Is Halloween Moving?
2 min reading time
Here at Royal, a bulk candy wholesaler, many of us had our prime trick-or-treating years during the ’80s and ’90s. October 31st was a day filled with excitement and anticipation as we readied our costumes, grabbed the biggest pillowcase we could find, and took to the streets with our parents or friends for a night filled with fun and sugar-filled treats. Ask a kid today what their Halloween looks like and they’ll likely have a very different answer. Halloween traditions and celebrations have been changing recently and even the day Halloween is celebrated on could be changing very soon. So why, you may ask, is Halloween moving? Where is it going? Here’s the scoop.
Apparently, as we kids of the ’80s and ’90s have grown up and become parents ourselves, celebrating Halloween with our children has become an overly complicated ordeal. The non-profit Halloween & Costume Association agrees and they’ve started a movement to permanently change the date of Halloween to always fall on the last Saturday in October. As ridiculous as this may sound to some, the idea is quickly gaining many supporters and those behind the movement are pledging to take it straight to President Trump to make it official.
The Halloween and Costume Association believes that having Halloween on a Saturday will make it a “safer, longer, stress-free celebration,” and not interfere with parent’s work hours or school schedules. Hmmm….. Kids have been trick-or-treating on October 31st since the 1920s and it’s just now becoming a scheduling problem? OK, whatever you say.
We think the push to move Halloween to a Saturday has more to do with how Halloween is celebrated today and not so much that it may fall on a school night or cause a conflict with parent’s work schedules. Think about it. Halloween used to be ONE day of trick-or-treating with a possible classroom party at school. These days, Halloween seems to last the entire month of October. There are parties at school, community trunk-or-treats, celebrations with church groups, events with scout troops, Halloween festivities with friends and family. The list goes on and on. By the time October 31st rolls around, we’ve been Halloweened up to the eyeballs. So it’s no wonder that it seems too inconvenient at that point to have Halloween on a weeknight. It's just the last holiday event on a very long list and the thought of it seems exhausting. We’ll just have to wait and see if Halloween officially gets moved to a different day in the future.
Whether you’re in favor of moving Halloween to the last Saturday in October or you’re a purist who wants to trick-or-treat on the day it was intended, you’re in luck. October 31st, 2020 falls on a Saturday!