Halloween on Sunday

Halloween always causes a dilemma when it falls on a Sunday. In Utah where many parents are LDS and don’t participate in certain activities on Sunday, trick-or-treating on the Sabbath is often seen as a no-no.

Many LDS families bump up the holiday to Saturday night to avoid the Sabbath day conflict. This basically means many non-LDS residents have to follow suit or their kids will have no one to trick-or-treat with on actual Halloween. Many people won’t even be handing out candy on Halloween because they already participated in “Mormon Halloween.”

This is a decision each family has to make, but I can see both sides on this one. On the one hand, if you think Sunday is reserved for worship and activities that strengthen your spiritual beliefs, then trick-or-treating probably shouldn’t make the cut.

Sure, you could dig down to the core of Halloween to argue that it’s not a good idea to celebrate a pagan holiday on the Sabbath. But the real question then is whether you should ever participate in a pagan holiday focused on the return of dead spirits.

On the other side of the issue, I have friends who say trick-or-treating on Sunday isn’t as big a deal as some people make it. If you go with your family to knock on a few neighbors’ doors, how is that different than any other family activity on a Sunday? You dress the kiddies up in a ridiculous costume, visit with neighbors and then come home to persuade your kids to give you a Kit-Kat bar.

Will you let your children trick-or-treat on Sunday this year? If you’re sticking to the Saturday night substitute, will you hand out candy to those who do come knocking on Halloween?