I recently came across an article online at LDS Living about celebrating Halloween on Sundays. I've commented so much and I'd like to keep a record of what I wrote hence this blog, but I hope others will find it interesting as well and have something to comment. Below is the link to the article followed by my remarks.
How to Celebrate Halloween on a Sunday
Article of Faith #11
"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."
"There are rules that the Church leadership resists interpreting for us.
For keeping the sabbath day holy, we are expected to decide in our own family precisely how we go about obeying that commandment, and people draw the line in different places." For instance, working on Sundays, how many Saints work at the Church's own TV and radio stations? Or how many students are needed to work on Sundays to feed the missionaries in the MTC? Then of course, that's out of necessity.
Maybe you feel the need to celebrate Halloween with your family, this article and those who've commented have given great suggestions in finding that balance between keeping the sabbath day holy and celebrating Halloween with family. Watching a movie is not holier than trick-o-treating, but for some it doesn't interrupt the observance of the sabbath day. This is one of those instances where people draw the line in different places. The movies listed (Hocus Pocus, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Warerabbit, etc.) are family Halloween-themed movies and not a suspenseful thriller which some might prefer for the occasion. Also I'd like to point out that the sabbath day was made for man, not man for the sabbath.
One might think that celebrating Halloween is not appropriate for the occasion since it celebrates or follows pagan beliefs. What about Christmas? Sure it's meant to celebrate Christ's birth, but it was adjusted for pagan beliefs, otherwise it would be celebrated in April which is when Christ's birth took place, not in December. Why not inject Halloween with our own beliefs? Sure, have fun and trick-o-treat, but you can also make it more than day of candy and all things spooky by teaching about... death and the resurrection?
Some feel that Halloween is a celebration of evil things; witches, vampires, zombies, etc. I took a horror film class recently and I learned for myself that vampires, zombies and such are not evils, they are simply a reflection of human fears. Some have twisted this reflection to portray evil, but it's not inherently so.
As a Hispanic, Day of the Dead is the equivalent. Growing up in the U.S. we trick-o-treated on Halloween and dressed up. I knew Dia de los Muertos was coming around when my dad would bring some bread of the dead or pan de muerto, but that's as far as it went with that Mexican holiday and I think it was mostly because of where we lived. We didn't make sugar skulls and shrines for our loved ones who had passed. We didn't visit their tombs since the few relatives who had passed lived across the border several miles away. I know little about Dia de los Muertos and I haven't fully experienced it, so it is a goal I have for the future (maybe starting this year) to learn about it and celebrate it. Going with the article's discussion, I see this day as an opportunity to learn that death is a temporary condition that is overcome thanks to Christ's atonement. If that isn't holy enough, I don't know what is.
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