Student ghosts unmasked in Newton - The Boston Globe

Student ghosts unmasked in Newton - The Boston Globe

More commentary on this a little later.....

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And away we go:

This article was sent to me by C2. I am now going to make my own judgment call on this.

Today when I came into work I was talking to one of the girls and asked her about her trick-or-treaters in her neighborhood. She told me that she had hardly any kids. She felt it was due to the fact that parents have had the living daylights scared out of them by newscasts that warn of sexual predators in local neighborhoods.
Between this and people being offended by 'Pagan' celebrations I am really ticked off - but not surprised. Halloween as we know it is being ruined for kids today by fear and by extremists. I just don't friggin' get it....

OK first off when we were little we did not go out without an adult. In fact I don't remember being allowed to go out on my own until I was 12 or 13 yrs old. Even then I don't remember EVER going into someone's house unless I knew them personally - last time I checked, candy was given out on people's porches. Has that changed?

Further, yes there were rumours about poison in pixie sticks and razor blades put in apples by 'creepy men living in their mothers' basements' uhm OK so *MY* folks checked every bit of our candy and we were not allowed to eat it until it was checked - not that they would have been able to sense poison that had been injected into our candy via needles...and, even then we were not allowed to have our own candy it was doled out to us....and for the record, I never ever heard of a single friend of mine being poisoned or cut on a razor blade - have any of you out there???????

Since I went to a Catholic school we did not have trick-or-treat in school but then we did not have a lot of 'fun' in that good ole' bastion of Catholicism anyhow...we did celebrate the feast of St. Valentine, St. Patrick, Easter, and Christmas (duh).

My children however DID have a Halloween celebration in their elementary schools and if I had not wanted them to participate I'd have kept them home. I think it is absolute bullshit that a very few parents should be allowed to ruin a celebration for the MAJORITY of the other kids. (Oh and by the way, Halloween IS a bit of a precursor to All Soul's Day and WAS celebrated in Catholic circles back in the day). Here's a clue - keep your friggin' kids at home and let them be miserable not being normal at YOUR house. You don't have a right to force your religious beliefs (which last time I checked didn't belong in public schools anyhow) on ANY OF US!!!!!

My own daughter is one of these 'Christian' fundamentalist types whose children are not allowed to celebrate Halloween. Nor can they be told about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Now grant it my grandchildren are very young and don't even understand any of these concepts yet. But I have to tell you I am extremely saddened by my daughter's insistence that these 'rituals' are not in keeping with her Christian belief system - I mean that's' all well and fine and good for her (it sucks for my grandchildren) - but I also know that one day she is going to be faced with either one of two scenarios - her kids are going to be picked on horribly for not being 'like the others' or her kids are going to rebel like the devil themselves against every single value their parents are trying to force upon them. I for one hope it's the rebellion and not the torture from the other rug-rats.

People need to wake up and stop being so ridiculous/ludicrous. I think we need to concentrate on *real* problems instead of this petty bullshit.

Now go eat your kids' Halloween candy.