Halloween Good. No Halloween Bad.
I love Halloween. I love dressing up, I love trick-or-treating, and I love the spookiness and quasi-chaos of Halloween night. Not that my participation extends beyond handing out candy anymore (obviously), but I fully support anyone who does.
My favourite halloween scene is in Meet Me In St. Louis - the Judy Garland flick famous for “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," ironically On Halloween night all the children of a middle-class neighbourhood take to the streets in bizarre gender-bending costumes. They throw old furniture into a giant bonfire, dance, and make oaths to “kill” certain adults in town (“killing” means throwing flour in a person’s face and saying “I hate you!”). It’s kid anarchy! And all of this is done with the knowledge and consent of their parents. Whether or not it's based on reality, I think this is what Halloween should be: a safe time and place for kids to go crazy.
Another reason why I like Halloween is that all the ghosts and zombies and goblins remind us of our mortality. Maybe this is stretching it a bit, but I really think it’s true! Some day our flesh will rot and we will be skeletons (if we’re not cremated, that is). But I’m not really sure if our society needs any more sensational reminders of death (we have three CSI’s, after all). I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I just thought I should come out as a Halloween-loving Christian.
My favourite halloween scene is in Meet Me In St. Louis - the Judy Garland flick famous for “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," ironically On Halloween night all the children of a middle-class neighbourhood take to the streets in bizarre gender-bending costumes. They throw old furniture into a giant bonfire, dance, and make oaths to “kill” certain adults in town (“killing” means throwing flour in a person’s face and saying “I hate you!”). It’s kid anarchy! And all of this is done with the knowledge and consent of their parents. Whether or not it's based on reality, I think this is what Halloween should be: a safe time and place for kids to go crazy.
Another reason why I like Halloween is that all the ghosts and zombies and goblins remind us of our mortality. Maybe this is stretching it a bit, but I really think it’s true! Some day our flesh will rot and we will be skeletons (if we’re not cremated, that is). But I’m not really sure if our society needs any more sensational reminders of death (we have three CSI’s, after all). I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I just thought I should come out as a Halloween-loving Christian.
posted by Marla at 4:12 p.m.
4 Comments:
Marla this is probably the most morbid post in the history of blogdom. Wow. I am really speechless.
Marla - I'm with you on 'meet me in St. Louis' - aside from the Disney cartoon version of sleepy hollow it's right up there as my favourite hallowe'en thingy ever.
I love trick or canning (asking people for canned goods for the food bank) just because people give you the wierdest reaction and more candy...
Matt's new blog can only be found at www.myblindness.com/blog.html
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