What is happening to Halloween?

[Kris]

Oooh--let us know when your book comes out, and its title!

I agree about the resiliency of Halloween. I have always felt that it lives on because it responds to a human need. Nothing else really fills that need.

I have always wondered why those fundamentalist Christians who are so opposed to Halloween don't balk at putting up Christmas trees, too. All of our religious holidays have a great admixture of pagan customs. (Easter bunny, anyone?)

Thanks for your reply, most appreciated.

Our book is called "Halloween - The Quintessential British Guide to Treats and Frights", released on the 1st Oct 2011. You can find more info by Google, Facebook or at our website www.slaughteredpumpkin.co.uk

Yes indeed - you are quite correct, the demonising of festivals is simply a lack of education in regards to the rise of religions and their historical practice. Similarly to Halloween, Xmas is rooted in the Pagan celebrations of Midwinter and the Solstice. It is not indicative of one tradition being better or more correct than the other - but rather, these festivals celebrate the basic human need to gather, to share warmth and memory and celebration. Religions partook and encouraged this.

Those who oppose it, simply need to refer to the pages of history, their history, which by-proxy is a melting pot of numerous cultures and traditions which gave rise to the worlds religions.

But, Halloween need not be a religious festival - it swims wonderfully within it or without it. Its special-ness lies in its ability to transcend.

I love it.
Best,
Kris

[Murfreesboro]

Thanks for the info, Kris! I'll be looking for your book!

[Pumpkin_Man]

The Evangelicals and the Jahova's Whitnesses tend to be a bit hinky about Halloween, but that's okay. We do have Freedom of Religion in this country, as long as they don't impose their belief system on everyone else. As for Halloween, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. No matter how young or old you are, if you come to my door in a costume on Halloween, ring my door bell and say "Trick or Treat," you will get a piece of candy in your ToT bag, and there will be one or two jack o'lanterns to greet you on the front porch.

Mike

[Broken Dreams]

Personally I think it's being rubbed out by christmas

[Murfreesboro]

Personally I think it's being rubbed out by christmas

I don't really see that. I was a child in the 1960s, and throughout my adult life I've seen Halloween grow & grow. Nobody, when I was a child, decorated the way many people do now. I was thrilled if I saw a jack-o-lantern, which was not a common sight back then, and I still remember the one young guy who put a stocking over his face and held a flashlight under his chin when he came to the door. That was the full extent of Halloween spirit when I was a little girl in Mississippi.

I have believed for many years that people who grew up loving Halloween were the ones keeping it alive and making it grow. My mother, for example, never TOTed as a child. She was born in 1914, and that custom didn't really take hold until the 1930s. It's little wonder that adults of the '60s didn't put much into a holiday they had never celebrated themselves.

There has been some increasingly publicized resistance to Halloween by Evangelicals and a few others who are nervous about its "pagan" origins. I don't find that too threatening, and, as Mike said, they have the right to their opinions. It amuses me that these people don't fret about decorating Christmas trees. Whatever. (Jehovah's Witnesses actually don't celebrate --anything--. For some reason they don't believe in holidays of any sort at all.)

[The Shape of Fear]

I live up in Canada, and it is booming......sometimes rain or bad weather will cut down on the TOTers but generally its quite busy and alot of fun. In the city Im in there have been two huge Halloween stores that have opened up in the last two years and they are packed with shoppers.

We have a party every year and its usually a good turn out of friends and family.....we usually throw the party on the Saturday before Halloween.

I take my kids TOTing but thats because they are still quite young. I decorated my house to the max and have watched people Trick or treating change the way they were walking so they could come by our house to check it out...some people have taken pictures of our decorations as well....So i encourage all the halloween nuts to give it your all because the fun feeling of halloween is contagious and will keep it alive!

cheers,

mark

[iHaunt]

Welcome to Halloween.com, Mark! Please make sure to introduce yourself in "New Member Introduction" section to chat and get know each other.

Have fun!

[Pumpkin_Man]

I don't remember a year that Halloween wasn't a 'big deal.' There is noticably less attention paid to it on tv, but for the most part, Murfreesburo is right. The decorations have gotten more common and more extravigant, and the parties have gotten wilder. The only Halloween tradition that might be in some danger is 'Trick or Treat.' Parents are more and more scared every year to let their children knock on strangers doors. I notice it with the Girl and Boy Scouts. They no longer come to the door, now if you want to buy 'Girl Scout Cookies" or "Cub Scout Candy," they usualy set up a stand outside the church or the local grocery store.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

Well, the Girl Scout ban on door-to-door cookie sales happened in 1975, because of the murder of a little girl named Marcia Trimble here in Nashville. She was selling Girl Scout cookies in her (low-crime) neighborhood when she disappeared. Her body was found six weeks later. Her murder went unsolved until 2009. (The cold case was eventually solved by DNA evidence.) I expect the Boy Scouts followed suit because of the Girl Scout decision.

Here in Murfreesboro, there is plenty of door-to-door TOTing still, but it tends to happen in the highly decorated neighborhoods. You can see places on Halloween night where not much is happening, but if you go to one of those streets where every house has been highly festooned for a month, you will find that people have driven their kids in from other neighborhoods to TOT there. We have a street like that a couple of blocks down and around the corner from us. Also our Main Street, which is an historic district (lots of gorgeous old homes, many of them antebellum, all 19th century). Lots of rich folks live there, and they really put on the dog for the whole town on Halloween night. They decorate more for Halloween than they do for Christmas on Main Street.

We have found that our traffic has gone up considerably since I started decorating the house several weeks in advance. We live on a busy street, so many people see our house, but there was a time when I put up the Halloween decorations just a couple of days before. You have to decorate several weeks before, and turn on the lights each night, to get people to notice and come by on the big night.

There are certainly some parents who worry about safety and prefer a private Halloween party, but for the most part, I do believe that most of them are seeking a "maximum experience" for their kids on the night. That's why they love to go to the highly decorated streets.

[The Shape of Fear]

Welcome to Halloween.com, Mark! Please make sure to introduce yourself in "New Member Introduction" section to chat and get know each other.

Have fun!

Thank you very much,

I will!

mark

[iHaunt]

Cool!

Mark, your more than welcome here to discuss everything about Halloween!

[Halloweennut08]

This is what I believe this country and most of an adult life is worrying about how to make money or get ahead in life doing whatever it takes or you believe. This is how I view it I love Halloween I attend church also I am pentecostal yes they don't like Halloween because they say day of the dead and Halloween is a devil worshipers they wont let there kids do anything or participate in tot. Its ridiculous , I believe if you have fun with something like halloween and you celebrate it 1. you are not a devil worshiper just because you like scary stuff or candy does not make you a bad person. 2. No matter what the heck you believe in everyone in here can admit its harmless fun if you practice witchcraft then that's bad that is just my view. But just because you put some fun Halloween decorations up and like scary movies does not mean you praising the devil. Halloween is a fun time in America if the fore fathers thought it was witchcraft then they would have never made it an official holiday.

I don't think Halloween is dying out I think just a bunch of freaked out people who has done bad things in the past feel like if they look at a cross crooked they will go to hell. Now I love my brothers and sisters and respect everyone but there can be a time where people are way to serious about religion and paranoid. And I consider myself a really faithful person and love god very much. But I pretty sure god is not going to say oh you went tot or celebrated Halloween oh your going down south. I'm tired of everyone playing the fear card there are some things that are legit but that's only like 15% of it is true legit stuff we should be worried about and take notice of. That's the truth I'm excited less than a 100 days until Halloween 2011. Lets keep the Halloween train going.

[SpookShowBaby]

I think that some traditions are dying out and others are barely holding on. I remember being a kid in the 80's and having a Halloween party at school where we would dress up, have our parade, and then head back to our rooms. Now they can't even call it that if they even have one. There used to be more decorations in stores and the feel of magic in the air, now it seems too commercial.

Last year I moved into a house and was finally able to have some decorations and whatnot. I wasn't able to do more than put jack-o-lantern's out because of the timing. I had a few TOTers, only a couple were in costume. Most of the kids just wore their normal clothes and had pillow cases. Halloween and TOTing are not just about getting free candy!!!!

I hope this year goes better

[Murfreesboro]

My youngest child is 14 now, so I haven't been around the grade schools in three years. However, at her school, they had a very entrenched Halloween tradition of a "book character" parade. They couldn't call it a Halloween parade, because a few parents were all worked up about Halloween's being Satanic. However, they were very liberal in their interpretation of a "book character." I've seen little boys dressed as Spiderman and holding a comic book. My own daughter went as a witch and carried a Harry Potter book, even though her witch costume was more or less generic and had nothing to do with the way the characters dress in Harry Potter. IOW, people could dress as whatever they liked, as long as they could figure out even the slimmest connection with a book, and find one to hold. The administrators (Principal & Vice Principal) would also dress up, usually in tandem (like, say, Shrek and his wife, something like that).

SpookShowBaby, I wonder if things seemed more magical to you in the '80s because you were a child? Maybe what has changed isn't the commercialism of Halloween, but the way you perceive it all.

I don't know what to make of your saying that most of your TOTers don't costume. It is rare for me to see a child who doesn't costume at all on Halloween. Some of those who can't afford store-bought costumes (or, more likely, older kids who made a last-minute decision to TOT) may rely more on face make-up and raggedy clothes, but most of those I see are costumed to the hilt.

[SpookShowBaby]

Maybe Halloween has lost some of it's magic since I have grown older, but I find myself longing for that same feeling. I think if I had someone else who shared my love for it, things might be better. Last year my sister and I went to a new haunted house and it was close. As for the costume thing, I have no idea. Not even home made costumes.