It was less than a year ago that I was contacted by our community leaders that trick-or-treating wouldn’t be taking place on Halloween, but the Sunday before. It enraged me for several reasons, but mostly because October 28th isn’t Halloween.
To most people, Halloween is just a Hallmark holiday used to sell candy and costumes. There’s no sanctity in the actual day. For us horror fans, it’s a landmark, it’s our Christmas. We count the days until Halloween and even celebrate the halfway mark in April.
Growing up, the most exciting month of the year was October and getting hyped for the 31st, the day you’d get to dress up as your favorite anything and get your hands on more sugar than you could possible intake. That specific day has significance as part of the celebration was figuring out what day of the week it would land on. Were we trick-or-treating on the way home from school or do we get to do it all day over the weekend? Now, everyone small community is bookending the holiday, giving hours to the event, and now delegating it to the weekend prior to Halloween. It’s dismantling the fun of the holiday and regulating it as the government would the DMV.
So, it drives me fucking crazy that there are people that took the time to start a petition to annually “celebrate” Halloween on the Saturday prior to October 31st. 75,000 people have signed this, probably because they’re using fear to push it. There’s no rhyme or reason for this nonsense, especially when you know nobody is moving the Fourth of July or Christmas to the Saturday prior to the holiday.
With or without this petition, it’s looking like more and more communities are adopting this Saturday-before-Halloween mandate and we’re going to have to swallow that big fucking pill. With that said, what they don’t know is that Halloween isn’t just October 31st, it’s every. single. day. in October for us horror fans. While the kids may ring your doorbell and get their candy on a Saturday, we’ll still be celebrating each and every day for the full 31.
Thoughts?
