you’d best take back your comment calling Ireland an “Anglo country”

And now its back, like many religious and non religious celebratory traditions before it.

That’s so true. In this economy every penny helps.

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It doesn’t, but it’s also the only truly communal American holiday. Christmas creates a lot of good will amongst people, I know my union my Grandma represented adopted HUNDREDS of families for adopt-a-christmas every year. However Christmas is still about. But modern Christmas is still based in celebrating your family, not people as a whole. Adopting other families isn’t essential for a Christmas celebration. Halloween is a day for children to walk around feeling cool in their costumes, get candy, and just have a good day. It’s the one day of year Americans can actually knock on their neighbors door without it being weird. Even St. Patrick’s day, the second most communal holiday in America, is entirely based around parades and not homes.

On one hand, I don’t think Halloween would mean much to nations with closer communal ties. I get why other nations don’t understand why America loves Halloween so much. On the other hand, Halloween’s cultural significance of being the only inherently community building holiday in America makes it a more worthy holiday than many others. With how alienated people are becoming from each other, I think Halloween is a more important holiday in America than ever.

Would you prefer the Christmas decorations already be there instead?

It’s the egg holiday, it’s like a yearly tradition of eggs to go “haha, wouldn’t it be so funny and ironic if I dressed as a girl/guy/non gendered thingy majiggy this year guys haha” every year until they crack

“”“real tradition”“”

There isn’t really here either.

Meh, doesn’t have to be that way though. People aren’t going to give up an excuse to have a good time, and I for one like this particular holiday more than the others. It’s so rare to see your neighbors outside and participate in some non problematic events in the states that it’s a breath of fresh air.

If you don’t want it to be commercialized give people an alternative. Go out to the woods, make a fire, tell scary stories, get trashed on a dangerous amount of alcohol you have labeled witches brew. It’s just an excuse to have fun with people you like, also an opportunity to be a bit of slut, which is always fun.

I don’t disagree with this take.

But until we build strong, healthy, connected communities that centre alternative activities which bring joy to people outside of vapid consumerism then this is what people will gravitate towards for experiencing joy. That’s not the fault of the people who are surrounded by commercialism who effectively have no other options available to them, any more than it’s the fault of kids who grow up in a suburban hellscape surrounded by busy roads (patrolled by cops who will arrest them on any pretext) with little access to recreational third spaces for spending all their time indoors on social media and gaming.

We must remind ourselves to be materialists in all things, including this matter. The material reality that fosters this sort of vapid commercial exercise is the problem and the exercise itself is merely a consequence of this reality. The people who participate in it are just trying to have fun and to take part in a community celebration with what’s available to them.

I’m not saying that your opposition to this is wrong but it’s important that we don’t misplace our frustrations by blaming people for this. It’s people like you and I who know better and yet if we haven’t put in effort to make something outside of this late capitalist hellscape to prove to people that there are better options then, if anything, we are more to blame for the state of things than the person who lacks class consciousness and who just goes along with the Halloween trend because, essentially, they don’t know any better.