Halloween Parade

Today was the Halloween parade and party at my son's school.

There seems to be growing controversy about Halloween every year.

It's satanic, it's pagan, it glorifies death. Young girls wear costumes that are too sexy. The coersion involved in saying "trick or treat". Sugar is bad for you.

Yeah, okay, I'm sure that depending on how people celebrate Halloween you can find all of those aspects. In fact, depending on people live their lives, you can find all of those aspects. You don't have to wait for a specfic day.

You know what I see in Halloween around here? I see kids who have fun getting dressed up in costumes (and yeah, some of them are kind of ghoulish - but not most, and some may be skimpy- most aren't - and let's face it, it's October in NJ, how much skin is a kid going to show?)

They get to dress up for part of the school day and act silly with their friends. They get to go door-to-door (and let me just say, I very seldom see groups of kids without one or more parents with them) and get candy. And lets face it, for most of these kids - the candy is the thing.

Today in one of our local papers there was an opinion piece about how adults are contributing to the ill health of children by distributing candy on Halloween. Give me a break. It's one day a year. I'm sure that some kids gorge themselves to the point of making themselves sick. But kids aren't going to become obese based on one day a year. That has to do with a whole life-style that involves not enough activity and too many empty calories.

For the kids, Halloween isn't about pagans or the occult or spirits rising from the grave.

It's about the candy.

And I'm okay with that.