To Halloween or to not Halloween? While Halloween began as All Hallows Eve, the vigil before All Hallows (All Saints Day), and certainly has Catholic roots, whether to participate in cultural celebrations of a now secularized Halloween is controversial in Christian circles.
In the Protestant circles I grew up in, “Fall Festival” parties or “Reformation Day” parties were the order of the day. Halloween was considered pagan with a dangerous obsession with the morbid and grotesque.
As Catholics we can certainly embrace how Halloween traditions remind us of memento mori, that that we will die and must face that reality, while at the same time being cautious of anything occult that might be celebrated on this holiday.
Our culture’s celebration of Halloween certainly isn’t perfect, I get that. But we can participate in what makes it wonderful while remembering its Catholic roots. We can mock the devil! We can, while acknowledging that evil is real, we do not have to fear it. We can despise it in the knowledge that Christ is victorious over sin and death.
Should we go to Mass on All Saints and teach our children what the point of this vigil of All Hallows Eve (Halloween) is about? Yes!
Should we inform Halloween with an understanding of All Souls and what the Church teaches about death and praying for our dear departed? Yes!
Should we avoid any observance of Halloween like trick-or-treating? No, I don’t think so. I think Halloween is incredibly important and here’s why.
Every October 31st the street two blocks down from us is blocked off to protect little trick-or-treaters. The houses are decorated to the nines. Welcome to Halloween Town! (Not it’s official name, but what I like to call it. Spookyville is also acceptable. You have some freedom here.)
There are at least a thousand people, likely more, walking from house to house. Parents wait at the sidewalk for their kids, chit chatting with neighbors they’ve never met before. Older siblings walk younger siblings to front porches where candy or stickers await. Adorable kids in costume are everywhere. Some parents are dressed up, some families are themed, some, like me, are just along for the ride, trying not to lose any small children in the crowd.
We see neighbors and friends. The heat of central Texas has started to subside and everybody is celebrating the crisp autumnal air. We’re all together: rich and poor, babies and grandparents. Our skin colors are different. We go to different churches. Some of the decorated houses have campaign signs for one candidate while others have signs promoting the other one.
Halloween is the only night we will meet in a spirit of festivity. It’s our ONLY communal holiday here in the US.
We have family holidays like Thanksgiving and holidays like Fourth of July where we invite friends over for barbecues. But is there any other day that is a festival? Where we are all out, celebrating together rather than in dining rooms or backyards? That’s what makes Halloween precious.
I am all about prioritizing the Christian traditions of the liturgical year and building strong Catholic community (I write books about this!). It’s so important. But there’s also something valuable about festivity celebrated by everyone around us. We need traditions like trick-or-treating that remind us that we connected to other human beings. Now more than ever before when our country is so divided.
It’s devastating that Halloween is the only day like this. We need more days where we are literally partying in the streets with our neighbors. So in the midst of the All Saints parties and fall festivals, can we please trick-or-treat? Shoot the breeze with the other parents? Fawn over adorable costumed children? Eat some candy? Celebrate together?
St. John Chrysostom said “Ubi caritas gaudet ibi est festivitas” or “where love rejoices, there is festivity.” Our culture’s lack of festival reveals a void where love should dwell. Festival should bind us together. If we bring back festival, can love follow? I think we should try it. Let’s go trick-or-treat.
Thank you for articulating why we love Halloween!
We just took our daughter out for trick-or-treating for the first time, and this was something that really surprised us! We were expecting people to judge us for taking a 4 month old who clearly does not eat solids out to trick-or-treat because we are obviously the ones who will be eating that candy:) On the contrary, however, lots of people wanted to get to know us! That was a nice surprise.for sure.
I think Halloween varies a lot based on where you live. Sometimes it’s the nice community gathering you’re describing. Other times, it’s complete strangers showing up at your door, often older teens in creepy costumes (or no costumes at all), grabbing a handful of candy without so much as a mumbled thank you.
Halloween has Catholic roots insofar as it’s the vigil of All Saints. But parishes never offer evening vigils for All Saints because…it would interfere with trick-or-treating. My parish’s CCD was also cancelled tonight since Halloween was considered more important. I do let my kids participate in Halloween, but I wish I didn’t have to.
So true and so agree. I love Halloween (in the innocent, not gory way) for how it brings together our whole neighborhood in one big celebration.
I LOVE this! Yes! I was telling my husband this tonight while we were trick or treating m! It’s the only day of the year we get to talk to all the neighbors and I love that! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for articulating this so well. I had this very same thought as we were out with our own kids and a couple sets of cousins tonight. In fact, I lamented to my brother-in-law that due to the rising occurence of “trunk-or-treat” nights leading up to Halloween, the practice of trick-or-treating in one’s own neighborhood has markedly diminished even in the 7 years we have lived here. I was saying how sad I was that the one remaining thing that actually made us come face to face with our neighbors was dying out, and as I was saying it, I was thinking pretty much exactly what you said above. I too grew up Protestant, and while my family did celebrate the holiday, I knew that my mom was uncomfortable with it (having grown up Baptist, whereas we were Congregational by that point). I think this has left me with some lingering discomfort with Halloween. But I now really believe that it is both a great point for catechetical instruction (just today I talked with my kids about the origins of the name Hallowe’en), and also for evangelization in the sense of being salt and light in the world. To be salt and light IN the world, sometimes we have to actually be out in the world, we have to actually encounter our neighbors even if it is just the slightest brush of life against life as our kids knock on their door and proclain trick-or-treat!
I was the one who gave out candy this year and stayed with the baby, while my husband took the older kids out! I was thinking about it today too, and it struck me as well that this might be the only time in which my neighbors came to my door and I talked with them. And, honestly, I loved seeing all the teenagers in their costumes… even though they usually came in huge groups so that basically it was just a blur of me dumping candy into their bags and not much chitchat. Still! Generosity is in itself a good thing, and even if it was just a blur for them as well, I hope they have good memories of the night! 🙂
That is a really good point about Halloween being our only community holiday. I never thought of that before. My children are older now, but I remember taking them trick or treating when they were young, and enjoying the opportunity to catch p with the neighbors.
Well said. Sadly, I have noticed that the prevalence of trunk or treats is shrinking trick or treating in my neighborhood as well. Instead of all families participating (as goers and givers) only a small percentage of houses and children participate.
Interestingly, it seems the more well-off children are the ones that skip trick or treating. I am seeming a prevalence of my poorest neighbors and many of the ones doling out candy appear to be more working class.
This is all the more reason why it is so important to participate. I may not see these folks at the library story time or at the coffee shop but we are neighbors and we should feel seen and accepted by each other. And the same goes for teens. They are sometimes hard to want around, but they struggle with finding their place in our communities as emerging adults. I know I wasn’t always a polite teen, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t mature to a community-minded adult.
I am fairly close with all of our neighbors since I am a stay at home mom, and there are many kids who play with each other up & down the street. But last night was a great chance to introduce my husband to everybody. We went around to all the single old ladies’ houses and chat with them too. I know they love the little ones in their costumes… There weren’t a ton of fancy decorations in our neighborhood but we all had a great time and even met some new faces ? My children always say trick or treat and thank you. But I guess like any other holiday, it is what you make it! Just like Christmas, Halloween can get twisted and commercialized. We just keep it simple and remember what it’s all about ?
I’ve never liked Halloween, even as a child. Maybe I was internalizing the modern Protestant teachings about the evilness of Halloween, but I’ve never really seen the point either. But I love what you had to say about it being a communal festival. That is beautiful and totally lacking in our culture. I’m probably not going to go all out next year with costumes and decorations, but you’ve got me thinking at least!
Great post. At our Parish, my son’s CCD class was not cancelled and his class participated in the evening Vigil Mass. My husband and daughter stayed home and handed out candy to the trick-or-treaters. I made the gluten free soul cake recipe you posted, and it was another opportunity to put Christ in the center. After we got home from CCD class/vigil mass after 8pm, I brought some soul cakes over to my Catholic friend/neighbor, and we did spend some time outside with another neighbor visiting, like you described. It was a pleasant evening, spent with the correct emphasis, that doesn’t put your faith on the shelf.✝️?❤️?
We never used to participate in anything Halloween as Protestants either – did the Reformation Day thing sometimes, but that’s all. Last year was the first year any of my 8 kids ever went trick or treating.
Your neighborhood sounds amazing! I never really thought about it as a cultural togetherness thing – probably because I spent so much of my life as a pretty standoffish Presbyterian who wasn’t, honestly, all that worried about cultural togetherness! But I think you are absolutely right. I’m so glad we’ve joined in.
Yay! I love this post!
So true!
I wish Christmas caroling would make a comeback too.
Yes! You nailed it, Haley!
This was the first year we didn’t do anything at all for Halloween, and I was all out of sorts (probably for a number of reasons). But I 100% love Halloween for that communal coming-together. And the candy–can’t lie. How can we do that for other holidays? I love the other comment about bringing back Christmas caroling. 😉
Yes, I totally agree. Let’s take back our All Hallows Eve and share it with the community. We need to get out there and outnumber the occult. And yes, Mom of Six, let’s do Christmas caroling. Let ‘s celebrate! By the way, In my hometown in Germany, there is a kid’s parade on the eve of Michaelmas. We used to march behind the high school band with big colorful paper lanterns. I don’t know if they still do it today –hope so.
I wrote a blog post about All Hallows Eve on my site Books For Catholic Kids and a second post with some Halloween reading suggestions:
https://www.booksforcatholickids.org/single-post/2018/08/31/To-Trick-or-Not-to-Treat-May-Catholics-Celebrate-Halloween
https://www.booksforcatholickids.org/single-post/2018/09/04/All-Hallows-Eve-Halloween-Stories-For-Catholic-Kids
Your post reminds me of a quote from the book Drinking with the Saints. He says feel free to pick up any wine or beer named after the netherworld, because of the Christian principle “to the victor go the spoils.” Cheers to Christ’s victory over death and evil!
We love to trick or treat. Our neighborhood is very festive and fun… nothing too creepy and everyone seems so joyful to have the kids knocking at their doors – people without children even make a point to be home from work early for the fun!
I wish our neighborhood was that way. A few of the houses are super creepy and our neighbor’s kid wore a super creepy costume. The idea of walking around in that kind of environment on a night when there’s a lot more occult activity gave me the heebie jeebies. It was fun when I was a kid.
Love how you mentioned it’s our only communal holiday. Great point!