When Should Halloween Be?

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By  Dominick Suzanne-Mayer

While challenging our traditions and institutions can often lead to positive change, sometimes people introduce the kind of radical idea that threatens anarchy and globaldestabilization. To that end, a Change.org petition is arguing that Halloween should no longer be on October 31, but instead on the final Saturday of October.

As a seasonal custom, Halloween has been getting started earlier with each passing year. Go to a big-box store right now, in late July, and you'll see bags of fun-size candy. Spirit Halloween is already colonizing whichever stores have closed in your area over the last few months. And now, even Snickers is getting in on it:

A million free candy bars, in exchange for the end of Halloween as we knew it. What a price to pay.

The petition, and the implications therein, have been a hot topic of debate around the Takeout offices this morning. Some would argue that given its centuries of tradition, it's immovable. If not a celebration of All Hallows' Eve, then what is it at all?

Yet others disagree. Any further thoughts from the room?

Halloween should be on the last Saturday of October, always

Unlike Kevin "enjoy your Good & Plentys" Pang, I don't hate fun. I do hate when Halloween falls on something like a Wednesday, so people aren't home to attend to trick-or-treaters and co-workers begrudgingly have to wear cat ears to the office. Put this fun, weird, freaky holiday on a weekend where it belongs. If Halloween were predictably on the final Saturday of October, we could let our inner weirdos out without fear of having to report to work with glitter in our hair or fake blood still caked under our fingernails. Plus, that's leaves a whole Sunday to eat leftover candy and watch football. [Kate Bernot]

Halloween should be last Tuesday of October from 3:30-4 p.m.

I will gladly accept your slings and arrows of being a killjoy, but I think Halloween should be on a weekday afternoon for half an hour, maximum. Now that I'm a parent, and lived through the hell of what happens when a toddler inhales a fun-sized bag of M&M's, I'm of the mind that kids really shouldn't be eating through three pounds of candy. So I propose trick-or-treating to be treated like a game show, like the timed race on Supermarket Sweep, where children have exactly 30 minutes to race from door too door collecting as much candy as possible in the allotted time. They'll still be taking home an inadvisable amount of treats, only the quantity won't be as obscene. Bonus: I'll likely be at work between 3:30 and 4 p.m., so I won't have to deal with it. [Kevin Pang]

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