An Early Look At Halloween
Anymore, it seems to be an annual rite where October 31 rolls around and news stations, due to the slow-news nature of Octobers, begin looking for “human interest” stories. The typical ones are those in which some Christian group is protesting Halloween, or staging ‘Hell-houses’, or doing something else rather public to call attention to its ‘bone to pick’ with this rather odd ‘Holiday’.
This year, as in several years past, these same groups get an ‘early Halloween gift’ in the form of a book - this year being the last (?) installment of the Harry Potter series. While I can’t say I have ever seen the need to boycott Halloween (my kids basically circle the small neighborhood dressed as doctors, pirates, princesses or various flora/fauna - we do avoid ghosts, vampires and monsters - and all of the families end up exchanging candy and chatting with their neighbors), I have been on both sides of the Harry Potter debate.
Early on (somewhere around Book 3), I was rather concerned when one of my kids received the books as a gift, when I had heard a great deal of negative press (via email chain-letters and a couple Christian newsletters screaming about the ‘evil’ inherent in Harry Potter).  Since they were a Christmas gift, I was able to temporarily ’lose’ them in the hustle and bustle to give myself time to decide whether or not to allow them to be read. In fact, both my wife and I were a little peeved that they were given in the first place, with all the furor over them (though, to be fair, the givers were of good intention and considered them to just be popular kids books, and hadn’t heard any of the fuss).
