Why Doesn’t Everyone Celebrate Halloween?

It's a question that some of us are very naive too, myself included!

Apparently, schools are "cancelling" Halloween because not all families celebrate the holiday, and have been keeping their children home from school on the day. Other schools are replacing costumes with "crazy sock day" in order to keep the peace.

STORY TIME: cause what's Halloween without stories, right?

I grew up in a South Jersey town where everyone was very open to the idea of Halloween and all the traditions that it holds: dressing up in costumes, parading around school with my classmates, trick-or-treating with my friends, hayrides, ghost stories, haunted houses, pumpkin decorating and all.

However, as I've grown older-- I've been exposed to a world where not everyone has the same views. And that's more than ok! But when I moved out, I had a first-hand experience with my upstairs neighbors, who ended up being Jehovah Witnesses.

So once halloween rolled around, and I didn't see the two little girls amongst the pack of neighborhood kids trick-or-treating;  Rather than judging, I did some research.

I wanted to better understand what they believed, and why these little girls couldn't get some candy. And from some research, I found from Wikipedia that:

Other common celebrations and religious or national holidays such as birthdays, Halloween, Easter and Christmas are not celebrated because they believe that these continue to involve "false religious beliefs or activities.

I talked with the girls and their parents often, and what I've gathered (after asking probably way too many questions) is that they don't believe in idolizing anything but one God. They feel that material and superficial things, ranging from posters to even holidays, shines too much of a focus onto something that isn't holy.

So that definitely set me back a little bit. A tradition that I've celebrated my whole life had a much deeper offense to people around me that I didn't even know about.

Will I change my ways because of this? No. Will I be more conscious of those around me and consider their feelings/beliefs? Sure thing! Will I argue against a school that bands Halloween traditions from my kids? Absolutely, it's all in good fun.

If we can celebrate what we independently believe respectfully, then we can all live in a happy place.

The end.
BOO

via GIPHY