When Halloween falls on a Sunday like it did this year, most of the towns and counties without towns (like the one where I live) in Mississippi move trick-or-treating to Saturday. We can't have something as evil as Halloween happen on a Sunday when that's Jesus' day! I see two problems with this, one minor and the other a bit less so. The minor problem is that it is confusing and inconsistent. Many families have no idea that Halloween has been moved because it is not well-publicized. Those of us who were willing to research the matter learned that there are at least a few towns throughout the state that did not move trick-or-treating at all. When your family gets to celebrate Halloween appears to depend on where you live, and that is unfortunate.
The less minor problem is that this is being done at official government levels: town councils and even county governments are moving Halloween for everybody because of Jesus. But isn't it possible that they are moving it for other reasons (e.g., kids have school on Monday). That is indeed possible; however, I have not heard one public official say that is why they moved it, I have heard more than a few reference Jesus, and I cannot recall their ever moving another holiday because it fell on a Sunday. That leads me to believe that it may have something to do with Jesus. And that's a problem because these are government officials we are talking about. This looks like yet another example of Christian privilege in a state that is rife with such examples. I will readily agree that it is far from the most important example, but that's how this stuff works. It is insidious, and it sticks around because we let far too much of it go.
Fortunately, there is a way out. We can celebrate Halloween whenever we want. I plan to make a point of celebrating it today by skipping church and loading up on horror flicks. They can take away the trick-or-treating part if they want to. And while I do think that's too bad, it still leaves many other aspects of Halloween to enjoy. Besides, the plague may have led many parents to rethink whether their children should be going door-to-door begging for candy anyway. I had 0 last night. I may have to donate the stack of bibles I had by the door to some of the local evangelicals, although I have a feeling they may already have plenty on hand.
I suppose I can do two things at once. I can chose to celebrate Halloween how and when I wish. And I can continue to oppose Christian privilege in all its forms, ranging from the big ones that are (or at least ought to be) legal issues to the small ones that amount to little more than daily hassles but still provide a normalizing context for all of this Jesus nonsense. This is a flexibility we all have, and that is encouraging.
