We pulled into the driveway last night, returning home glowing with triumph. We have a new microwave! Hey, folks, I’m Mennonite–not Amish. I need me some speedy cooking. At last Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwiches can return to my life. (Yes, you CAN bake them, but a breakfast sandwich splorched out of a plastic pouch just screams “Nuke Me” and shouldn’t require 350º for 25-30 minutes. In that time I could drive to McDonalds and back. )
As we pulled our glowing selves in our glowing car with our glowing new microwave into the garage, I spied a bag on the front porch. I was so excited about the idea of a package on our stoop that I… forgot about it until this morning. Hey. New appliance trumps Mystery Bag On Porch in my book.
Anyway, I suddenly remembered the bag on the porch–right around the time I started craving a Fun-Size Snickers. My church used to leave us bags at “harvest” time–how convenient it is for us that Harvest falls right around Halloween*–and I was hoping maybe this was what the bag was and I would have a much needed hit of nougat. Alas, there was no candy in the bag. (We’ll come back to that in a minute.)
What there was was Controversy.
I’ll be honest. I’m a Gemini. And while I don’t really believe in Astrology, I do like to blame it for my worst traits. In this case my twin nature cannot make up her mind about how to feel about the arrival of this particular Boo Bag on my doorstep.
I’m a, er, um, mixed bag of emotions you might say.
Castor–The HardNosed Twin
Who leaves a Halloween bag with absolutely no frakkin’ candy in it?!? What is the everlovin’ point? Oh, and excuse me, but this is a chain letter. Anything that gives me “24 hours to act upon this note” before a “big ZAP comes!” is a chain letter. I don’t care if it rhymes.
And I’m sorry, but if you want me to make two copies of this chain letter to stick in my Boo Bags that I hand out to neighbours, make sure it’s grammatically correct. There is no way on God’s earth I’m photocopying and distributing something that says “The Boo’s are coming” and keeps operating under the assumption that [‘s] is the proper way to pluralise the words “boo” and “bag”. Also, if you are promising your neighbours a bag of Boos, I think they might be not out of line to expect some Ketel One or Tanqueray instead of a chain letter and a note pad.
And again I say “would some candy have killed ya?” Because as cute as my Scary Goblet is, I rarely crave Scary Goblets at 11:30 am.
Pollux–the HappyGoLucky Twin
Isn’t that sweet? It’s a really cute idea, and I love the fact that it’s an inexpensive way to get your neighbourhood into the Halloween spirit. It was unexpected and cute and I love that. And I collect ghost things, so the little picture is perfect. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go to the dollar store and get some stuff to make my own Boo Bag.
I’m torn. I’d really love to perpetuate the tradition, etc., but the whole chain letter thing has turned me off big-time. I thought when I quit working with J——- S——– I had finally cut those “Pass two Luuuuvie Hugs and Smiles and rainbows to someone” chain emails out of my life forever. And here they are haunting me on my porch.
Also, in talking to my sister the Kindergarten teacher she tells me these Boo Bags are a pretty growing tradition back home but they pose a problem because religious non-Halloween celebrators get up in arms about being “forced” to observe the holiday.
Man. All this thinkin’. And for no candy.
*Am I the only one amused at all of the various religious places that have Harvest Festivals in lieu of celebrating Halloween? I mean, from the perspective of a person who has spent the majority of her life in comparative religious study I think I can safely say that Harvest Celebrations have just as much of a pagan root as Halloween–perhaps more so. It’s sort of like saying “I won’t celebrate Blessed Virgin Day, but I’ll celebrate Beltaine.”
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Am I the only one amused
No, I think it’s hysterical. I mean to each his own, but Halloween at least was the Christianized version of Sanhaim. The “fall festivals” on the other hand seem to me almost as if they’re just doing away with the Christianization in the first place and just outright celebrating the pagan holiday.
[…] then check out Coble: Am I the only one amused at all of the various religious places that have Harvest Festivals in […]
What dolphin said.
I like Halloween, because it leads perfectly into All Saints Day the way New Years Eve leads loudly to New Years Day, and Fat Tuesday leads to Lent.
Something about the transition from darkness to light, from revelry to reverence, fromGood Friday to Easter.
It’s not very Baptist, but it is Christian, at least as I celebrate it.
Surely the comparative religious approach says, “ooh, Halloween and Samhain and Shavuot all celebrate the harvest. Not?
Dolphin, the historical shorthand formulation for what you’re talking about is that after the Reformation and Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation (depending on who’s doing the describing), St. George and the dragon got separated. Catholics lost the dragon but kept St. George, and Protestants kept the dragon but dropped St. George.
I would get into Halloween more, but I have Purim.
Surely the comparative religious approach says, “ooh, Halloween and Samhain and Shavuot all celebrate the harvest. Not?
That’s what I was saying. I’m not meaning at all to pick on Christian churches, seeing as I am part of it all. But it does mightily crack me up every year to see these people REFUSE to say “Halloween” but then talk about their “Harvest Festivals” or “Fall Carnivals”, and then act as though they’re being both inoffensive and ingenius.
People have an inborn need (in my opinion) to celebrate. They look for causes to celebrate if there aren’t any readily available.
Harvest is one of the natural things our bodies crave celebrating and nearly every religion (I would say every but I’m too lazy to check all my books right now) observes it in some form or fashion.
Ironically, as Dolphin mentioned, Halloween is actually the most Christianised form of Fall Celebration we’ve got. To see so many Christians jettison the last vestige of Christian tradition from the holiday and stubbornly cling to “Fall Festival” or “Harvest Hoedown” or whatever is funny to me on a basic level.
Paganism and Christianity aside, I am with you on where are the friggin’ treats? My neighborhood does the same thing. Must be a trend in our zip code.
yeah, I think it’s how we do in the ‘tage.
But, dudes, if you are gonna play, you best BRING THE GAME.
Halloween=Candy. Learn it. Know it.
Halloween≠notepaper
Halloween≠plasticwear
Looks like I’m headed to the store to buy my own freakin’ Snickers bar.
That’s why I’ll stick with Purim. Purim = booze.
We used to leave bags on people’s porches when we were kids, but they sure didn’t have candy in them. And we lit them on fire before ringing the bell.
But, but there’s witches and Satanic worship and evil spirits and and and….!!!!! /fakefreakout
Word, I despise anything that even remotely resembles a chain letter. And if that happened to me I’d be majorly p.o’d. I don’t even do the e-mail “recipe exchange” things. Ugh.
That’s why I’ll stick with Purim. Purim = booze.
Nothing says “party” like liquor and hamentaschen.
Word, I despise anything that even remotely resembles a chain letter. And if that happened to me I’d be majorly p.o’d.
I’m leaning toward p.o.’d myself.
Nothing says Neighbourly Holiday Fun like an unexpected obligation to go to the Dollar Store.
Besides which, now after talking to B—, I’m petrified that I’d give this thing to the wrong neighbour and incite some sort of showdown.
I do not share the JOY of being Booed. I think its quite inconsiderate actually, especially of folks in the neighborhood who are elderly or who don’t have children. If you get a Boo bag you are expected to go out and buy 2 or in some cases 3 sacks of gifts for neighbors, run around at night leaving them on doorsteps and then stick paper ghosts to your front door. Lets face it, its a chain letter, only much more expensive. And this is the time of year in my neighborhood that the copperheads are active because they are going back into hibernation for winter, so folks booing people aren’t the only ones running around at night.
TEU,
Remind me not to trick or treat in your neighborhood.
Just stumbled across your blog through a series of unfortunate and unconnected events. I won’t bore you with the details. I only wanted to say that I enjoyed my visit here immensely, and will endeavour to return.
This is all the proof I need that I will not be participating in yet another retailer-enforced holiday “tradition.”
Who in blazes leaves Halloween bags for somebody WITHOUT SOMETHING TO EAT IN THEM? Were they RAISED BY WOLVES? At least drop in a freaking popcorn ball or candy apple and sign a note “with Halloween love from the Cobles, your neighbors across the way who would never poison you or your family and indeed have a state-inspected kitchen.” Geez.
And they’re mandating that you do it like a chain letter or face veiled threats of yard-rolling or something?
I’m not even turning on our porch lights this year. We’ll just take pretzel packs (Yay Sam’s) to the neighbors with Baby Fishmouth. We do reverse trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, see; most of the folks are older and have kind of adopted her, so we ring their doorbells so they can admire her costume and give THEM a treat to eat. They think it’s hilarious.
hey!
I made on photoshop animated myspace pics.
take a look at them:
http://tinyurl.com/65lf75
Thanks a lot 4 your website 🙂 xoxo