by Ryan Maxwell
Today we think of Halloween as a fun, sugar-filled holiday at the end of October. On Halloween, one can find American classrooms full to the brim with complaints about how this spooky holiday has to be interrupted by a regular school day. This fact can most likely be attributed to the fact that the majority of people in modern America do not recognize the religious and historical significance of Halloween. Halloween , or All Hallows Eve, is the day before All Saints Day, one of the holiest days in the Catholic calendar. People in the middle ages used to dress up in scary costumes to scare away evil spirits before All Saints Day the next morning.
This is why Halloween must stay on October 31.
If it were to be changed to the last Saturday of the month, as many of my contemporary counterparts would want, it would represent an extremely heinous affront to the Catholic religion and its followers. The actual name of the holiday, Halloween, would be rendered obsolete if it were moved to the last Saturday in October; the name Halloween literally means the eve of All Hallows Day or All Saints Day. Halloween would no longer be the eve of November 1st. This insane notion is comparable to placing Christmas Eve on a random day in mid-December rather than the actual day before Christmas.
The prospect of Halloween on a weekend also presents several safety concerns. Children would not be in school that day. Instead of being contained within the relatively safe walls of a school, students would be free to roam the streets every year. Although most public schooldays last a mere six or seven hours, it is not hard to imagine how much danger children could be in during such a short period of time. Fellow children play nasty pranks for the sake of laughs, child predators could lurk unsuspectedly at any shadowy corner, without being under the watchful gaze of teachers students could be free get hurt during the day.
Another safety concern involves the fact that even though public schools are closed on the weekend, many parents work full days on Saturdays. On schooldays, parents can accompany their children to safely go trick-or-treating in the evening after work and school. However, with a full day of Halloween, children have more time on a Saturday to be tempted to go outside and trick-or-treat without a responsible adult with them.
Finally, many Saturday-worshippers would be restricted by the Sabbath in enjoying the Halloween festivities if Halloween was forced onto the nation on a Saturday. Supporters of “Weekend-Halloween” claim that having the holiday on a Saturday makes it more inclusive, but this policy would actually discriminate against many religions that observe the Sabbath.
At the end of the day, those who want to keep Halloween where it is may come off sounding like the over-concerned cynical grumblings of a grandparent. However, our dream for Halloween is the same as everyone else’s: safety, inclusion, fun, and of course, candy! And who doesn’t like those things?