What should we do about Halloween?

RexRed wrote:

sunlover wrote:
Evil is in the eye of the beholder.

Halloween is for children, and don't think parents will ever take that away from them, it's a fun time for kids. Religions are poking their nose into the silly holiday, bringing back from ancient history a bunch of hogwash about olden people trying to protect themselves from the dead. Now, that's really something for kids, and adults, to have a little fun with.

I screamed when my parents put me in Santa's lap... I was 3 years old and still remember it.

Children cry on Halloween. I have seen it many times... how about a stroll in the park, some frisbee that is fun for kids too. Why scare the hell out of them? Is that your idea of "fun" really?

Make them cry in terror, something is backward here...

Is love fear?

I don't think it's terror at all. A certain kind of fear is a thrill for many people. Why do you suppose horror movies are so popular with mostly teenagers? A 'thrill' is when there is apparent danger but with the probability of escape present. It becomes 'terror' only when that probability is taken away.

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I have this REALLY good idea. buy licorice and vegemite. Coat licorice with vegemite.

Twisted Evil

We here in OZ Proudly do NOT do halloween.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

RexRed wrote:
sunlover wrote:
Evil is in the eye of the beholder.

Halloween is for children, and don't think parents will ever take that away from them, it's a fun time for kids. Religions are poking their nose into the silly holiday, bringing back from ancient history a bunch of hogwash about olden people trying to protect themselves from the dead. Now, that's really something for kids, and adults, to have a little fun with.

I screamed when my parents put me in Santa's lap... I was 3 years old and still remember it.

Children cry on Halloween. I have seen it many times... how about a stroll in the park, some frisbee that is fun for kids too. Why scare the hell out of them? Is that your idea of "fun" really?

Make them cry in terror, something is backward here...

Is love fear?

I don't think it's terror at all. A certain kind of fear is a thrill for many people. Why do you suppose horror movies are so popular with mostly teenagers? A 'thrill' is when there is apparent danger but with the probability of escape present. It becomes 'terror' only when that probability is taken away.

Sprightly and devious...

Seems harmless and sprightly on the surface but it has a devious intent.

I personally cannot stand horror movies. There is a difference between suspense and horror.

Once the novelty wore off they became actually irritating to me.

Some Steven King movies are the only exception because they have clever plots and are not just kill kill kill. Yet some are a bit too gory and perverted for my taste yet they do not follow the standard cheap horror format.

I also think that children should not be exposed to horror flicks until they are at least 17 or they exhibit a solid level of emotional maturity.

Parents should not override these ratings they are there for a reason.

I think they are hurtful to teens and I cannot stand the fact that the movie companies are targeting teens with deceptive advertisement.

This only adds to the dark dismal depression that teens have to cope with.

http://www.kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/feeling_sad/suicide.html

"Teen suicide is becoming more common every year in the United States. It is a leading cause of death in teens and youths ages 10 to 19 years old."

Considering the teens are so depressed why not give them something that is positive and happy and not negative and hopeless to dwell on?

You are what you eat and you become what you feed your mind upon.

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This seems to assume it's unavoidable for small children to encounter all this stuff -- it's eminently avoidable.

My kid's almost 6 and loves Halloween, and has since she was teeny-tiny. As a parent, I've been careful about what she sees and what she's exposed to, and the communities I've lived in have accommodated that. For example, for her first 4 years we went to Halloween celebrations at a historical museum with extensive grounds, which had different sections that weren't visible to each other -- there were four sections I think, but what I remember is Fairyland and Scaryland. Scaryland was for older kids, it had the icky stuff. Fairyland was for small children, with storybook characters and fairies. Three Bears, Goldilocks, that kind of thing. We stayed in Fairyland.

There were little stations set up with games, staffed by local teens, and adults dressed up in thematic characters (Rapunzel, say) holding baskets of candy that the kids could select from. She always had a great time.

Here, the community really goes all-out for Beggar's Night, which is separate from Halloween as an event (though they happen to coincide this year). Halloween is about parties and adults dressed up and drinking and driving. Beggar's night is about kids. They sometimes don "gross" get-ups but I've never seen anything too bad. Sozlet's never done more than gasp and then giggle. Local decorations tend towards pumpkins, bunches of wheat/ dried corn, ghosts, spiders (lots of spiders), blow-up "scary" cartoon characters (a friendly Frankenstein monster, Scooby-Doo) and yes the occasional skeleton -- dry skeletons just don't bother me much as a concept.

We went to Target the other day to get spider web stuff and they had all their stuff out and sozlet had a great time going from one talking skull to another -- mostly talking skulls, also talking skeletons and some talking statuary with glowing eyes. She had a ton of fun pushing buttons and such. (Though we didn't buy anything other than the spider web stuff.)

I like a lot about the Mexican Day of the Dead, and it seems to be merging with mainstream celebrations of Halloween these days -- LOTS of skeletons.

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Muslims should just enjoy Halloween

By RAY HANANIA

Tomorrow night, when most of our children put on costumes and collect candy, some will sit out Halloween on religious grounds. In particular, many Muslim Americans view the holiday as a sign of the evils of Western society - even as a form of devil worship.
The American Muslim Association of North America, in fact, urges Muslims to not practice Halloween and not answer the door, saying, "Avoid it. It is a night of evil." In their eyes, Halloween is tied to a 2,300-year-old, devil-worshiping Celtic festival called Samhain. But that's propaganda - Celts never worshiped the devil.

Muslim Americans should relax and enjoy the day. Yes, they no doubt consider this a question of tolerance: We should tolerate their rejection of Halloween. But why isn't the burden on them to tolerate this great Western tradition?

Halloween today is an innocent, children's holiday. Even if they can't bring themselves to let their children participate, Muslim families should at least embrace the traditions of their neighbors. Shutting your doors and pretending you aren't home is just no fun.

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I think we overthink this.

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You think?

[size=7](I agree.)[/size]

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sozobe wrote:

You think?

[size=7](I agree.)[/size]

See you in the pumpkin patch, Soz.

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I'm going to dress as a Muslim French maid, wearing a niqab and black tights and this:

http://www.3wishes.com/images/maidservent.jpg

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Damn.

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People in our little town decorate their houses for Halloween as much as for Christmas. There seems to be a divergent series of trends going on
1 Those people who decorate their houses in a cartoon "Scooby Doo" fashion. Harmless but really dumb

2Those people who decorate their houses like real bits of horror scenery from "Texas Chainsaw...". They will do very realistic grubby coffins with skeletons with chunks of rubber flesh .

Number 2 type houses scare the Bejeezus out of the kiddies but usually the adults have nifty parties.

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Synonymph wrote:

I'm going to dress as a Muslim French maid, wearing a niqab and black tights and this:

I am A2King from work.
We have a filter that blocks images from certain sites.
So I can't see the pic.
Alas.

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George, it's innocent.
http://www.3wishes.com/images/maidservent.jpg

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Our filter has a decidedly puritanical outlook.

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I find it interesting that as adults have taken over Halloween the emphasis has shifted from "supernatural scary" to "secular guts and gore".

Ah, mass produced individuality. Only in America.

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Halloween is the best holiday out there.

I love Halloween.

Why would we stop having it?

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shewolfnm wrote:

How it went from that to Trick or Treat -Smell my feet-
( cough cough christians cough cough)
is beyond me..

It went that way because someone probably thought "Oh good gracious! We can't have another religion celebrating! Quick! Make a mockery of it!"

In any event, I will again say I love Halloween. I just always have.

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au1929 wrote:

Muslims should just enjoy Halloween

By RAY HANANIA

Tomorrow night, when most of our children put on costumes and collect candy, some will sit out Halloween on religious grounds. In particular, many Muslim Americans view the holiday as a sign of the evils of Western society - even as a form of devil worship.
The American Muslim Association of North America, in fact, urges Muslims to not practice Halloween and not answer the door, saying, "Avoid it. It is a night of evil." In their eyes, Halloween is tied to a 2,300-year-old, devil-worshiping Celtic festival called Samhain. But that's propaganda - Celts never worshiped the devil.
Muslim Americans should relax and enjoy the day. Yes, they no doubt consider this a question of tolerance: We should tolerate their rejection of Halloween. But why isn't the burden on them to tolerate this great Western tradition?

Halloween today is an innocent, children's holiday. Even if they can't bring themselves to let their children participate, Muslim families should at least embrace the traditions of their neighbors. Shutting your doors and pretending you aren't home is just no fun.

The Muslims are quite right in saying that our Halloween is ultimately derived from the Celtic festival of Samhain. (See my earlier post on this thread, p. 1 or 2.) What is considered 'devil-worship, however, is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Samhain and its Springtime counterpart -- Beltane, which we now call May Day -- were two of the great Celtic celebrations in pre-Christian times. Not only the Muslims, but the early Christian fathers as well, considered all non-Christian, i.e. "pagan" or "heathen" celebrations to be Devil-worship. But the good Franciscans and Benedictines couldn't stop the common people from celebrating their ancient festivals, even though they had accepted baptism and the Christian way. So they simply announced that Novemeber the 1st was All Saints' Day and October the 31st All Souls' day, and thus All Hallows Eve (aka Hallowe'en) was born.

It's silly today to consider what has become a kiddie holiday as worship of Satan. But, in a larger sense, of course, it's even sillier to celebrate it at all. I envy the Ozzians: they don't have to put up with this hocus-pocus crap.

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Thanks for all our your thoughtful responses! Smile

Happy Halloween!

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What should we do about Halloween?

<<DING>>

Answer the door -- the first of my neighbourhood goblins has just arrived!

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What should we do about Halloween?

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