I have seen a trend lately in the church of moving away from "Halloween" celebrations to "Fall Festival" celebrations. Also, they're not too picky about holding the celebrations exactly on Halloween. We're not one of those families that refuse to celebrate Halloween because of its pagan beginnings, although I respect those families that do feel that way. But I must admit I kind of like that the church is removing focus from the potentially more questionable aspects of Halloween, and concentrating on the positive. What do you guys think? Is it better to do away with Halloween altogether? Is it enough to just go to the church celebration? If you plan to do something on Halloween itself, what is that going to be? Are you going to take your kid to the mall? Door to door? Cube to cube at work?
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
I think it's a fun holiday. I think the whole 'pagan' objections are a little silly (since most other holidays incorporate worldly stuff too), but I'd never say so to the face of someone who objected.
I think it's good that the Church has the 'fall festival' and trunk or treat activities, as it's usually a safe, non-scary opportunity for kids. And I think it's a little silly not to just say it's a Halloween party when that's what it obviously is (and the Halloween non-participants don't come anyway).
However, it's all small potatoes, really, and I just do what I want either way. If they got rid of it, I'd find other stuff to do.
Trunk or Treat is basically all the two wards do that meet in our building. And, if you are lucky, there will be donuts and cider near the end of the trunk or treatin'... and if you aren't passing out the candy, you may actually be able to get up to the table and get a cup and a donut or cookie before all the kids and teens take them all...
Not a big to do is made even for a fall festival thing in our ward. We've tried a indoor primary carnival type thing with games for the kids where various auxillaries man the different games and give out the prizes / candy to all the kids, and it is kind of fun, but a lot of work. We're too busy getting things ready for our community Christmas event the first weekend in December each year. But October, our ward always has in addition to General Conference, Stake Conference and Ward Conference and a Stake Merit Badge Clinic and Super Saturday and a whole host of other activities to deal with...
And, if you think about it, there isn't really a whole lot of appeal for something like that for adults anyway. Youth, yeah, a Halloween dance is kind of cool... but hey, think about it... can we as adults really respect someone from Church after seeing them dress up in a costume as their alter ego? 'I don't know if I can sustain Bishop So-in-so any longer... I never knew he was a Star Trek nerd...' or 'I always knew I couldn't trust Sis. So-n-so, and her wearing a pirate costume just confirms it.'
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
Halloween is an american holiday... It is almost entirely the result of a bunch of different religious traditions and holidays all coinciding around the same time, throw in a little commercialism, hollywood's fixation on slasher movies, and there's an excuse to have a party. the population of the church is moving further and further away from America-only... it's ridiculous to carry along such a cultural albatross, by promoting it other than at an entirely grass-roots level.
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
Personally I wouldn't mind bringing back the druidic samhain and the "burning man". Wicker baskets filled with prisoners were hinged at the arms so that as it burned, the men shaking the baskets would make the arms move back and forth. If you want to go pagan, go all the way.
Well, for the folks up north (or in my case up way north, to the northeast, to the east and to the southeast) it is Thanksgiving today. All we get is a lousy bank holiday called Columbus Day. Still have to go to work, kids still have schools, etc.
I think we need to institute observance of Canadian Thanksgiving in addition to our own. Kind of the way in Germany, they not only have Christmas Eve (which is a big thing), but Erste Weinachtstag and Zweite Weinachtstag (First Christmas day and Second Christmas day... Christmas eve is the solemn occasion, First Christmas day is the party day, and Second Christmas day is the day to recover from the hangovers of First Christmas Day). To create a non-denominational, pc, version of these two Thanksgiving days, for indeed the giving of thanks infers that there is some sort of power or being to which the thanks is given, we shall call Canadian Thanksgiving Day Oktoberfestivus, or Adventus Novemberus, and the symbol thereof shall be multi-colored leafs, pumpkins, and stalks of maize (indian corn). And the US Thanksgiving holiday shall begin on the Monday of the week preceding the calender date of the US Thanksgiving and run until the Monday of the week after the US Thanksgiving holiday. This period shall be called Hopefully You Have Vacation Days Left Season. It shall commence with Hunting Day, a day to celebrate the historic nature of our hunter gatherer ancestors, and the males shall don the holy camoflouge and orange robes of Dunhams and Cabelas and proceed to the wild places to be where the wild things are. And for an week, they shall imbibe in various fermented grain drinks while attired in the holy robes and occasionally shall point sticks that through various magic make noise, smoke, and lightening and can bring death to the unwary wild thing or unworthy donner of the holy robes. At the end of this week, there shall be Recovery Weekend followed by Get A Months Worth of Work Done in Two Days followed by the Roasting of Meats and Feast of the Gluttons. Within hours of the ending of The Feast of Gluttons, Hopefully You Have Vacation Days Left Season shall be concluded with an intense and frenzied mass rush to marketplaces high and low in what shall hereafter be known as The Sale (or for the uninformed, this is several small festivals more often referred to as The Passing of the Greenbacks, The Legend of the Empty Parking Space, Football Fridayus, and Give Me Give Me I Need I Need).
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
I love Halloween. My kids dress up and go trick or treating to our close friends and family only. The ward usually does something like a trunk or treat with no scary type costumes or masks but I'm not really big on ward socials whatever the time of year. Mostly they are a bunch of work and I would rather spend my time doing something else. I have only a handful of friends in the ward that I like to spend time with anyway so going to a ward social with a bunch of people I really don't care too much for isn't my cup of tea. I'm one of those strange people who doesn't look to the church to fullfill all my social needs.
My kids love to dress up and spend months trying to figure out what they want to be at Halloween. We steer them away from the more gross or scary type stuff. I think it is fine to call it Halloween. I know some in the evangelical community think the whole thing is evil and should be done away with but in America I think the whole thing is pretty harmless and see no problem with wards calling it whatever they want.
Progressive Liberals might think of Thanksgiving as a cultural albatross... oppressing the native population... they glut themselves, pass around a little smallpox, and then proceed to starve for the remainder of the winter.
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
BTW, to a degree, it doesn't matter what we think of the origins of Halloween. Many pagans consider it to be a high holiday. When my mother lived in the San Louis Obispo area in California, she said that you just didn't go into Los Osos on Halloween, because that's where the paganists were celebrating, especially on 13th street.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Jeffery_LQ1W wrote: Ojai is crazy that way too, that area seems to draw the weirdest people.
While I'll readily admit CA probably has more than it's share of fruits and nuts (sorry, that comes from what a lot of Utahn's referred to Californians in my BYU senior geography survey data I collected for a cartography class project), you obviously haven't been to a Star Trek convention if you say the weirdest people are drawn to Ojai or San Luis Obispo... just kiddin' I'm sure the trekkies are mostly harmless compared to some of the folks y'all are thinkin' of...
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
I used to call myself a trekkie, because I am fond of the series and have read Star Trek books. But I realized how fanatical you have to be in order to be a true Trekkie. For instance, when I couldn't identify the symbol of the romulan empire from the Next Generation series a trekkie told me that I wasn't a true trekkie. Also, I have not once shown up to a Star Trek movie premiere in costume. I did get Chekov's and Uhura's autographed pictures once, but I honestly couldn't tell you were the autographs are nowadays.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Jeffery_LQ1W wrote: Ojai is crazy that way too, that area seems to draw the weirdest people.
While I'll readily admit CA probably has more than it's share of fruits and nuts (sorry, that comes from what a lot of Utahn's referred to Californians in my BYU senior geography survey data I collected for a cartography class project), you obviously haven't been to a Star Trek convention if you say the weirdest people are drawn to Ojai or San Luis Obispo... just kiddin' I'm sure the trekkies are mostly harmless compared to some of the folks y'all are thinkin' of...
As a California farmer I can confirm that all the fruits and nuts come from California. Peaches, plums, nectarines, grapes, oranges, lemons, and avacados. Then your almonds, walnuts, and pistachios also come from here too! So all the fruits and nuts come from California!!
There is a big difference between California farmers who harvest the fruits and nuts, and the fruits and nuts that are inherently unharvestable because they walk around on two legs.
You want to know how nutty California is..... Look up burningman.com . It puts the nutcase stamp of approval on it all.
There is a big difference between California farmers who harvest the fruits and nuts, and the fruits and nuts that are inherently unharvestable because they walk around on two legs.
You want to know how nutty California is..... Look up burningman.com . It puts the nutcase stamp of approval on it all.
HEY, a friend of mine goes to burning man and he's not a nut or a fruit. He just likes a good party!
'I don't know if I can sustain Bishop So-in-so any longer... I never knew he was a Star Trek nerd...' or 'I always knew I couldn't trust Sis. So-n-so, and her wearing a pirate costume just confirms it.' 
