Halloween Candy

Diamond Member Joined: Sep 18 2004 Posts: 2600

Of course you dont go!

Diamond Member Joined: Sep 18 2004 Posts: 2600

And they respect you more for it, I assure you.

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 10:01 am Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

Going out of my way would be to dress up like a witch and turning my house into a haunted house so the kids can come in an play. Having a bowl of candy near the door if anyone should happen to ring my bell is common courtesy.
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Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 10:21 am Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

I live in the real world and have non-Jewish neighbors who I am friendly with. I still don't give out Halloween candy, and it has never been a problem. For one thing, even though we keep talking about it not being our holiday, it's also not really "theirs." It's pretty much silly nonsense to everyone (except the kids if they're at an age where they take it seriously). I doubt anyone is personally offended if you don't give out candy to their kids, especially if you are always polite and matter-of-fact about it. No need to close the door in anyone's face, for example.

Kids always figure out whose houses to go to, and whose not to go to, for whatever reasons. I trick-or-treated as a kid (even though my family was pretty traditional Conservative when I was growing up) and there were just some houses we skipped. (Generally the lights were off.) It was not a big deal.

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 10:37 am Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

Also, when I worked at a large publishing company for several years, I never went to the "holiday" parties - not only because of the particular holiday being celebrated, but also because they were totally not tznius.

It never mattered. I always had very congenial relationships with all of my co-workers, and it was totally reasonable to them that I didn't go to the parties. They knew I was frum and just took me at face value.

We don't have to do so much bending over backwards to make people like us, or to make people know that we like and respect them too.

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 11:08 am Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

So what is the big deal if I choose to have some just in case someone rings my bell. I will not go out of my way to pretend that I am not home. Why do some of you go out of your way to make it seem like I am on the path to conversion because I don't see a problem and don't find it a big deal and don't consider it bending over backwards to give out some candy.

Platinum Member Joined: Oct 27 2005 Posts: 6730

Kids do not go knocking on strangers doors anymore. If you are friendly enough with a non jewish neighbor, they know that you dont celebrate the same holidays. How does this even come up anymore these days? When I was small, if you didnt give candy and they had seen youre home they would egg your house or worse. But that is like history.

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 11:20 am Post subject: Re: re: Halloween Candy

Platinum Member Joined: Feb 07 2006 Posts: 5709

Rabbi Kaminetsy is a good friend of our family

he married us - and he comes to all our familys simchas

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 11:43 am Post subject: Re: re: Halloween Candy

Silver Member Joined: Jan 19 2006 Posts: 537

You can be congenial with your non-Jewish neighbors even if you do not participate in their holidays. I would imagine that the kids next door would be content, if, even though you did not buy Halloween candy, you gave some of your extra Purim stash to them. . .

Moderator Joined: Dec 26 2005 Age: 33 Posts: 11430

Do your neigbors give you mishloach manot on Purim? Most likely not. There's no reason to give them candy on Halloween.

Just turn your lights off and that's it.

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 12:46 pm Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

I can't imagine any halachic proibition about giving non-Jewish kids candy on Halloween... the kids, and most people, dont even know the pagan origins of this holiday. It's totally a secular holiday (and un-Jewish too, for sure.)

If it would increase the goodwill between neighbours, as Brooklyn said, why not?

Personally though, I am probably just going to explain to the kids that do come to my door that we dont celebrate Halloween.
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Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 12:55 pm Post subject: Re: re: Halloween Candy

[quote="mummyof6"]

Platinum Member Joined: Jan 01 2006 Posts: 48152

What kind of candy are you giving out? Kosher?

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 1:01 pm Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

Yes, stuff that my kids could have when left over.

Gold Member Joined: Apr 06 2006 Posts: 1492

Brooklyn: The basic custom here is that you don't ring the bell if the lights are off. That's why I keep the lights off. Otherwise, I know all the kids would ring the bell, and as I said, answering the door with a speech instead of candy would seem a bit obnoxious.

Your decision about candy is your business.

Personally, I grew up in a house that did give out candy, but dh and I made the decision not to. We live in a mixed neighbourhood. Most of our immediate neighbours know that we are observant Jews. Many of the kids are from not-so-observant families. We do invite the neighbours to our sukkah, give out mishloat manot, etc.

Dh and I made the decision to emphasize Jewish holidays only with the kids. They know that Halloween exists, but we just say that it's not "our" holiday. I don't think it would be possible for us, personally, to be answering the door and giving out candy all night without making it seem like "our" holiday, and it would be very hard to explain to the kids why the other kids in the neighbourhood were going out (including some of their friends) when they couldn't.

Re "holiday parties" from work: Again, we've been to these in the past. Most, of course, aren't on Dec. 25 and have very little connection with anything religious. My basic yearly dilemna is, "what do I get people and what is the bottom-line requirement for getting along with the office staff?" In Jewish settings, of course, it's a non-issue. One year, it was a Hindu co-worker who lead off the gift-giving, which I totally hadn't planned for. When I was working in a large office with non-Jewish office staff, I did get the legal assistants small "end-of-the-year" presents, because that's the cost of doing business. As for the other aspects of the parties - kashruth is often an issue unless you just drink a Coke, tsnius can be an issue (even for someone like me who is more flexible than most here) if the party goes on for a while and people are drinking, and of course Fri. night parties are out of the question. So, the most that we do is basically show up briefly to non-Fri. night parties, sip a Coke, and say we need to get back to the babysitter. [Fortunately, we've escaped the need to deal with a "Xmas bonus" for the nanny due to the fact that her birthday is Dec. 22 - we just give a generous birthday bonus]

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 1:23 pm Post subject: Re: Halloween Candy

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 1:56 pm Post subject: Re: re: Halloween Candy

Posted: Tue, Oct 03 2006, 2:48 pm Post subject: re: Halloween Candy

I haven't seen too many posts that are judgmental here. From what I've seen, people have just stated their opinions. No one has implied that people who disagree are going to you-know-where (is that a Jewish concept? off-topic I guess!). I know that I and several other people have clearly said that it's a personal decision, but what we do is turn off the lights, etc.

I also put a sign on my door (my kids decorate it and make it friendly and neighborly Very Happy

) so that when it's still light out, hopefully kids will see that we are not taking part. If they do knock, we might open the door and say sorry, we don't have candy to give out.

For me, not giving candy is mostly a chinuch issue. I don't want my kids to have Halloween be, for THEM, an annual thing that is marked with candy-buying. I'm not so sure that the message they would actually get from that is, "We buy Halloween candy to be nice to the neighbors." They could easily start to feel like they are part of it.

As far as Shalach Manos, we GIVE extras to our non-Jewish neighbors, etc. That's different, isn't it? If our non-Jewish neighbors wanted to give their (kosher) leftover Halloween candy to us as a gesture of kindness, there wouldn't be any issue. Right? But I would never expect a non-Jewish neighbor to give us Shalach Manos....