Well, I don’t know what they say but I’ve lived in the Kansas City metro area for 28 years and nobody has ever come to my door on the 29th. :dubious:
I think that both Christians and non-Christians can agree that the devil was responsible for the creation of “fun-sized” Halloween candy that contains approximately 1 cubic centimeter of chocolate. A decent, God-fearing person would only give out full-sized candy bars, especially since there’s a special where I live where you can get one kind on sale for 20 cents! 
I wish Halloween would always be celebrated on a Saturday. Pretty much any other day of the week makes for a dud Halloween.
“Oh boy, Halloween’s tomorrow!”
“Okay, after you get home from school and finish your homework, you can put on your costume before your piano teacher gets here, eat dinner, and then trick-or-treat for forty-five minutes.”
Wheee.
Since when do City Councils schedule Halloween, anyway? What would happen if they HAD decided to change the day; would they arrest all the little tykes who dared to go trick-or-treating on Sunday? (What the hell did they do in 1999, one wonders?) Do kids these days have to get trick-or-treating licenses from the Bureau of Childish Fun and Harmless Pranks?
And yeah, the stupidity of the implicit position “Devil worship on Monday is one thing, but not on the Lord’s day!” is pretty bizarre. It’s like some primitive backwoods Lovecraftian polytheist dualism or something: “We dare not offend Jesus/Yahweh by trick-or-treating on His holy day, as He is strongest of the Elder Gods, but of course we wish to remain in the good graces of the Goat God as well, as He is also powerful. Now the Goat God’s great feast-day falls on the day of Jesus/Yahweh! Alas, what are we to do?”
Where the heck did you get that information? I’ve lived here since I was two, and I’ve always trick or treated on the 31st. (When I was still young enough to go trick or treating, that is.) No one has ever come to our house on the 29th.
I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken.
Well, occasionally there are blizzards on Halloween, and someone needs to tell the little tykes not to go out and freeze to death in a snowdrift. Living in a society where you can’t trust parents to take that responsibility, the city does it in order to avoid the expense of cleaning up heaps of little frozen corpses come springtime. :eek:
People in general do not in fact trick or treat in Kansas City on the 29th, and I’ve lived here 30+ years. It’s certainly possible that some “neighborhoods” or a homes association or a church and its congregation does it, but I’ve never seen it nor heard of it. I’ve also never heard mention in the paper or TV or radio about it.
Trick or treating in general seems to be on a sharp decline here, continuing a trend from the 1990’s, according to personal experience, family experience, and experience of co-workers and friends. The year before last we had 1 set of trick or treaters the whole night. Last year, an incredible “zero” kids showed up. I guess they get scared off visiting the lesbian witch house.
This lady certainly has something to say about this controversial topic.
In the small town where my mom lives, they actually schedule specific times for kids to trick or treat in the different neighborhoods. For example, “Trick or treating will occur between four and six for the area between State and Main, from Elm to Maple. Trick or treating will occur between six and seven for the area between…yada yada.” They also decide which day it’s going to happen on, naturally, and I have never lived there, so I don’t know, but I’d be willing to bet they never have it on Sunday. Also, I bet they make sure it doesn’t conflict with the local high school’s football games. Man, are they football crazy around there.
That is weird.
I suppose the idea was to cut down how much time a homeowner has to be prepared to do candy-handing-out duty, but I bet the result is the kids pressure their parents to ferry them from neighborhood to neighborhood so they can get more more MORE candy.
Personally, we stick to the old system: we turn our porch light on around 5:30, give treats to the children who come, and turn our porch light out at 8pm.
The idea being, anyone old enough after 8pm is too old to be trick or treating – and, besides, they had their chance and now the leftover butterfingers are all mine!
<question hijack>
Is the Sabbath Saturday or Sunday? I always thought it was originally Saturday, given that French, Italian and Spanish (and possibly other Romance languages - I don’t know) call Saturday ‘samedi, sabbato, sabado’. Does anyone know when/ why this changed?
Saturday is, was, and always will be the Jewish Sabbath – which has little or nothing to do with Christianity. But the term “Sabbath” applies to sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday.
Sunday is “the Lord’s Day” – with the original and principal significance of being the weekly “anniversary” of the Resurrection, which as you will note from Scripture took place on the first day of the week, i.e., Sunday. Along with this in modern theology it’s noted that it commemorates all three Persons of the Trinity, since it was the first day of Creation and the day on which the Holy Spirit descended on the first Pentecost (the 50th day of the Easter season and therefore the Sunday seven weeks after Easter Day).
The business about “Sabbath-keeping” is a carryover in some Protestant sects of the Jewish Sabbath observance to the Sunday tradition of Christian worship.
Thanks, Polycarp… but I’m still kinda confused.
So wouldn’t the 7th day be Saturday? Is Saturday the Sabbath and Sunday the Lord’s Day?
Try it again. The Ten Commandments were given under the Covenant with Moses – which was for the Israelites. If you convert to Judaism, they constitute ten of the 613 commandments which you are supposed to obey. Admittedly, they’re ten of the leading ones – the other 603 were written down by Moses; according to Exodus, God Himself made the first engraving of them onto the tablets Charlton Heston used to carry around before he traded them for an assault rifle. But nonetheless they have precisely the same impact on Christians as do the ones relating to shellfish and linsey-woolsey – to be kept insofar as they correspond to the paramount duties to love God and one’s fellow man, and to be ignored otherwise.
As a Christian, I’m quite aware of the monthlong fast of Ramadan, which Muslims throughout the world are keeping as a discipline of their faith. And I’m not – it’s not a part of mine.
Nor is the Jewish Sabbath.
On the other hand, keeping the day on which Jesus rose from the dead with the Great Thanksgiving (euxaristhin) is something that is part and parcel of my faith discipline.
Many Protestants, interpreting Scripture to suit themselves, bring over the idea of keeping the Sabbath from the Ten Commandments, and drape it over the keeping of the Lord’s Day – though they too will not keep the Sabbath as an Orthodox Jew will tell you it should properly be kept. But they will often challenge X, Y, or Z as “Sabbath-breaking” – including the keeping of the Eve of All Saints in its traditional celebration, which is what provoked this current Pit thread and this excursus* within it.
- It’s an excursus when I do it; it’s only a hijack when you do it!
I don’t want to waste perfectly good eggs, though.