As we approach Halloween, we start hearing comments about the roots of this holiday and the discomfort that some people have with parts of its celebration. It is said that All Hallows Eve, Pomona, and Samhain have blended together in this country. Our secular tradition has the Christian observance, the old Roman harvest festival, and the Druid observance of season change and festival of the dead all combined. There are Christians who worry about the Pagan elements combined with their ecclesiastical observance, and Pagans who worry about the misinterpretation and disrespect for their diverse beliefs.

Caught in the middle are Unitarian Universalists who want to celebrate an Americanized melting-pot version of Halloween, and yet carefully recognize that some neighbors and friends of different faiths may have deep-seated feelings about the right and wrong ways to celebrate it.

Your children, grandchildren, and other youngsters in your life may get as many conflicting messages about "proper" Halloween meanings from their friends as they do about Hell and the Divine. They may need your help to sort out the different messages and learn your viewpoints.

From our reach-l computer subscriber list came these ideas for intergenerational Halloween fun:

From Alice Syltie, DRE in Birmingham, AL:
We do a wonderful Halloween party every year. It starts about 5:30 with hot dogs and hamburgers and homemade deserts. Then about 6:00 the kids go through all the rooms to play games that the adults are working. The senior high does a haunted house in one room, we have cake walk, go fish, bean bag toss through the pumpkin's mouth, candle squirt, twister, fortune tellers (for adults too), etc. The adults who aren't working a game can visit and have refreshments. Everyone comes in costume and we have costume parade. About 7:00 we have trick or treat throughout the church yard. Adults have stations with pumpkins that have candles in them and when the kids come by they give them candy. Afterwards we all gather in the sanctuary (with no chairs in it) and do the hokey pokey, the macarena, the Time Warp and the Chicken Polka or Duck Dance. This is the most fun because its all the kids and adults together. Then we play music for everyone to dance to. We play some 60s and 70s and also some for the teens. It gets a little wild but it's lots of fun.

From Ann D'Attilio, DRE at First Unitarian Universalist. Society, Albany, NY
In the fall the RE Council holds an intergenerational Halloween Party, although it is mostly attended by kids and their parents. We try to recruit our Senior High to do a haunted house. We have all kinds of games like toss the spiders through the hole, a donut dangle, pitch the bones in the bucket, face painting, fingernail polishing, pin the rib on the witch, etc. We serve snacks and cider, and usually end with about 15 minutes of group dancing (hokey pokey, macarena, YMCA, Green Alligators, etc.) The event lasts only an hour and a half so we don't keep the kids up too late.