Although it definitely seems like a trick, a very real petition looking to see the date of Halloween permanently changed is steadily gaining momentum as it nears 100,000 supporters, CNN reported.
Rather than have children run door-to-door on October 31 every year, this petition wants to see the night of candy and costumes move to the last Saturday of the month.
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From the outside, there doesn’t seem to be anything inherently wrong with Halloween.
After all, some of our happiest childhood memories took place on that spooky night, as we donned our overpriced costumes, readied our treat sacks to be filled with sweet candy, and took to the streets with all our friends.
However, from a parent’s perspective, there are definitely one or two problems that changing the date of Halloween could fix.
For one, there’s no consistency in what day of the week October 31 will fall on, and that can make for some rough mornings.
If children spend a Wednesday night parading around their neighborhood, devouring sugar-laden candy by the handful, they run the risk of becoming so uncontrollably hyper that it takes longer than usual to put them to bed.
Then, the next morning when it’s time to wake them up for school, it can turn into an absolute marathon of an effort for their poor parents.
Changing the date could also have the potential to make Halloween night safer for children and parents alike.
When it takes place on a weeknight, parents have to wait until after work and school hours to take their kids out trick-or-treating. Being so late in the fall season, this usually means it’s already past daylight hours and children are left walking across potentially busy roads in the dark.
If Halloween were on a Saturday, children could go door-to-door much earlier and catch the sun before it goes down.
The petition to change the date was launched by the nonprofit Halloween & Costume Association.
Posted on Change.org , the petition insists that in changing the date from the 31st to the last Saturday of the month, Halloween will effectively become a “safer, longer, stress-free celebration.”
Although it was posted a year ago, the effort has started to gain real momentum this month as Halloween nears.
It currently has just over 97,000 of its 150,000 target signatures, with many of the comments coming from parents who encourage the change and say it’s actually a really good idea.
“It makes more sense to have it always on a Saturday so that we don’t have to worry about getting the kids home and in bed early for school the next day,” one person wrote. “Also, for most people, they wouldn’t have to worry about working that day or the day following.”
After earning its projected signatures, the petition will be sent to President Trump for his consideration.
While it definitely has the supporters to back it up, one question remains: is this petition even realistic?
Well, not really. Though it definitely has good intentions, the president can’t actually do anything to change the night of Halloween, since it’s not an official national holiday .
However, there is the possibility of this petition becoming reality if Trump feels particularly moved by its message.
In that case, he could push the legislative branch of the government to pass a bill making Halloween a government regulated holiday, at which point he could then sign it into law. But that’s a lot of effort for a night of candy and costumes, and I don’t personally see it ever really happening.
For now, the best we can do as parents is keep our children as safe as possible on Halloween, and maybe drink a lot of coffee the next morning as we try to ready them for school because we’ll definitely need it.
h/t: CNN
