Comments on: Do Mormons Celebrate Halloween?

By: Women Seeking Christ

Women Seeking Christ — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 13:14:54 +0000

And Steve, your comment inspired me to write another post about Halloween. I hope this reflects a little more of what you were hoping your friend could have found, and I do hope you will read through the variety of posts we have. This is a question that over the years has gotten a lot of traffic. I would be interested in understanding more what people are thinking about who we are and what we believe when they ask this question. Did you get a chance to talk to your friend about what she expected to find, hoped to find, etc? For example, you can see above that someone was looking to try to be sensitive to the Latter-day Saint children in her community as a librarian. In years past, we have had people wonder about things like reading Harry Potter (I hope I addressed that question adequately here as well). I imagine there are Christians who choose not to celebrate the holiday, including some Latter-day Saints (see another comment above), and perhaps they wonder where we fall on the spectrum?

Thoughts?
~Michelle

By: Women Seeking Christ

Women Seeking Christ — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 11:26:01 +0000

Steve,

That is interesting that your coworker had that experience or interpreted this post as saying that we don’t enjoy Halloween. Perhaps it was the first statement by one of our authors that she wouldn’t use the word celebrate? I think many would, as you do, just go ahead and say that they do celebrate it.

My Facebook feed is full of examples of people, many of them members of our faith, having a great time coming up with creative costumes, fun trunk-or-treat activities with their “ward” congregation communities (if I had permissions, I would share pics). I have smiled a lot at people’s creativity and the desire to make this a fun time for children.

So you aren’t going to get any disagreement from me on this. 🙂 Thanks for adding your own perspective and please apologize to your coworker if our post was not clear enough.

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 20:52:34 +0000

A Coworker who knows I’m mormon Googled if Mormons celebrate Halloween, Your post came up and in the excerpt it says we don’t. I think that is inaccurate–at least in my experience. I live in Utah and all Mormons I know have always celebrated Halloween. It’s true that here in Utah trick or treating takes place on Saturday instead of Sunday, and we won’t be participating in drinking alcohol, but bring on the candy, costumes, scary movies, and spooky decorations.

By: AJ

AJ — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 19:13:05 +0000

I just wanted to say that I think you’re post is great! I was baptized when I was 13 and I really never thought about if it would be looked down on to participate in the friendlier Halloween festivities like trick or treat nights until I had kids of my own. So it’s nice to know that I’m not the only Mormon mom who doesn’t see the harm in it and that it’s my choice to let my kids participate. Our usual trick or treat night is the Thursday before Halloween so unless it gets rained out I don’t have to worry about it being on a Sunday. anyway thank you for sharing

By: wijy

wijy — Wed, 20 May 2015 01:45:31 +0000

WHY DON’T MORMONS CECLEBRATE HALLOWEEN? I GUESS THEY DONT LIKE STRANGERS KNOCKING ON THEIR DOOR!

By: Tara Klodnicki

Tara Klodnicki — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 23:31:27 +0000

Thank you for posting this…my son is a Mormon, but well past the trick or treating years. But because of his faith, I’ve learned a lot about the Latter Day Saints since he was baptized and have come to know many Mormon families that come to my library. I’m a children’s librarian and I wanted to make my Halloween program suitable for all of my kids. Now I feel comfortable with what I have planned – just a little spooky, and hopefully a lot of fun!

By: Jaime

Jaime — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 16:56:56 +0000

My comment to Kaley is if your at peace and think that how you celebrate or don’t celebrate a holiday is alright with our Heavenly Father, then it is a personal choice. Today’s Halloween does not associate itself with the past rituals and meanings…it is a fun time where the kids get to pretend to be their favorite superhero or princess and spend time with their friends to get goodies. I see no harm in it, and I have a true believe that if what I did was wrong, God would tell me just as he tells me when other things are wrong.

By: mormonwomen

mormonwomen — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:59:36 +0000

Nicole and Kaley point out the fact that some do choose not to celebrate this holiday, and that is, of course, a valid choice. Every parent has to decide where, if, and how to draw lines with things like this, and obviously the personal choices vary — from whether to celebrate at all, to how to approach decorating, to what kinds of costumes and activities to allow, and even whether to give (or to keep) candy, or….

We see similar differences in opinion when discussing holidays such as Easter or Christmas — where people vary as to how commercialized/secualarized they want their holidays to be, how much of the history they choose to have affect what they do, etc.

It’s one of the wonders of God’s plan, really — that in so many ways, we just have our freedom to choose.

By: Kaley

Kaley — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 02:16:11 +0000

While what you do is your own choice, this is a demonic holiday-that is its origin and people still decorate with evil/dark/scary things in mind. I challenge you to look up the origins of bobbing for apples and seeing what it truly represents and then I’ll ask you if you want your children partaking of these rituals.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:24:10 +0000

While it is true that most LDS do celebrate Halloween, there is a large minority that do not. Maybe next year, you could add some of the reasons why some Mormons choose not to celebrate Halloween as well.