Halloween comes around every year and I'm faced with the same dilemma. How much of my energy do I want to put into celebrating a pagan holiday?
It is not worth my energy to protest it. Nothing draws a kid's attention to something bad for them like a parent making a big deal out of avoiding it. You may object to my characterizing Halloween as bad for children, but my dad was a police officer, and cops dread Halloween. It brings out the crazies. With more adults celebrating than ever, it's also becoming another nightmare of drunk driving incidents.
When I was a kid we carved a pumpkin, had a little class party at school, and went trick or treating in our immediate neighborhood. That was it. A few odd people decorated their houses and threw parties. Haunted houses were corny on purpose and, being a good Christian family, we avoided them.
Then we moved from our little island in Alaska to a region of California considered to be a center of real witchcraft. Pumpkin patches with corn mazes and jumpy houses spring up all over the countryside October first. Haunted houses use movie tech to make your fears a reality. Approaching regular houses can be just as terrifying, as every block has a house or two decorated with as much care as only Christmas used to elicit. If your neighborhood is a dud you go to another neighborhood. Certain neighborhoods are slowly developing reputations for coolness, and get massive foot traffic.
In the deep woods and out on the beach, pagan rites are performed in all earnestness, complete with drums, chanting, and running in circles on broomsticks. Animal shelters will not adopt out black cats. Homeless teens are drawn into all kinds of perversion, including self mutilation and vampiric acts, by Wiccan priests who recruit them by offering shelter and a meal. That's on the extreme end, but it's happening.
On a less horrible note, even elementary schools don't just have a little party with cupcakes in each classroom anymore. There's a school wide carnival with its own haunted house, games, and tons of candy. When the holiday falls conveniently for it, they schedule a teacher workday for November first so they don't have to deal with the fallout of sugar withdrawals and sleep deprived kids.
Winnie's kindergarten class went to a pumpkin patch on the thirty-first and each kid brought home a pumpkin, so we carved it that afternoon. All my kids costumes came from their closet and imaginations. None were scary. We went to the mall early to begin trick or treating so the kids could get their fill of it by bedtime. My thirteen year old bailed early and stayed home with Grandma to pass out little pots of play dough to trick or treaters at our house. We finished up by going around our little immediate neighborhood. Then we snuggled up at home with popcorn and a favorite show.
It was enough, and nothing's left but candy to consume and a pumpkin to throw on the mulch pile. I'm neither a naysayer, nor an enthusiast. I just don't care enough about a holiday that has no religious or emotional relevance to me.
I don't want to add to an environment conducive to the crazies by making more out of it than I need to. And I'm definitely in bed early, kids tucked in and accounted for, and not out on the road as a target for a drunk driver, or at a dark party getting tipsy and making myself an easy target for a serial rapist or killer. Perhaps I over think these things, but I have a strong aversion to things that intentionally generate fear for fun and do not enjoy deliberately exposing myself to things designed to frighten me or to known statistically dangerous environments.
It is not worth my energy to protest it. Nothing draws a kid's attention to something bad for them like a parent making a big deal out of avoiding it. You may object to my characterizing Halloween as bad for children, but my dad was a police officer, and cops dread Halloween. It brings out the crazies. With more adults celebrating than ever, it's also becoming another nightmare of drunk driving incidents.
When I was a kid we carved a pumpkin, had a little class party at school, and went trick or treating in our immediate neighborhood. That was it. A few odd people decorated their houses and threw parties. Haunted houses were corny on purpose and, being a good Christian family, we avoided them.
Then we moved from our little island in Alaska to a region of California considered to be a center of real witchcraft. Pumpkin patches with corn mazes and jumpy houses spring up all over the countryside October first. Haunted houses use movie tech to make your fears a reality. Approaching regular houses can be just as terrifying, as every block has a house or two decorated with as much care as only Christmas used to elicit. If your neighborhood is a dud you go to another neighborhood. Certain neighborhoods are slowly developing reputations for coolness, and get massive foot traffic.
In the deep woods and out on the beach, pagan rites are performed in all earnestness, complete with drums, chanting, and running in circles on broomsticks. Animal shelters will not adopt out black cats. Homeless teens are drawn into all kinds of perversion, including self mutilation and vampiric acts, by Wiccan priests who recruit them by offering shelter and a meal. That's on the extreme end, but it's happening.
On a less horrible note, even elementary schools don't just have a little party with cupcakes in each classroom anymore. There's a school wide carnival with its own haunted house, games, and tons of candy. When the holiday falls conveniently for it, they schedule a teacher workday for November first so they don't have to deal with the fallout of sugar withdrawals and sleep deprived kids.
Winnie's kindergarten class went to a pumpkin patch on the thirty-first and each kid brought home a pumpkin, so we carved it that afternoon. All my kids costumes came from their closet and imaginations. None were scary. We went to the mall early to begin trick or treating so the kids could get their fill of it by bedtime. My thirteen year old bailed early and stayed home with Grandma to pass out little pots of play dough to trick or treaters at our house. We finished up by going around our little immediate neighborhood. Then we snuggled up at home with popcorn and a favorite show.
It was enough, and nothing's left but candy to consume and a pumpkin to throw on the mulch pile. I'm neither a naysayer, nor an enthusiast. I just don't care enough about a holiday that has no religious or emotional relevance to me.
I don't want to add to an environment conducive to the crazies by making more out of it than I need to. And I'm definitely in bed early, kids tucked in and accounted for, and not out on the road as a target for a drunk driver, or at a dark party getting tipsy and making myself an easy target for a serial rapist or killer. Perhaps I over think these things, but I have a strong aversion to things that intentionally generate fear for fun and do not enjoy deliberately exposing myself to things designed to frighten me or to known statistically dangerous environments.
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