Changing the Date of Halloween: David Loftus

I have several almost instantaneous knee-jerk reactions, all negative, to the news that retailers want to float Halloween to a convenient weekend every year. They include: no, the holiday had a traditional date, and businesses should adjust to the tradition, not the other way around; no, companies who really care about their employees make adjustments to accommodate workers and their children, which is also the way it should be; and no, I detest and resist the tendency of capitalist enterprises to swallow and spin every holiday into an opportunity for greater manipulation of consumers.

On reflection, however, I must admit I don't have a pony in this race. I don't have children I need to entertain or protect, and the recent transformation of Halloween into an opportunity for childless grownups to party in elaborate costumes is as puzzling to me as the sudden popularity of what my generation considered a trash beer -- Pabst Blue Ribbon. It's been years since a trick-or-treater has come to my urban apartment door, and I never do anything special myself to observe the holiday. (I've never had any interest in zombies, vampires, monsters, or horror films, either. My scariest thrills come from stepping out on a stage in front of hundreds of people to deliver the lines of Shakespeare or Noel Coward.)

The skeptical historian in me remembers that the notion this holiday was once "an event reserved for children" is a-historical. Like Christmas's descent from Saturnalia (to which minorities have then tried affix their own brands, such as Hannukah and Kwanzaa), Halloween is a fairly recent historical development that grew out of a religious holiday, All Hallow's Eve/All Saint's Day, and is in its turn being not-very-successfully spun by self-described pagans into their own version of the Celtic festival day Samhain.

Still, something's been lost. When I was a kid of 7 and 8, I trick-or-treated for miles across my town, long after dark, with a buddy my age, and our parents stayed home, never having to worry about our safety or whereabouts. (They did pick out and ration the worst of the candies I brought home afterward, however.) Where does this happen anymore? Why can't children go trick-or-treating unaccompanied after dark? There's something a little absurd and sad about adults chaperoning kids from one business to another, long before dusk, or through an indoor mall. I hate to sound like an old codger but . . . things really were better "back in those days."