Well, we're not there yet, but it's making the news:
School District Bans Halloween"We really want to make sure we're using all of our time in the best interest of our students," Puyallup School District spokeswoman Karen Hansen said.
The superintendent made the decision for three primary reasons, Hansen said. First, Halloween parties and parades waste valuable classroom time. Second, some families can't afford costumes and the celebrations thus can create embarrassment for children.
Both of those reasons seemed sensible to the parents who spoke to ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle. But the district's third reason left some Puyallup parents shaking their heads.
The district said Halloween celebrations and children dressed in Halloween costumes might be offensive to real witches.
"Witches with pointy noses and things like that are not respective symbols of the Wiccan religion and so we want to be respectful of that," Hansen said.
Hmmm. As an acquaintance says ... I wonder what they'll do at Christmas. Is Santa Claus offensive to Christians?
Mainly, I wish this school district had thought things through and perhaps even asked some of us witches. I don't really want to see kids in the United States denied the secular celebration of their ancestor's holy day. Maybe educate instead of deny?
Oh well, as for me, I've been mainly silent here because I've been finishing up that odious
organizing task (should be completely done by the lunar Samhain -- 11/12) and redesigning
MatriFocus (soon-to-be-published Samhain issue still veiled) to accommodate expansion and change and to celebrate three full years of publication. But that's not all. I must be going through the 'why blog?' phase of suicide survivor depression. I expect I'll get through this, as I seem to be making headway on other things that were stopped, or seriously slowed down, by the depression.
Maybe I should have gone to the doc and gotten some anti-depressants, but my thinking has been that this is a stage of grief, not something to be medicated. Just to be sure, I'm gonna check in with her next week. She's an MD with a holistic medicine certification, so I trust her knowing about these things more than I trust the AMA corps in general.
Til then ... soul blessings!
Haloscan:
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Blogger:
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