You're right. It is a secular holiday with a mixed history of observance.
Pope Bonifice created All Saints Day and some say he reset the date to 1 November to coopt the pagan celebration. European Protestants banned it. In other places, like Ireland, it continued on. Later, it was pretty much banned from the American colonies.
When the immigrants started flowing in, especially the Irish, Halloween once again grew in popularity as a children's holiday.
The only spell being cast on these little girls is done through their parents' negligence, IMHO.
"Pope Bonifice created All Saints Day and some say he reset the date to 1 November to coopt the pagan celebration. "
Pretty funny, really. You just can't stop a good celebration. You can coopt it, but you can't stop it. That's the trouble with invading countries and trying to impose your religion on them. Those darned indigenous folks will just keep right on with their practices. The Pope did a good job, though, of adapting the Church to the existing practices. Stuck all those demonic gargoyles on everything...worked out real well.
Still...the best was the assignment of the Ressurection to the time of the Spring fertility rites. Easy to understand the connection, and popular already.
Putting Christmas near the Winter Solstice was a good one, too. Having the promise of Jesus' birth coincide with the depths of Winter was similar enough to the practices of the pagans at the same time, when mementos like the Jul tree held the promise of rebirth in the Spring.
Yup, Old Pope Boniface was a clever old guy, and so were the other Popes of that era. They managed to get Christianity accepted by most regions. It's an impressive thing.