Halloween Should Be The Final Saturday Of October

Here's a fun game to try at home.  Tonight let's keep the kids out late.  Let's march them around town, giving them extra stimulation by dressing them (and everyone else) into storied characters old and new.  They'll walk and run miles over the course of several hours.  Then, when they're exhausted and overtired, let's let them eat a bunch of candy and send them to bed.  No sane parent would do this tonight, but almost all of us did it last night.  That's what happens when Halloween falls on a school night.

Think we've got it bad as parents?  Try being a teacher the day after Halloween.  Some school districts figured it out years ago.  They keep the kids home and schedule a professional development day for the teachers.  Catholic schools get off easy thanks to All Saints Day.  For many public schools, however, the day after Halloween is packed with overtired, sugared up kids.

Look, I'm a traditional kind of guy.  Most of the time I like things they way they've always been because, um, well, that's they way they've always been.  But tor the love of Pete, it's time to shake up the way we do Halloween.  Halloween is just a better time when it falls on a weekend.  Friday night Halloween are pretty good...but Saturday night Halloweens are perfection.  Go ahead, kids...spend all day Saturday perfecting those costumes.  Why not?  There's no school, anyway.  Trick or treating going a little later than planned?  No sweat...there's no school to wake up for on Sunday. The Halloween parties can go later, the scary stories can be scarier, the candy can be eaten longer.

We've come off a couple of great Halloween nights.  Halloween 2014 was a Friday night.  Halloween 2015 was a Saturday night.  Epic!  Compare those to last night.  Did you not feel the dreaded, "Ugh, it's Monday night...a school night," ALL NIGHT LONG?

Thanksgiving Day is the final Thursday of November.  Everyone seems OK with that.  We observe federal holidays on Mondays all the time.  We move them to Mondays out of convenience.  Moving Halloween would make it so much more convenient for so many reasons.

I know, I know....the last time I brought this up...I was excoriated by people who thought I was nuts.  Now that we've all experienced a Monday night Halloween...I'll ask it again.  Isn't it time to move Halloween to the last Saturday of October?