# Halloween Article



## DeathTouch (Sep 6, 2005)

*I found this News clip on the internet. Link below.*
http://www.halloween-online.com/news/halloween-news3.html

Why bother to save Halloween?
by Richard Seltzer

Halloween is in trouble. Each year editorials in magazines and newspapers and on television warn of dangers to children. And each year more communities "ban" Halloween.

So what? Who needs it? What is Halloween anyway? It's just an excuse for big kids to make trouble, little kids to eat too much candy, and candy companies to peddle their wares. Bah, goblin-bug!

Or so I thought until, despite all the warnings, I took my three children out last Halloween. Nine-year-old Bobby was the boldest. Seven-year-old Heather held back and was reluctant to approach houses of near neighbors she didn't know well; but curiosity and pride in showing off her home-made witch's costume won out in the end, and she'd go racing after Bobby up the walk, and be just as delighted as he was at the smiles and words of praise and handfuls of candy that greeted them. Three-year-old Mikey held me tight and wouldn't let me put him down, but he wouldn't let me take him home either, watching all the doings intently.

The same as previous years, many of the people we visited were folks we only see at Halloween even though they live just a few doors away. Most of them, the elderly especially, had bought supplies of candy and were waiting. Most gave out two or three times as much per kid as they had originally intended, because there were so few kids out. And they were as delighted to see the kids as the kids were to see them.

When I got home, I couldn't help but wonder what had gone wrong with Halloween. And it occurred to me that it wasn't just a handful of crazy people who were endangering this tradition and the joy it can bring to little children and adults as well. It's apathy on the part of everyone else, the failure to recognize that Halloween plays an important function in our society, the unwillingness to speak out in defense of Halloween when the media were so unanimously against it.

So what's so important about Halloween?

Maybe at one time Halloween helped exorcise fears of death and ghosts and goblins by making fun of them. Maybe, too, in a time of rigidly prescribed social behavior, Halloween was the occasion for socially condoned mischief -- a time for misrule and letting loose. Although such elements still remain, the emphasis has shifted and the importance of the day and its rituals has actually grown.

Nowadays people often don't know their near neighbors, much less the neighbors a few blocks away. For little children these strange houses and strange people are a source of fear and anxiety. Children have been taught not to trust or talk to strangers, to beware of them. But on Halloween that prohibition is lifted; and, with fear, but impelled by curiosity and greed for candy and other loot, little ones ring doorbells at houses of strangers to find time and again that these strangers are really friendly people like the people they know well. In the course of the evening they gain confidence in themselves and in their neighborhood and come away not only with bags full of candy to be enjoyed for weeks after, but also a warm feeling about their neighborhood and people in general.

As for adults, especially the elderly and those who never had children or who haven't had young children at home for some time, children in the neighborhood are normally a source of anxiety and distrust. What mischief and vandalism might this strange new generation growing up with television violence be capable of? On Halloween night their fears too are exorcised, as wildly and imaginatively costumed kids parade to the door, a reminder of what they themselves did as children -- a common link of experience.

Looked at another way, Halloween is a time that reconfirms the social bond of a neighborhood (particularly the bond between strangers of different generations) by a ritual act of trade. Children go to lengths to dress up and overcome their fear of strangers in exchange for candy. And adults buy the candy and overcome their distrust of strange children in exchange for the pleasure of seeing their wild outfits and vicariously reliving their own adventures as children.

In other words, the true value and importance of Halloween comes not from parading in costumes in front of close friends and family, but from this interchange with strangers, exorcising our fears of strangers, reaffirming our social bond with the people of the neighborhood who we rarely, if ever, see the rest of the year.

So when you hear all those warnings about pins and poison, use caution and common sense. But don't just abandon a tradition that you yourself loved as a child, that your own children look forward to months in advance, and that helps preserve our sense of fellowship and community with our neighbors in the midst of all this madness.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this article for non-commercial purposes provided this permission notice is preserved on all copies. All other rights reserved. This article was written in 1984. It has not yet appeared in print. B&R Samizdat Express


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## TommaHawk (Sep 18, 2007)

Nice article, thanks for posting it.


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## turtle2778 (Jul 9, 2006)

That was wonderful. I think Im going to copy that and ask my schools to send this out to the kids. We are a small community which is great, but the article is right on the money when it says people miss the best reason for Halloween... socialization with your community. We have several churches who do trunk or treat something that i had never heard of before coming to this town. What a shame it was to see all these kids in costumes hanging in a parking lot at 5pm going from car to car of people they already knew from church to get candy. I often get asked "why halloween?" and my response is always the same. Halloween represented the one time a year when it was okay to be silly and crazy outside with my friends. The time when it was all about having fun with no rules or restrictions. All the other holidays revolved around religion and for my family being dressed in uncomfortable clothes being told to sit still and be quiet, which for me was torture. Halloween gave me my first chance to roam freely with my friends after dark and not have my mother saying "Do you know what time it is?? I was worried." It gave me my first real sense of freedom and maturity and allowed me to decide for myself if i was going to be the kid out to get candy or trouble. I chose candy and fun and laughter with my friends over causing problems. It is extremely important to me that people see how much Halloween has a positive effect on kids or at least it can. Not just kids, last year my neighbors which have kids that are in their early 40's got dressed up in costumes to pass out candy. They came over and said they hadnt passed out candy since their children were little and what fun it was. I asked why they stopped and they said because it was a hassle. They saw all the hard work we put into our display and it sparked them to want to be apart of halloween again. They said they had tons of fun, the husband jumped out in a gorilla costume and scared the older kids it was great. I also got to meet neighbors that I had never even known i had. They all stopped to say what a great display it was and told me where they lived...my neighbors said they did the same thing to them and they had lived there for 15 years and never met some of them. Thanks for posting this DT, it reminded me why i want to do halloween because honestly there are times when I look at the cost and the mess and the hassle and say "do i really want to keep doing this?" The answer is yes, for as long as I can.


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## eanderso13 (Apr 10, 2008)

I read this whole thing, thinking to myself... "I've read this before..." and then I saw the disclaimer about being written in 1984. Now THAT is scary, in a way, but also comforting...Yes, we always see the negative stories in the paper, and the "watch out, the world is out to eat your children" stories on the news. And it has been that way for a while. Now with the "Trunk-or-treating", and "Mall-o-ween" bastardization of our holiday it truly does seem like Halloween is on the outs.

But this article was made back in 1984 (how was it never in print if it was written that long ago?...), calling out the end of Halloween....and yet, in 1984 I was 5 years old, and I enjoyed many years of REAL trick-or-treating. Seeing packed neighborhood sidewalks and parents taking their kids around, and kids trading stories at school about which neighborhoods gave away the best candy.

so even in the 80's, it seems people were worried about Halloween dying. But it's still here. Which I think shows how resilient tradition can be. We just need to continue those traditions and pass them on, and make them bigger....faster....stronger...awsome-er...


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## scream1973 (Dec 23, 2007)

I think the media is as much to blame as anything because they are the ones that constantly bring up the world is going to eat your children as you put it .. The razor blades in the candy that we have all heard about since we were children but yet they never seem to materialize..

This will be our first year of the home haunt as previous years we made it a family affair to go out and ToT with everyone all dressed up which many of the neighbor adults liked to see that the parents had actually dressed up as well.

And maybe this will light a spark under some of the new neighbours to decorate more as well


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## Esmerelda (Apr 30, 2008)

When I first moved into my neighborhood we saw maybe a total of 20 kids that Halloween only a mere five years ago. The story of the witch lady with all her crazy stuff has caught on and 07's Halloween brought us close to 300 visitors, each telling the other "I told you, isn't this cool?" How awesome is it that our youth of today is wanting more of this crazy woman and all her crazy antics for even one night? And amazingly enough, they come back every year and bring more friends to visit with us in Keltonia. I've had folks as far away as 30 miles or so bring thier grandkids by. Even though we have some pretty rough stuff the kids for some reason come right to me, "Come here my child" "Tell Cass what it is you're here for" in my disguised voice and they come right to me, amazing! Even though we have an adult party every year I leave Halloween night alone for our "special" visitors.


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## skeletonowl (Aug 8, 2006)

Thanks for posting this!

I hope one day Halloween will one day be popular again.


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## Spooky1 (Aug 25, 2008)

That's a great story that holds even more truth today. Since we don't have any kids we only know the neighbors nearby. Halloween is an excuse to meet the folks in your neighborhood. We've had adults from up and down the street come by to see our decorations. We'd probably never have had a chance to talk otherwise. The other way we meet neighbors, is when we're all out walking our dogs. lol


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