Halloween used to be my favorite day of the year, but since I moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania, the Halloween spirit has been seeping out of me until it was fully drained. Lebanon is very anti-Halloween compared to York thanks to the droves of Mennonites and uneducated idiots who think this is a Satanic holiday. This is extremely true in my neighborhood where the Mennonite vans appear just before trick-or-treat begins, taking the children away for a special bible study night.
There are no Halloween parades or celebrations in Lebanon, there is no trick-or-treat at the mall, and there are very few, if any, spectacularly decorated houses. There is bible study during trick-or-treat and the children of my neighborhood are ushered away by the willingly suppressed women from the 1800s as their husbands wait to drive the children to some church. How is that not viewed as a cult-like obsession? To take children that are not yours away from an American tradition and force them to learn about your religion? To imply that anyone who partakes in trick-or-treating is evil? And what kind of parent agrees to this nonsense?
Am I really the devil in their world? A woman who not only loves Halloween, but who dares to wear pants, get an education, work at a job, and take control of the household. A woman who does not “obey” her husband and sees him as her equal, not as her superior. If I am the devil to them, then the devil is right: equality, understanding, and knowledge are far superior to ancient traditions that harm others. Allowing children to enjoy a night of dressing up as someone, or something, they love, having fun, and eating candy is not evil; it is letting children be children.
In Lebanon, there are a ton of Christmas festivities—a holiday that has become so commercialized that it is disgusting—but there is nothing for Halloween, other than a basic trick-or-treat night. I hope to someday once again live in a place that celebrates the best holiday of the year—the only one that isn't overly commercialized and that is purely about fun.
If we had real management in my townhouse complex, I would suggest a special trick-or-treat night, as we had in Cedar Village in York, to allow an extra night of fun for the local kids. There is not much for kids to do in Lebanon, and especially not in my neighborhood, and a night of dressing in fun costumes and visiting neighbors to get candy is among the most wholesome activity in which children can partake. Unless parents would rather that their children run wild, getting into mischief and that their teenagers hang out in a group of foul-mouthed Marijuana smokers at the basketball court, never actually playing the sport, because that is what happens every other day of the year.
Of course, it’s not like a neighborhood trick-or-treat night would matter—the Mennonites would still “kidnap” the children to prevent any chance of them having fun or eating candy. How dare we women dress in costumes, let alone wear pants and think for ourselves. No, they cannot allow another generation to grow into adults who believe in equal rights, and they cannot allow the little girls to dream of someday being independent and powerful. In their world, if you partake in anything fun, you cannot worship their God, and they refuse to believe that others can live differently while still holding onto their own religious views.
These are the reasons why I never got along with my Mennonite relatives. That, and my realization that I was not a Christian, but more of a Taoist/Buddhist/Atheist. The Mennonite ways are too suppressive and judgmental, and taking away my Halloween joy of seeing kids having fun and dressing in various costumes is a sure way to turn me away from the oppression that comes with the Mennonite ways.