Should Halloween be celebrated on the last Saturday of October?

November 1st is All Saint's Day, a holiday of the Roman Catholic and the Anglican churches. That's why we have that complicated formula for election day--the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November assures that election day will be in the first week of November, but never on November 1st.

What has that to do with Hallowe'en? The old name for All Saints Day was All Hallows. The night before that is All Hallows Even--Hallowe'en. So what you've got here is some idiot legislator who thinks he can legislate when religious holidays occur. It's bullshit, it's grandstanding. He wants to get his name in the paper, and do so as expressing concern for children.

I like the way they do it in Ohio. There, they call it Beggar's Night, and they do it on the last Saturday in October. No legislation, no formal procedure by which politicians with great deliberation and gravitas determine when an event will be observed. They just do it that way.

Oh Holy Father, spare us the vanity of politicians. Amen.

BLASPHEMY!!

Okay to be fair, I don't care either way. The sentiment behind the change makes sense.

I must admit I am not much for changing holidays from a specific date to a week day.
Halloween is the 31st of October the evening before All Saints´Day. To seperate them would be a break with an old tradition.

I recently found out that it's really a central Ohio thing, not Ohio in general.

It started when downtown Columbus would have a giant Halloween celebration -- like Red White and Boom but for Halloween. And like Red White and Boom, everyone went to the Columbus one and then had their own on different nights.

The Halloween celebration ended for some reason (I forget or the source I read -- which I can't remember right now -- didn't say), but the tradition of communities having their own Halloween celebration (Beggar's Night) stayed.

Beggar's Nights seem to usually be Thursdays or else the day of Halloween if it's not a Friday or Saturday. Here's an example:

http://columbusoh.about.com/od/Fall_Activities/a/Beggar-Night-Times-And-Pumpkin-Patches-In-Central-Ohio.htm

That's actually way more homogeneous than most schedules I've seen though. Looks like most everyone is October 31st, then Groveport already had it on Thursday.

I think they try to avoid the weekend (Friday and Saturday) because Beggar's Night is for kids, and the general adult craziness Halloween parties happen on Fridays and Saturdays. Highball is today for example (huge party in the Short North, definitely adult).

For the first time in modern Swedish history a holiday was reinstated in the Swedish calendar in 1952. All Saints' Day is now celebrated on the Saturday following the 30th of October. Families lay wreaths and flowers on the graves of their loved ones. As night falls, graveyards are aglow with twinkling candles and lanterns.
The Sunday after All Saint´s Day is All Souls´s Day.
We are Lutherans in Sweden.

I've never heard of "Highball," and i suspect it's a "tradition" established by the now largely gay population of that district. It only became a gay neighborhood gradually from 1990 onward. I've also never heard that anyone had attempted to regularize Beggar's Night, so i suspect that's a new "tradition," too. I've not lived there for years, so i'll take your word for it. But i did live there for 17 years before i left, so i feel confident in saying these are new developments. Which is what i was talking about when i said people don't need legislation to change these things, or decide when they'll deal with them.

Hallowe'en is October 31st. Done. Dusted.

When individual communities want to allow begging by children is a separate issue.

Toronto tried to move trick-or-treating by kids to a non-weekend night one year. It was a huge fail.

When I was a kid in Evanston in the early fifties, we went trick or treating (brrrrr) on Beggars Night too. Can't remember if it fell on a certain day such as Saturday. I know it fell on the 30th at least once.

Oh Highball is new, yes. It's an example of the adult partying (with attendant drinking and driving) that happens on Fridays and Saturdays around Halloween.

The original in that category was evidently in downtown Columbus and was huge, but is now defunct.

I think it stopped in the 60's? Will try to find my source back. But it's been defunct for a good long time, while the Beggar's Night tradition remains.

Oh and I didn't say anything about anyone trying to regulate Beggar's Night here. It seems to largely be on October 31st this year, but that's not due to any regulations.

I didn't mean regulation in the sense of governmental action, but in the sense of a municipalitiy announcing when it would take place. I think that's relatively new. Twenty years ago, even individual neighborhoods seemed to decide, by some process, when they'd turn on the porch lights and the kids would dress up and go around with their bags.

I like the idea of leaving Halloween where it is and having a mutually agreed upon Beggar's Night!

I see, Set.

Boomer, yes, it works well. I like this system a lot.

What I have been hearing - is that the restaurants are highly against this - why - they lose alot of business when Halloween falls on a Saturday. Seems families are out taking the kiddies treat or tricking and those without kids feel the need to stay in to give out the candy (least they receive an unwanted trick).

What does increase in business when Halloween falls on a Saturday? Take out pizza.

The odd thing is - often times, we have gone out to eat right after the kids finish treat or tricking.

What a great idea, Connecticut Yankee, politician. Yes, let's move Halloween to the last Saturday of October.

And while we're at it-- St. Patrick's Day will now be celebrated on the night of the nearest Friday Payday.

And Valentine's Day will not be the 14th of February but the Saturday before the Super Bowl. (You know why.)

What else?
Oh. Everyone's birthday will now be celebrated on the First Sunday in August. It's too much of a hassle to try and remember everyone's birthday. (Or program the damned email program to warn you.)
Everybody gets one birthday a year.
In August.
(The only month without a proper holiday)
We can walk down the street yelling "Happy Birthday" to everyone.
It'll be great.
AND
bonus:
NO IN SCHOOL BIRTHDAY PARTIES to contend with.
(Imagine the relief of millions of teachers everywhere.
~
I also don't see why we don't move the Fourth of July, right? Norte Americanos in the USA should use the nearest Saturday (rainout day will be Sunday) AND down in Mexico, Cinco de Mayo can float over to the nearest weekend too.

As far as Thanksgiving (USA) being the last Thursday in November, everyone knows just how stupid that is, so now it's the last Saturday.
Dinner served right after the whistle blows at the end of the noontime College Football game.

Christmas will now be December 31st. That's probably closer to the actual date given the observations of the Egyptian astrologer when they were divining the birth of Horus, you know, the first um, god born of a virgin (also Mithra from Persia) and Horus' father, Osiris. (father and son are the same? hmm)

With Christmas on the 31st and the New Year the next day we can be assured that almost half of the US's employees will show up to work on the 2nd.

Joe(whenever the hell that will be)Nation

There's a church in Calgary that's advertising/advocating Jesus Ween. I kid you not.

Well Jesus WAS a zombie.

There are some Christians who get a little bent out of shape about Halloween. In Tulsa, Oklahoma there is, or was, a candy shop in the Bellaire Shopping Center right around the corner from my house. I used to go in to buy some really nice chocolates, they also made their own jellybeans. Ah, licorice!
SO, one year I went over there a few days before Halloween to get some treats to give out...... and got a earblast about how they THEY didn't make any candy for Halloween. Harrumph. (mumbles about satanic holiday,,blah blah. )

Okay, I said, so on the biggest selling holiday for candy, you don't sell any candy. Got it.

Joe(It's a headshaker for me.)Nation

I try to be quiet at halloween time, but it is now more popular than christmas, which I also mostly but not always downplay. I have likings for christmas.

I feel like an alien. I didn't start out hating halloween, just got to that by experience, which I've explained before on a2k. My birthday party, I got to go through a horror house the neighborhood kids built for me in a basement, all meaning well, of course.. and I stopped doing that and refused. I guess I'm not a natural s & m type, even at ten. I ruined the party. I'm still friends with three of those girls, now quite old, but in later years we've never delved into that kind of mess in memory. All these years later, I get that they liked me enough to do that.
Of course, there were chocolate cupcakes with orange icing afterwards.

I still get halloween birthday cards.
**** halloween.

Ok, so, I'm bad.

My 100-year old aunt was born on Dec. 24th. She, in contrast to me, was very imposing. At family get togethers on C. Eve, there was the first part of the evening, about her birthday, and the second, about family gift giving, food being the connector.

This isn't a ploy for a birthday thread. I'm too snarly.

But, I think it's Letty's Birthday. I think a thread for her would be good.

The Christian holiday for dead people rising from the grave is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. I don't think that's in October.