You can keep your decorated trees and jolly fat elfs in red snow suits, and stick your candy canes right up your stockings. You can also stuff your Thanksgiving turkey where the sun don't shine and forget where you hid all the Easter eggs for all I care, because for me when it comes to holidays - Halloween is by far the best.
Sure, some holidays get you great swag, like presents, pie or chocolate, but Halloween is the only time of the year when it is not only socially acceptable to walk around in a Batman costume, but people will actually give you bagfuls of candy for the effort.
Oh, but some poor misguided adults, who no doubt only got apples and toothbrushes in their Halloween bags when they were kids, are saying schools should celebrate "Harvest Festival Day" or "Fall Festival Night" instead of Halloween, in yet another wingnut, politically correct effort to be "inclusive."
Hey, our modern Halloween is a creepy mix of Celtic and Catholic feasts, with the Mexican Day of the Dead, featuring ghosts, ghouls, Orphan Annie, the Transformers, superheroes and My Little Pony. Geez, how inclusive can you possibly get?
I've already been conditioned to say "Happy Holidays" instead of Merry Christmas out of fear of insulting, excluding or otherwise offending people with my seasonal joy, so why can't people just leave me, my Batman tights and Halloween alone?
Scholars can't even say for sure where Halloween originated. The name certainly comes from All Hallows' Eve, which is a Christian celebration before All Saints Day that honours the dead. Some say that festival was itself influenced by the Celtic harvest feast of Samhain and other pagan harvest celebrations, while others maintain it's solely a Christian invention. But ask kids about all that boring history nonsense and their only concern is wearing a wicked costume and canvassing the neighbourhood so they can snag enough rocket candies and Tootsie Rolls to last the rest of the year.
Who cares how it originated? Today's Halloween has nothing to do with religion, race or politics unless you've got a good Ronald Reagan or Jesus costume. It's spooky, gory, exciting and one of the only times we actually encourage our children to go out and wander around at night in the dark accepting candy from strangers.
It's pure, unadulterated, awesome fun for kids of all ages, so hands off!!
But fine, if you're one of those adults that think we should celebrate something softer and more "correct," I can certainly wish you an Inclusive Non-Religious Slightly Scary Feast Day but for the rest, have a happy Halloween.
