Spooky things

Halloween is creeping up, and I’m afraid my 7 year old is going to collapse from nervous excitement before it gets here. Every day he has a different costume idea.  Every day he is jumping around in the persona of some superhero or another.  I’m about ready to ban him from trick or treating, so that the hyperactivity can simmer down without being fed candy.

If there were a reason to ban trick or treating in our family it would be this craziness both before and after the main trick or treating event. Plus, my kids have bad teeth already.  But I'm not going to ban trick or treating, because I'm feeling defensive of Halloween lately, after hearing attacks on it from some of our new home schooling acquaintances. Since we’ve resumed homeschooling, we have fallen in with some evangelical families. Just like some of the families we knew in Virginia, these families don’t do Halloween. They have Harvest fests and chili suppers (some of our friends in VA had a Reformation Party to mark Luther’s nailing of the 95 theses on October 31), but no scary costumes, no skeletons, no bloody props.  At the Christian bookstore I peeked into the other day, looking for secondhand home school stuff, I was offered a tract called “Say no to Halloween.” I didn’t take it, or I’d quote it. (A p.s: Melanie of Wine Dark Sea shared this link about the problems with celebrating Reformation Day.)

I don’t have any great love for Halloween. Theoretically, I'm opposed to all the sugar and artificial colorings, but in practice I have a hard time staying out of the goodie bags. I don’t love really gory displays of dismembered corpses and scary clowns that some neighbors set up for decorations, but I can't help driving by and recognizing in myself that perverse urge to scare the kids like my dad used to do when he would drive by old cemeteries and slow down, telling us to look out for ghosts or men with iron hooks for hands. I get tired of listening to my kids whine and beg for costumes and décor and candy.  But I like the chance to visit with the neighbors.

I’m sorry I’m not more confrontational sometimes.  I should just speak up when I'm told that Halloween is pagan, and say that we are celebrating Halloween because of All Saint’s Day (although my kids are in it for the candy).  Do I need to reply that the dates chosen for Christmas and Easter also coincided with pagan celebrations?   I was happy to see in our diocesan paper a short defense of Halloween.  I suppose the author also received one of the tracts.

It is disconcerting to be warned about the potentially detrimental effect on the soul that dressing like a mummy and pretending to be a witch can have.  Costumes and decorations have become more gory and scary. But are kids really welcoming the occult - or do they just want to impress their friends and get the most candy.?


I don’t remember anyone being against Halloween when we were growing up. On the other hand, we didn’t see as many gory or skanky costumes either.  We dressed up as things like hobos, old ladies, gypsies, and baseball players because we could put those costumes together with odds and ends that were lying around the house.  My mom didn’t have time to sew after we hit and certain age, and costumes at the store were cheapy plastic, and mostly characters from Star Wars. One year my friends and I got creative and wore garbage bags and said we were the California Raisins.  The scariest costume I ever wore was a black get-up with my hair ratted and my face powdered white.  I was Death, and my friend, dressed in a thrift shop bride dress, was The Maiden.  I guess since she came up with the idea, she got to be the pretty one.

What I wonder is if the explosion of Halloween commercialism, including the increased gore factor, is what really started the evangelical humbug about Halloween.  Or maybe their voices were out there, but there just weren’t enough of them to be heard back when I was growing up.

It would be nice if the commercialism would die back a bit.  I’m not going to buy lawn décor for Halloween, and as a matter of stubborn pride, I don’t like to buy costumes, except the occasional prop.  I'd be happy to boycott sexy costumes for preteen girls.  And 20-something guys who dress up as mass murderers are definitely creepy. 

But I like sitting out in the driveway with the neighbors, adult beverages discreetly poured into plastic cups, comparing notes on the best get-ups. I applaud the parents who dress up with their kids, although I’m not going to do it myself.  I’m happy to give an extra handful of candy to kids who show some creativity and dress as “cereal” killers and million dollar bills. 

The Halloween party poopers are right to notice that there are some really scary people and things out in the world, but trick-or-treaters don’t really qualify, do they?  Especially if they get a lesson in sharing their candy (or paying their taxes, as I like to call my share of their collection), and then get hauled off to a Mass and a cemetery the next day in honor of the feasts of All Saints and All Souls. Maybe if more Catholics, including myself, were a little better about pointing out the connection between the celebration and the solemnity that follows, those little Ban Halloween tracts wouldn’t be making the rounds.