Posted on 10/30/2012 8:00:20 PM PDT by DouglasKC
We bobbed for beers when I was stationed in Korea. Fill a garbage can with beer cans and icewater and have at it. It’s easier the drunker you get. It may take longer to get one, but you don’t notice the icewater as much. As for Halloween, let the kids have fun.
“It also promotes the self-entitlement culture. Give me my treat or else you will get a trick. No wonder so many kids grow up to be liberal.”
Or does it promote a neighborly culture, where the grownups in a neighborhood give little candies to kids, who love the chance to dress up in costumes and parade around their streets?
I think Halloween, like Carnival, was orginally tolerated by The Church as a safety valve. You know, the more you (re)press, the more the pressure, so something’s gotta give.
I should say that to my grandchildren of preschool age, it seems to function as a recognition of the scary things in life, as personified by spiders and pumpkins. Great stuff ... well, plus the candy!
absolutely. I mean there is no telling what damage Charlie Brown and Linus can do....
so then I take it you DO NOT celebrate Christmas or Easter or any of those other terrible terrible holidays
Indubitably! Our visitations wax and wane, in some years amounting only to a handful, but the practice does seem to be holding its own of late. I've always loved it. It seems so perfect for the season.
We watched a really interesting history of Halloween on the History Channel tonight; I don’t know if it’s rerunning or not.
The funniest part was how “trick or treat” came about...it was to stop truly HORRIBLE pranks from being played...by youthful boys, of course...which speaks to your first paragraph. Apparently it was a serious problem, so a coordinated campaign was devised to redesign the holiday. It was a good show and quite informative.
This post and comment section is a great reminder of the fact that there are people in the world who are horrified that somewhere, someone is having fun.
When I was a kid in the fifties, the vandalism side of Halloween had wide expression. There was even a "mischief night," the night before, when pranks were supposed to have license. This notion seems to have been successfully suppressed. I have a distinct memory of being out with a grade school classmate of casual acquaintance, whether on mischief night or Halloween I can't remember. I think the latter since I recall expressing some kind of disapproval of pranks, when we happened to be at my own house, and he ironically stated, "Oh, I would never do anything like that," even as he "soaped" the window of our car in the driveway. It was a shock to me, as I had no idea that he was carrying it. He just laughed. I remember his name, actually, if not the exact spelling ... but you know, it must have been mischief night, because we weren't wearing costumes. What was I doing out? Can't remember.
Hey, "the golf gods" ... ever hear that one? I hear it all the time. Oh, just a joke! Uh huh, uh huh. Tell me another one.
My father, let's see it would have been 1936, was caught soaping windows. Why was he caught? He was 4 and did it to his own house from the inside!
Well, here we go. Google has their Halloween banner up, and when I clicked on all the doors, plus the garbage cans on the left, it gave me a search page on “Happy Halloween”. This included some videos at the bottom of an attractive woman’s face drooling blood. Clicking on one of them results in a very realistic and repulsive view ...
Happy Halloween from Google.
It would be better if you did not denigrate our spiritual/cultural ancestors, the Puritans. They made this country what it is. That stupid remark about their not wanting to see people have fun ignores the truth: that they wanted people to have the only real fun. The ancestors of the evangelicals. Think about it.
The replies on this thread fall into three categories: Halloween is all about evil (true); Halloween is fun and I don’t care if it’s sinful, which it has in common with all other sins; and people who think Halloween is all about evil are not as smart as I am (pure ego).
LOL! (8^D) (Brush early, brush often!)
C'mon, you are taking the phrase "trick-or-treat" and claiming that it encourages kids to commit vandalism! What stodgy pomposity!
To me growing up, Halloween was simply a fun time to get a crapload of candy that my parents wouldn't normally let me have. Growing up on military bases made it even better because there were so many houses in close proximity and lots of people with young kids. It was a truly a community affair, and totally harmless.
Now both of you go do the monster mash and stop being such grouches!
Funny how it's all right for Mexican and Polish Catholics to be against "halloween" (and Russian Orthodox too for that matter) but in America if you don't embrace "halloween" you're not a good Catholic (sort of how American Catholics have to believe in evolution in order to prove they're not Protestants!).
Meanwhile the Biblical holidays are forbidden as anti-chrstian. And I suppose they are.
I'll take the Bible over chrstianity any day.
Of course it’s harmless. It’s simply a fun tradition of kids dressing up as spooky things that aren’t real, and getting candy from those who wish to give it to them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.