70 thoughts on “Non-Halloween Celebrations That Just So Happen To Fall on Halloween Redux”

        1. That’s an actual Burma Shave original. From the end of WWI to the Student revolution of the 60’s America was very image conscious. Men wore ties and suit clothing more and women wore Dresses. The Fundie ideology and mindset is stuck in that time… you know the “Old Paths.” The time when men were men and women knew their place.

          The America of Norman Rockwell, Billy Sunday and Joseph Macarthy. Truth, Justice and the American way… all Colored folks to the back of the bus please. You know… the America that never really was. The ideal was there and the image was put out front but “Father Knows Best”, “Leave it to Beaver”, and “Andy Griffith” were just fantasy television shows. But they were clean shaven.

        2. Norman Rockwell has become such a symbol for reactionary people that I didn’t realize until I read his biography that Rockwell was a liberal Democrat. He was in favor of the New Deal, and, later, the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation.

          John Wayne, by the way, was also in most respects a liberal Democrat.

        3. It’s all about perception and image. Many Dixie-crats became dissolusioned with the liberalness (defined by the Big Government/welfare state/entitlement mentality)of the Democrat party in the post Vietnam era and many became Reagan Republicans. It’s more about idology and perceptions anyway.

  7. It is all about the fear. Don’t be afraid of the things you OUGHT to be afraid of. Just push those to the side… Instead be afraid of anyone who is different from you, and from falling away and being a “shipwreck”, and from missed opportunities, and from getting to the end of your life and finding you have somehow let God down, and from finding blood on your hands of the lady in the grocery store who checked your groceries who you never witnessed to and on the judgement day her looking at you and pointing her finger and saying, YOU were a CHRISTIAN? WHY didn’t you ever TELL me? Now I am going to HELL all because of YOU!!!” Yeah, no fear. 👿

    1. Ugh. I just had a flashback of Vineyard doing his disgusting “Bloody Hands” message in the old chapel. 🙄

      1. Yes, I remember (and still hear that from some visiting “evangelists”). Didn’t like the guilt trip and manipulation then, and I don’t like it now; I prefer “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”; apparently in the IFB Bible, this says “My yoke is heavy and my burden is great”

  8. Man, was that a crappy Halloween Party. Everyone had the same costume– a ghost with a dunce cap. It must have been a church group, because when I went to make my S’mores I noticed the bonfire looked like a cross. Oh, darn, it’s not a Halloween party, it’s a BJU staff meeting.

  9. This just cracks me up…
    what other demonination announces
    “family fun without fear”…
    be afraid-be very afraid !!

    (Mr Don- you are on a roll today)

    2. These churches can’t be too hard-core Fundy if they’re calling their non-Halloween celebrations “carnivals.” “Carnival” is a decidedly Catholic tradition.

    1. too funny !!

      “Jesus ween”
      “that is the spirit of halloween because
      dressing in white and handing out bibles is sure to make your house the creepiest one on the block” 🙂

  13. “Family Fun without Fear” unless you are telling the kiddies they’re are going to hell!

    I did have some exposure to Word of Life when I was young. They were not the yelling, screaming, off the boat, cult of personality crazies I was later exposed to when I moved south.
    I did attend their camp in upstate New York State. Expect for the cabins, everything was co-ed.

  14. When I was a heathen child, we went trick-or-treating… knowing nothing of God, we were indignant at people who put tracts in our bag, or were too mean or cheap to give candy to us kids.

    1. My parents handed out tracts but made sure they were in a little baggy with two or three other candies. People might still not want a tract, but at least they couldn’t complain that they got gypped!

  15. Having to leave tonight for business; destination has no Internet access (without exorbitant fees), so I’ll miss my SFL fix for a while.

    I won’t get to participate tonight due to airport run.

    Until later, folks!

  16. Churches that have harvest parties on other nights may just be trying to have an event that will attract unchurched folks to church, not necessarily providing an alternative as an additional event. But if a church schedules their harvest party on Halloween, they are probably trying to replace trick-or-treating.

    In a way, I actually appreciate them offering something. In my childhood, we often were just told we couldn’t do things, but we weren’t usually given anything to do instead. While a harvest party may not be as fun as trick-or-treating, it’s still better than sitting at home with the porch lights off!

    1. The evangelical Baptist church that I have recently been attending had a hymnsing on Sunday night celebrating the Reformation. We sang hymns written by or inspired by the Reformation. Some hymns were given contemporary updates. It was fantastic, and I loved it. Rarely have I seen fundamentalists acknowledge let alone celebrate the Reformation in some way.

    2. I always celebrate Reformation Day. At college, I would slip copies of Luther’s 95 Theses under random doors in my dorm. Since I’ve been teaching, I always wish my students a happy Reformation Day. It’s amazing how many of them think that Martin Luther was some *bad man* that had *something* to do with the Civil Rights Movement.

  18. One Halloween, my heathen cousin was spending the night at our house, and she brought a Ouija board. It wasn’t even a “real” one, just crappy glow-in-the-dark cardboard. Clearly a toy. My fundy stepmom (now former) caught us playing with it and went crazy. I don’t remember all she said, but something about the danger of conjuring spirits, especially on “the devil’s Christmas.” She took the board and threw it away, and my cousin probably would’ve been ticked if we hadn’t been bursting with laughter at her euphemism. 😆

    (BTW, first time posting, though I’ve been lurking a bit. Nice to meet everyone!)

    2. Welcome Miranda.

      It’s funny that you should mention a Ouija board. Shortly after I started going to a fundy church, the first time I really questioned what I was hearing was a rant about Ouija boards and how they lead to more sinister things. I should have run right then, but it took a few years to figure everything out. I’m still in the process of “figuring everything out”.

    3. I just made my first post last night! 😀

      I grew up with a very strict ban on Ouija boards too, but oddly enough not because my parents were fundy Christians (although they sent us to Free Will Baptist schools…long story). My dad was actually raised hoodoo (Deep South folk religion…kind of like Voodoo if you replace the Catholic elements with Protestant and add in a lot of other things with the African traditions) and had very strong beliefs on things that could give demons access to the home. I was also never allowed to own copies of certain Stephen King books.

      1. I’ve always wanted to meet someone who practiced Hoodoo, after reading authors like Zora Neale Hurston on the subject.

        Welcome to the “SFL” crowd of delinquents, Harp Girl. 🙂

        1. Thanks! And yeah, Hoodoo is interesting. I didn’t realize how unusual it was until I was an adult that I would go to school and learn about how shorts are evil and anything but hymns and country music are the work of the devil, then come home and learn how to communicate with dead relatives and use Bible verses and the Lord’s Prayer for protection from evil spirits and such.

  19. I’ll say it- I actually like all the “Fall Festivals” and “Harvest Festivals” in my area.
    Three years ago, we trick-or-treated at the Army base we were at…then went to the chapel’s festival.
    Since then, we’ve lived on streets that just don’t have very many kids/ people in general, so trick-or-treating doesn’t work.
    However, we have gone to church parties Saturday, Sunday, and today. There is also one next weekend. The kids have played carnival games, had faces painted,gone on hayrides and bouncy slides, had a major candy haul at the one that had a trunk-or-treat (minus the two Chick Tracts I threw away), and brought home three cakewalk cakes (one per child).
    Of course none of the churches were out right fundy churches (SBC, UMC, CMC) and I saw some ghouls, witches, etc amongst costumes. But all still insisted on calling the party a Fall or Harvest party instead of the Halloween party that it was 🙄 .

  20. Just saw a friend post puctures of their church’s “Good News Party” tonight. They dressed up and passed out candy. Hmmm not to be confused with Halloween.

  21. The most original Trunk or Treat I saw tonight was a couple dressed as Goths. They had it to a tee… American Gothic that is. I could have sworn I heard the Green Acres theme music everytime I looked at them.

  22. LOL, The one day out of the year they don’t have to fear. 😆 😆 😆 Why is it everytime I see something fundy, I get this slanted head tilt with signals going off in my mind “this is so backwards”? Like everything about them contradicts logic.

  23. I wanted to dress as a monk and hand out potato chips. I would be a “Chip Monk.”
    Incidentially, I will be performing at a “Harvest Party” this coming Saturday.

  24. My sister-in-law suffered as a child in an IFB church and school, so when the family moved to our town my nieces and nephew had never been trick-or-treating. We finally convinced SIL if we took the kids out on Halloween she was not damning the kids’ soul to hell (the pastor had already told her she would never be saved, but she was determined her kids would go to heaven). Instead of the usual hit and run candy blitz, we went “Pumpkin Caroling”. Years ago Hallmark put out a Halloween card with Peanuts characters and Christmas songs rewritten with Halloween words. So we’d ring the doorbell, starting singing something like:
    You better moan, you better not growl
    You better not scream, you better not howl
    Great Pumpkin is coming to town.
    And then WE gave candy to the people who answered their doors. Porch lights popped on down the street ahead of us. 🙂

    1. Pumpkin caroling! I love it!
      Offering people something instead of just taking. It’s a great idea.

  25. hah. Yes, I grew up in Fundy-lite churches. They’re a little more bearable because you can still participate in some “things of the world” as long as you find a way to do so without actually admitting that you’re participating–like Harvest Parties! Or Weird Al songs.

  26. There’s some kind of delicious irony in the fact that the same Fundies who are adamantly opposed to Halloween parties are the ones who are most likely to believe that witches, ghosts, wizards, demons, and other such bugaboos really exist.

  27. Last week I discovered a church near our house that had signs outside saying “Holy Ghost Hayride: the entire Bible in under 60 minutes!” I was beyond tempted to find out how wacky that could possibly be lol

  29. The ENTIRE Bible? As in, EVERYTHING in the Bible?
    Oh, my. This hayride is going to be rated XXX. 😳

    1. Whoops, this was supposed to go under Perezident’s post about “Holy Ghost Hayride: the entire Bible in under 60 minutes!”

  30. For the record, Wesleyans aren’t Fundy – they ordain women. (But they do disapprove of dancing, even if its in the same sentence as avoiding supporting the entertainment industry, which they don’t actually practice anymore – the same preachers who are still against dancing and won’t let their kids go to prom do let them go to (appropriate) movies)

    For the record I’m a former Wesleyan because we don’t have one here – not because I’m in that much disagreement with them – their views on dancing aren’t enough to keep me away, lol.

    For those who are still wondering who are the Wesleyans because you live in a Wesleyan-light area (unlike the area I grew up in), think Nazarenes. Or low-church conservatives Methodists. The Wesleyans came out of the merger of the Pilgrim Holiness and the Wesleyan Methodist Church (both of which have some hold outs that could be classed as Fundy – well or at least classed as “bun wearing” which I think might be a step beyond?) and there was talks of the Wesleyans and Nazarenes merging at one point, especially since most areas tend to only have one or the other church.

    Anyway – history lesson complete. Just feel free to use the Wesleyans and Nazarenes as proof that ordaining women is not a slippery slope to liberalism if you need to =D

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