Response to Collins’ fall festival letter

In response to the letter to the editor by Danny Collins about the Halloween carnivals and fall festivals, I would like to attempt to present another way of looking at your view about the two. First, I do remember going to Halloween carnivals, and I have screamed my way through my share of “haunted houses.” The carnivals that I remember and festivals that we have today are not much different from the ones that I remember. We played games, passed out candy, etc. Haunted houses do not appeal to me anymore, but if I wanted to go to one; I could find one close by. I would only have to ask to find one.
Days of letting our kids loose to go to strangers houses for candy are gone. There are too many risks; and as far as haunted houses go, having a good, clean fun haunted house is  unfortunately gone also. We would be hard pressed to find one that did not use some kind of satanic sayings or have suggestive sayings of Satanism written everywhere. Now I am all about good clean fun, believe me, but tell me where do you draw the line?
You say we have diluted the true meaning of Halloween, but you never gave us the meaning, so I did some research and learned this: the holiday was born many, many years ago, and the witches and wizards that are a part of celebrations today are a part of the story, too. The origins of Halloween came from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. There is so much more to this holiday than “bobbing for apples,” and if it were kept that innocent, then I am sure no one would have a problem celebrating just that and having a Halloween carnival. But it goes so far beyond that innocence. This world is different to what we were raised in, and whether you are a Christ believer or not, you have to agree that evil plays a big part in Halloween, and I for one don’t care to be involved with that at all.  Fall festivals have the same fun that a carnival had in years past. Don’t put the blame on Christians for the “sorry state“ you think we are in. We just don’t want to identify ourselves with anything that celebrates satan. We choose to celebrate the Creator, God, who made the beautiful fall colors and the harvest that He has graciously given us. If you don’t want to participate, then stay at home and have your fest; celebrate the way you think is best for you. Fall festivals will continue and so will the Halloween traditions I have spoken of. You have a choice of which one you want to go too and what you want to call it.  By the way, no one is twisting your arm to go to a fall festival, but if your kids or grandkids were bawling to go, would you take them?