If you dont , can I ask why not? This is not to start a debate. We have always celebrated it. Growing up, my mother only had 2 decorations she put up. Honestly I dont know anybody who didnt celebrate it. Im sure there was, it just the people I knew always dressed up and went trick or treating. Its as I got to be an adult, I realized many people dont like this holiday. I guess I really dont know why. Im thinking it has to do with a religious aspect of it. I really dont know.

By Emily7 on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 11:22 am:

We do. I decorate, hand out candy & take the kids Trick or Treating.

By Hlgmom on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 11:55 am:

LOVE Halloween!

By Sunny on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 11:59 am:

The kids dress-up and go trick or treating, but it is not one of my favorite holidays. It doesn't have anything to do with the religious aspects. I believe it is a celebration of the harvest? I'm too lazy to look it up. LOL No, what I don't like about it is the 'scare' aspect. I'm not into haunted houses or scary movies and they are, of course, abundant this time of year. Even as kid, I wasn't into the dress-up part (perhaps because the costumes weren't half as cool as they are today?) or the trick or treating. Too many stories of people putting this or that into the candy with the intent to harm.

Halloween is the holiday I have to get through to get to get to my favorite holidays.

By Tink on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 12:09 pm:

Ditto Sunny. I don't stop my kids from enjoying it. They dress up, we pass out candy, but I don't like the scary or "evil" connotations to it. I just want to get past it so we can get to the good holidays. I LOVE Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!

By Juli4 on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 12:13 pm:

we have never really celebrated halloween.
we may take the girls trick or treating this year since our oldest is four.
it is not my favorite holiday though and i don't like the scare aspect

By Christylee on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 01:39 pm:

Here we don't really have the "scare" aspect of it, it's all about fall. We have a fall festival we go to and it's really family oriented and you hardly ever see scary costumes... I LOVE Halloween and it's tied with birthdays as being my favorite holiday. I love the Fall decorations, the whole time of year. I LOVE seeing Brendan getting excited over dressing up and I love going to the fall festival.

I'm not typical in the way that Christmas isn't one of my favorite holidays, I like to decorate for it to some degree. To me it's gotten to commercialized and brings on a lot of unneccesary stress. JMO...

By Reds9298 on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 02:29 pm:

LOVE Halloween...I think it's such a fun time! We live in the boonies where no one gets trick-or-treaters and we always considered that a downside. We always wanted to dress-up ourselvs, pass out candy,and see all the kiddos. We've never lived where we could do that!

By Kernkate on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 02:44 pm:

We do. I decorate, hand out candy bags and take our kids out trick or treating.
Fall is my Favorite time of the year!

By My3cuties on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 04:07 pm:

It is because of the religious aspect of it. I have never let the girls go trick or treating and I never will. We take them to church and let them play games and they dress up as animals, I do not believe in dressing them as witches and such, I am sure most parents think it is harmless, but I do not think that way. I love Fall, but I very much dislike Halloween. I do not agree with what it originated from. I do what I do for October 31st because I want my girls to do something positive for the celebration (ie. playing games, having fun with friends, etc) not going to haunted houses and such.

The following is taken from here

*Ancient Origins
Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).

The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.


During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

By Yjja123 on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 04:07 pm:

Fall is definitely my favorite time of the year. I love getting my kids the most detailed costumes. Here in Florida they get to wear them and really show them off. I grew up in upstate NY and remember always beging stuck wearing a jacket over my costume because it was so cold.
I love the creating and planning for the costumes.
I love going to the haunted houses.
I love the projects we do--making decorations, making popcorn balls, making carmel candy apples, and drinking hot apple cider.
We have many neighbors who do not participate in Halloween which sadly (in their case) really means they are too cheap to buy candy. This means my kids do not trick or treat very much. We do have a town event in the park that they go to all dressed up in their costumes and they love that. I usually make an extra special treat bag for them so they feel like they got their "treats".

By Tunnia on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 04:17 pm:

I love Halloween!

Fall is my favorite season and to me, Halloween means Fall. The kids and I start talking about it and planning costumes mid-summer.

By Melanie on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 04:48 pm:

We celebrate it, but it's not one of my favorites. The holiday itself it's fine, but it is the holiday that never ends! LOL. The kids wear the costumes to school for the school parade and their class parties, they wear them again for the Halloween Festival on Saturday before Halloween, and then again on Halloween itself for trick-or-treat. By the end, I am completely burnt out on it!

By Ilovetom on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 04:52 pm:

It's one of my favorites. I love fall, I love the children getting dressed up.

My children are older now, but I teach preschool and we dress up and trick or treat downtown after their party and we have a ball. I know people think it's evil, but it gets a bum rap.

By Kateg on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 05:18 pm:

Fall is my favorite time. The kids trick or treat, we pass out candy (last year we had about 300 kids!), attend the school's fall festival about a week before...all in the spirit of having fun around here. My DH & I dress up, too...all part of the fun.

By Missmudd on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 05:24 pm:

One of my favorite holidays. All the fun and festivity, no wondering if you got the right thing. Perfect holiday in my book.

By Bea on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 05:36 pm:

Even us old folks celebrate. We usually attend a party at my friend Pat's house on the Saturday night before or after Halloween. She goes (all out) I've never seen so many decorations. That night I play spooky CDs out an open window. I have the foyer decorated with webs and spiders. On a side table sits a black cat that shrieks and a raven that screams "Never more" They're voice activated. In the center of the dark foyer is a table and a silver candelabra with black candles and a black cauldron. I place dry ice under a large bowl inside the cauldron. The candy is in the bowl and the cauldron smokes. DH and I dress as ghouls with white faces. We invite the older kids inside and ask them to reach into the cauldron to get their candy bar. We simply step outside for the little ones. The sounds, jack-o-lanterns and grave stones are scary enough for them. It's a fun night for us.

By Jackie on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 05:59 pm:

Gosh Bea, your house sounds fun on Halloween. IF you didnt live so far away, we'd come trick or treating at your house LOL

By Debbie on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 06:30 pm:

I love Halloween and so do my ds's. They get so excited about getting dressed up in their costumes. I enjoy taking them trick-or-treating, but they actually like passing out candy better. We get lots of trick-or-treaters. We also decorate our yard and the front entry way of our house. We attend a fall festival at our dk's school. I just love how festive everything is. It also doesn't hurt to now be living in an area that actually has a fall season.

By Rayanne on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 08:43 pm:

I love Halloween. Fall is my favorite season too.

By Children03 on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 - 08:50 pm:

I love Halloween. We take our girls to the Fall Festival at our church and then last year we also took the girls trick or treating. My girls love it, mainly for the dress up and candy! Fall is also my FAVORITE season!