It is becoming ever more apparent that the Halloween holiday has become the biggest holiday outside of Christmas. Popular Halloween destination spots like Salem, MA gathers 75,000 people on that night alone, and retail sales for the holiday are breaking records.

“Halloween spending is estimated to reach $5.07 billion this year, compared to $4.96 billion in 2006. At $1.8 billion, costumes for adults, children and pets make up the bulk of spending, according to the National Retail Federation … The average person is expected to spend just under $65 on Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation survey. One-third of that – about $23 per person – will be spent on costumes and almost $20 will go toward Halloween candy.”

But with the growing popularity comes growing controversy. School bans of the holiday (and subsequent un-bannings) are becoming ever more common, and controversies over publicly displayed decorations are becoming heated and angry. It has columnist Ellis Henican wondering where all the fun went.

“Who needs to wait for another hyped-up “War on Christmas?” It’s only mid-October. And we’re already in the thick of a breathless national “Assault on Halloween.” Consider yourself warned, you precious little trick-or-treaters, you toilet-paper-tossing miscreants: Two weeks before the greatest kids’ holiday of the year, a bunch of nay-saying grownups are hell-bent on spoiling the fun … anti-Halloween eruptions are now breaking out everywhere … If it’s not one thing, it’s another on Halloween – from any interest group with its own fax machine.”

These complaints are echoed by Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi:

“The two most devastating words any red-blooded American kid is likely to hear are “Fall Festival.” It can mean only one thing: The War on Halloween is once again upon us. No, the War on Halloween won’t induce the same zealous indignation that, say, the War on Christmas can. For me, though, it’s far worse. We’re still weeks from this glorious pagan celebration, but you can already hear the sound of the pinheads sucking the fun out of life.”

Harsanyi talks to Harvard Halloween expert Lesley Bannatyne who explains why, despite the controversy, the holiday is more important to our society than ever.

“‘One of the main reasons the holiday is critical is because it’s perhaps the only holiday left where we actually open our doors to strangers … If we’ve ever needed that, we need it nowadays’ … Moreover, during Halloween kids can express and explore things that they find scary, Bannatyne explains. It’s healthy. It’s about Celtic mythology, popular culture, literature and the evolution of the American experience. It’s also about inclusion. Bannatyne claims that Halloween was used in the early part of the 20th century as a means of teaching immigrants how to acclimate to the American way of life.”

You can read a fascinating article about the different developing Halloween trends on Bannatyne’s web site. The larger point here is that Halloween has become too big to be owned by any singular conception of what it should be. Pagans no more get to define it than the anti-Halloween Christians promoting “fall festivals”, or the secular thrill-seekers looking to blow off some steam. We should all remember that this holiday, since the very beginning, has been about crossing boundaries and doing shocking things.

“While Samhain (and the phenomenon of death which it celebrated) was obviously the end of a cycle, it was more importantly the start of a new one. Because all true novelty springs from the chaotic freedom and vitality of the Otherworld, a new cycle could be inaugurated only by dissolving all of the structures of the old one — just as the moment of death dissolves our identity in this world, allowing the fresh energies of the Otherworld to impel us towards new life. This meant that, as happens in the feasts of renewal of many different cultures, certain types of social disorder were actively encouraged during the period of the festival, because they promoted the renewing influence of the Otherworld at the point in the yearly cycle where it would be most beneficial. Customs originating entirely in the world of cultural values — such as those relating to social rank or gender-appropriate behaviour — were the most likely to be violated. Disrespect could be shown to elders or to members of the upper classes. Cross-dressing was one of the most widespread and popular ways of expressing the dissolution of social categories, and in parts of Wales groups of young men in female garb were referred to as gwrachod (”hags” or “witches”) as they wandered through the countryside on Calan Gaeaf, indulging in all kinds of mischief.”

So shouldn’t this holiday, for Pagans anyway, be the one time of the year we accept the strange, gruesome, outrageous, and offensive? Let us all try to use the energies of this holiday to bind us all closer together as a society. The business of Halloween is getting bigger, lets be sure its true spirit remains a part of that growth.

Tags: Halloween, Paganism, Salem, Samhain, War on Halloween, Witch