While driving down the road last week, I noticed a sign in front of a church that read: “Come to our Fall Festival, Oct. 31.” The sign was decorated with pumpkins and a scarecrow with a pumpkin head, sort of like a jack-o-lantern. Later in the day, I saw an advertisement for a “Judgment House.” This is a haunted house without the ghosts and goblins. Visitors go to “Hell” and see “Satan” and thus get scared onto the straight and narrow. Judgment Houses tend to run in time to coincide with the Halloween season.
I recall other such events in years past. Some churches would have a fall festival where you came in the costume of a Biblical character (I wonder if anyone ever came as Pontius Pilate or Jezebel) or what you wanted to be when you grew up. In other words, a costume party with games and candy that coincides with Halloween.
Now I don’t have a problem with any of this per se. However, when you talk to some of the people who attend these events, they’ll tell you that they are not celebrating Halloween. As Lewis Grizzard once said, “Do what?”
Think about it for a second. How do people celebrate Halloween? They put on costumes, go to parties and occasionally visit a scary house. So, what are you doing if you go to a Fall Festival held on Oct. 31 as one of the four horsemen after visiting “Hell House”? You are celebrating Halloween while calling it something else.
Think about it like this. When I was growing up, we didn’t celebrate Mardi Gras. To us, it was just another day. This means that we didn’t throw beads, have parades, balls and parties and call them “Spring Festivals” all while telling people that we weren’t celebrating Mardi Gras.
Now there are some who say that Judgment Houses and fall festivals all serve some higher purpose. Great! Then have Judgment House in February and move the fall festival to November. Would they be less effective or useful at those times? Or, have them to coincide with Halloween and call them Christianized Halloween events.
I have no quarrel with people who do or do not celebrate Halloween for whatever reason. I’m not going to get into “should you or shouldn’t you.” That’s a personal matter. I don’t celebrate Halloween, because if I want to see people pretend to be someone they’re not, I’ll go to a political debate.
Besides, I outgrew my hand-stitched, homemade Batman costume years ago, so what would I wear? I seriously doubt that my Aunt Patricia (who made the first one) has enough material on hand to put my hefty carcass in a new one. I guess my wife and I could go somewhere as Sonny and Cher, but she’d look horrible with a moustache and I don’t think I can walk in high heels.
I also hate uninvited guests, and, on Halloween night, you get a bunch of them, and they all want something for nothing. Want to have some fun? Tell trick-or-treaters to get a job and buy their own candy.
I do, however, like the fact that on Nov. 1 you can get a really good deal on a 12-pound bag of little Baby Ruth bars or individually wrapped Tootsie Rolls. Other than that, Halloween can come and go as far as I’m concerned.
If you are going to be anything, be consistent. Don’t go through the motions of celebrating Halloween and call it something else. All you are doing is having a politically correct version of it.
Turn the porch lights off, have some corn dogs and watch Lord of the Rings. That’s probably what we’ll be doing. Unless I can find a Batman costume that comes in a 2XL. Relaxed fit, of course.
Tony Odom is a graduate student in the history department.