Halloween is for the Children

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Hey good people of the Bahamas, lets bring back the secular Halloween traditions of costumes and trick or treating for our little ones. Dressing up and pretending to be someone else is good for their creative imagination. Remember, trick or treaters are not criminals, just little children trying to trick or treat like Dora does on tv, for goodness sake, lets be nice to our children. Lets create a safe holiday for the little ones, lets be kind and generous to one another. Lets especially look kindly on the little children who have no costumes, who dress up as best they can  with what they have, lets be most generous to them. Lets stop complaining about how unsafe it is and let us put a pumpkin in the window and turn our house into a safe place to trick or treat.  Anglos, lets stop hiding behind our drawn drapes talking about crime when black little kids are trick or treating outside, stop “canceling” or “postponing” trick or treat  night in your neighbourhood because you are “afraid of crime”  because this boils down to refusing to open your door to  black little children who come to your door on Halloween night proper.  You can’t cancel or postpone Halloween. (To the people in the overly decorated  house who wouldn’t answer the door to my eight year old son a few years back because your neighbourhood association decided to cancel Halloween, I say, you are bad, bad people.) This is so 1980s and not in a good way, this is so racist. And fundamentalists, stop demonizing a harmless secular tradition for children, stop using the “pagan roots” of Halloween for an excuse to deny our kids some safe neighbourhood fun in 2013, remember, all your Christian traditions have pagan roots. I don’t like what American pop culture does with Haloween, I don’t allow monsters and zombies, though I will tolerate a dashing vampire, a good witch and a friendly ghost. I don’t like the way mainstream culture makes Halloween gory and scary, or the way costumes for women these days are all sexed up. I don’t like the exploding fireworks. I love little children in costumes trick or treating, I focus on them. I love putting on my witch’s hat and doing a little neighbourhood theatre for them. The modern secular Halloween traditions celebrate childhood, our children desperately need to be celebrated.  Low self esteem is killing us.  The simple tradition of dressing up and trick or treating on Halloween is a little way we can teach our children that their lives are worth celebrating, that we think they are worth celebrating  It is a way to create family and neighbourhood togetherness, a way to create community, the kind centered around children. So come on people, receive the little trick or treaters with some generosity, some creativity, some grace.  Let them have some fun, for Christ’s sake. Lets all have some fun. Have (create) a happy Haloween!