Saturday, October 30, 2010

Halloween in Utah

Halloween is alive and well and living in Utah. When I lived in Alabama where the southern baptist and fundamental Christian churches were prevalent, Halloween didn’t get a lot of play. In the Bible Belt it seems, Halloween was evolving into an opportunity for churches to put on plays or haunted houses to scare kids straight out of drugs and sex. They weren’t comfortable with the idea of a holiday that has pagan or maybe occult origins. It’s been seven years now since we lived in Alabama so I don’t know if things have changed at all. But because of this experience and the fact that the office and area that I work in are predominantly Morman, I was surprised at how much my co-workers got into Halloween. When I raised the issue with a few of them, they didn’t understand my surprise. They obviously focus on the family element.


We had the kids of employees come in and trick or treat and I guess I’ve become a scrooge because it was a waste of half a day of work for me. One of my colleagues asked, “Is your daughter not into this stuff? Is she not coming in?” I responded by simply saying, “She’s 15”. One of my friends in the office laughed and said I’d be surprised how old kids trick or treat here. I guess we’ll see tonight.

1 comment:

Poodlebugz said...

The trend I've noticed here in ye olde South is to for churches to have "Trunk or Treat," where they gather together in the church parking lot and decorate the trunks of their cars and hand out candy.

Of course, there's always the overachievers who have to build an entire Broadway set.

I got about 15 kids last night, which wasn't too bad. My favorites were a little Boba Fett and his smaller sidekick, Darth Vader, who, as his daddy said, refused to wear his mask.