by David Miller
Let’s return ‘All Hallows’ Eve to the Church where it belongs and has meaning, “witch” is not about candy, costumes, and ghouls. It’s religious to honor the “saints” who have gone to heaven, not hell.
The religious holiday has always belonged to them anyway.
The secular Halloween is a 2000-year-old pagan festival that celebrated Summer’s end by believing the dead could walk among us.
We 2022 pagans and heathens celebrate Halloween by walking like the dead or otherwise scaring little innocent children ghoulishly and then ease our guilt by rewarding them with sugary or chocolatey treats. And, it works because we in turn allow our children to enter a fantasy world of costume play by going house to house begging to be scared and being rewarded for it.
All Hallows’ Eve, the religious event, is always on October 31, and November 1 is All Saints Day.
Halloween (Trick or Treat) is “officially” declared by local governments between certain hours each year on October 31, and six out of seven years the day is either on a work or school day or when the next morning is either a work or school day. They choose dangerous dark hours when children should not be walking the streets in hard-to-see costumes many of “witch” are hard to see out of.
Celebrating Halloween on the last Saturday of October would allow the traditional parades through subdivisions. And, let children and pets “trick or treat” in other neighborhoods, begging between the hours of 4-6 PM. It would allow the backyard unveiling of the bucket contents around a bonfire complete with hotdogs and smores.
Then when the children pass out from exhaustion and their sugar highs, the adults can continue partying late into the night acquiring the hangover every pagan will have in the morning. The difference is that the next day is not a school or a work day. The non-heathens will still be in good shape to attend church in the morning.
Saturday Halloweens would allow trick-or-treating to begin in the daylight hours, eliminating the need for costume safety alterations and flashlights.
It eliminates the stress of hastily heading home from school and work preparing or buying dinner, doing homework, and preparing school lunches. Who needs cranky children and their parents?
Gets children off the street before most drivers begin drinking.
A developmental disability friendlier day.
You can throw more elaborate neighborhood parties.
Halloween deserves its own full-blown witching day brewed with more family fun.
An interesting fact is that Halloween began in this country when folks went door to door asking for prayers. Let’s make this year the day we go door to door praying that “Halloween Saturday” becomes a new tradition by urging our local governments to wake up from the dead. And since Election Day follows so soon, treat them with a “NO” vote if they don’t agree.
David Miller is the Editor in Chief of Loveland Magazine.
