Halloween community pushes to change date to last Saturday of the month

By Jessenia Franco, CONTRIBUTOR

Are signatures enough to change a holiday?
A Change.org petition created by the Halloween & Costume Association back in 2018 has been gaining popularity again in hopes to change Halloween’s celebration date across the United States from it’s usual date,Oct. 31, to the last Saturday of the month. This is all in an effort to make Halloween easier and safer on children to celebrate the candy-collecting festivity.
In their Change.org petition, the Halloween & Costume Association is a little under 1,000 signatures away from reaching their 150,000 signature goal. The petition goes into detail about why the date change is needed, with some of the reasons being that having it always land on a Saturday will make celebrating Halloween last longer. It will also be safer for children since they can celebrate during the day-time hours.
The current Halloween date has common dangers associated with it, and the petition provides statistics of those dangers. Most of the support comes from parents who feel that if Halloween lands on a weekday, it’s unfair for their children who only get to spend a few hours trick-or-treating.
The petition itself is directed towards President Donald Trump in hopes that he could provide the necessary authority in making this request into a reality. However, having this petition specifically aimed towards President Trump is essentially pointless considering Halloween isn’t a federally recognized holiday.
“Congress has statutorily established 11 permanent federal holidays, which are legally applicable only to federal employees and the District of Columbia.”, states a senate.gov report on federal holidays.
Additionally, each state in the U.S. has its own independent power of deciding what is considered a legal holiday. Unless there’s enough support from a particular state, or even all 50 states, to make Halloween into a legal holiday, only then could it be considered to have the date changed.
“If I didn’t have kids I would say yes, but since I have kids it doesn’t matter what day it falls in as long as I get to eat their candy,” said Oakland mother of two, Vanessa Ray.
This year, Halloween lands on a Thursday, so trick-or-treating or not, everyone will have to look forward to school or workday.