Schools Eliminating Halloween?

[frazzled]

81. Well, in my case

we didn't celebrate Christmas as a cultural custom. We didn't celebrate it at all because we were Jewish (though we were happy to be surrounded by the secular aspects of the holiday that occurred on tv or in the department store windows). So when I didn't want to sing those words, it was because I was actually afraid they were sacrilegious and that something bad might happen to me. So Frosty the Snowman and even Deck the Halls and all that felt safe and fun, even if foreign to my family and its culture, but the religious stuff was scary to a young child. (And I didn't say "under God" either! I remember being unsure as to "what" god they were talking about, and feared it might be the wrong one.)

I think Halloween is even more of a secular holiday than Christmas, having lost all connection to an "All Saints Day" imo. But I do respect people's right to disagree with that, no matter how crazy, and think schools should make appropriate accommodations.

Public life is getting more and more difficult, with more and more separatist demands and divisions. And I regret that. I always accepted being a minority in a majority society and still am a believer in assimilation: finding common cultural ground and sharing in the culture of a common society. That seems much harder today, where the political, religious, ethnic, and racial divides seem even more strongly delineated.

Thank heavens for Thanksgiving ... which I think is a holiday we can all share in, each according to their needs and traditions of course, for all religions and no matter where you came from, vegetarians and omnivores alike. It's the one time a year I actually feel like there is some unifying moment, spent around a festive table, where we can all call ourselves Americans. Perhaps I'm deluded.