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FINALCUT
an american nomad
Articles Posted: 112; Links Seeded: 179
Member Since: 3/2006Last Seen: 1/27/2010
Member Since: 3/2006Last Seen: 1/27/2010
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The ghosts and ghouls will be out this evening in towns across America. Kids will be free to beg for treats while threatening tricks all evening from New York to California. But in some places Halloween is done. It was rescheduled!
Here where I live, on the very tip of the Bible Belt, Halloween can't occur on a Sunday or a Wednesday lest the event somehow offend the church goers on those days. The inherent pagan-ness of the holiday is too abhorent to share with a Wednesday and so, here, in Huntington WV, we celebrate Halloween on the closest convenient day which, this year, was the day before Halloween.
We don't reschedule other holidays for fear they might offend one of the less represented religions and we shouldn't but I'm not really convinced there is a reason to reschedule Halloween either. Sure, Halloween has it's roots in old Pagan holidays but, surprise surprise, so too do the most revered Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. Sure, the Christian faithful managed to successfully hijack both of those religions to fit into their mass marketing machine of eternal forgiveness while the left Halloween in the dust-bin; but I wonder how many of those offended with sharing the day with Halloween even know the history of Easter and Christmas.
Easter was once called Eostre and was a nordic holiday. It also lines up pretty nicely with the spring equinox which, as you might guess, was a hugely popular pagan holiday back before it was appropriated by marauding Christian evangelicals and assorted missionaries. Yet, somehow, if Easter falls on the same sunday as the Spring Equinox we don't reschedule Easter or the Equinox. Obviously we can't reschedule an Equinox and, so it seems, we can't reschedule Easter either.
The pagan ties to Christmas are many and varied and, of all holiday's, Christmas most clearly shows the marketing savvy of the Catholic church back in the day. Amazingly, no real effort has ever been made by Christians to fix the date of Christmas to the actual birth date of Christ. If sharing a church day with Halloween is so difficult for some to swallow why isn't celebrating Christmas on Mithras's birthday an even more bitter pill?
We dressed up in our costumes last night and my daughters and the rest of the neighborhood children brought some joy to a collection of houses throughout the town last night. Those who won't participate in Halloween, for whatever reason, just keep their porch light off and their front door closed. It has no real effect on them but the kids, both in age and at heart, had a bit of fun pretending. I doubt the kids in the families that oppose Halloween happening on a Wednesday are were out trick-or-treating last night so why was it rescheduled? No matter what day it is on those that oppose the holiday don't have to celebrate it.
The Pagan ties to Halloween have been lost in mainstream American culture and the holiday now just represents an opportunity to have a little fun. I'm just not sure why it couldn't happen today when the rest of the country is getting in on the act; but either way my family, and many others, took advantage of the holiday and had a bit of fun.
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 | Free "Alvin and the Chipmunks" stencil | Associated Content | Sun Oct 28 | 0 |
| Halloween finds influences in All Saints' Day | thedaily.washington.edu | Wed Oct 31 | 1 |
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{"commentId":1144347,"authorDomain":"finalcut"}
I dressed up as a werewolf with some cool fake skin for my ears and nose. What will you be dressing up as?
{"commentId":1144347,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"finalcut"}
- 1 vote
#1 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:27 AM EDT{"commentId":1144528,"authorDomain":"warners"}
I am not dressing up this year. But I did enjoy your article. Thanks for sharing these thoughts with us.
{"commentId":1144528,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"warners"}
- 1 vote
#2 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:17 AM EDT{"commentId":1144662,"authorDomain":"jamesmirick"}
I was up until 1 AM last night supervising a debugging session, so today I'm masquerading as a conscious worker, a total disguise under the circumstances.
Saw a barista at the Caribou Coffee this morning, she was dressed up as a cup of coffee, all in white, with a Caribou t-shirt, and a cute corrugated-cardboard skirt (the insulating sleeve). Cute.
Your comments are oh-so-right-on, I know a few people who refuse to celebrate Halloween (even here in Minnesota) because they think it's worshiping the devil. Then again, one of my pagan friends finds the whole Halloween thing "fun but rather bizarre."
{"commentId":1144662,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"jamesmirick"}
- 1 vote
#3 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:13 AM EDT{"commentId":1145278,"authorDomain":"finalcut"}
{"commentId":1144740,"authorDomain":"quixiotic"}
I really liked the article, I love the egg decorating aspect of easter, of course paying homage to fertility gods by blessing eggs. Adorning trees with lights and decorations at Christmas time, thanking gods of nature for they're beauty... In most European areas, Halloween isn't evil its about fending away the evil spirits, the Irish traditions of jack o'lanterns was to scare ghosts away with faces carved out of pumpkins. Just because some people feel slutty nurses and kid shaped ghosts are evil doesn't negate generations of tradition.
And with that. My wife and I are Lois and Peter Griffin, respectively.
{"commentId":1144740,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"quixiotic"}
#4 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:39 AM EDT{"commentId":1145274,"authorDomain":"finalcut"}
{"commentId":1144982,"authorDomain":"adamkemp"}
How can a city enforce this? It's like "rescheduling" Thanksgiving. People can celebrate it when they want. It's not like we even get a day off for this one.
{"commentId":1144982,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"adamkemp"}
#5 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:18 PM EDT{"commentId":1145185,"authorDomain":"biggerthebetter"}
They probably have police watching and if they see trick or treaters they stop them or haul them in. I'm not joking, either.
{"commentId":1145185,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"biggerthebetter"}
{"commentId":1145289,"authorDomain":"finalcut"}
{"commentId":1145195,"authorDomain":"biggerthebetter"}
Halloween of 2004 was my first in my new neighborhood. We visited the house across the street from us and they gave my children tiny New Testaments and pamphlets telling about the evils of Halloween. Needless to say, we haven't been to their house for trick or treating since.
{"commentId":1145195,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"biggerthebetter"}
#6 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:40 PM EDT{"commentId":1145635,"authorDomain":"finalcut"}
{"commentId":1146081,"authorDomain":"jfrank"}
Why is the world still so uptight?
{"commentId":1146081,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"jfrank"}
#7 - Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:53 PM EDT{"commentId":1147943,"authorDomain":"sbutki"}
Final cut – I dressed up as a pirate. I wrote about it over here and asked others to also share their costume plans. I live over in Hagerstown, MD. I'm not sure how far that is from where you're at in W. Va.
I covered the Hagerstown government, the Washington County government and the towns of Hancock and Boonsboro. I mention this because at each of those agencies at least once a year there would be discussion of this very topic as the governments would give input regarding when trick or threating should occur. This floored me the first few times I heard it - I'm with you in thinking trick or threating should occur on Halloween.
One weird result of this is that one town might have trick or treating on Oct. 31 and another on Oct. 30. So it was/is not unusual for people to not only trick or treat in their neighborhood but also traveling to another town and doing it there too.
That may be good for that greedy family but I know some who refuse to give out candy now because too many of those they see are not people from their neighborhood. So in a way it backfired. But just the other day I heard someone talking about going to a particular neighborhood- not their own – because of the good payoffs when trick or treating.
On reflection maybe I should have written a piece on a Halloween etiquette – oh, well, there's always next year.
{"commentId":1147943,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"sbutki"}
#8 - Thu Nov 1, 2007 10:48 AM EDT{"commentId":1148421,"authorDomain":"finalcut"}
{"commentId":1150298,"authorDomain":"sbutki"}
Hagerstown on our way home everytime.
Next time you do that let me know you're coming and I'll buy dinner.
{"commentId":1150298,"threadId":"169449","contentId":"1061946","authorDomain":"sbutki"}
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