God, Football, and Halloween in Delmar
Delmar made it illegal to celebrate Halloween on Oct. 31 and no one cares
My wife grew up outside of Cincinnati in a small town that celebrated Halloween on the closest Saturday afternoon to October 31. That is the second most awful way to celebrate Halloween. I pitied her growing up without walking home in the spooky dark with a massive bag of candy each year. The most awful way to celebrate Halloween, though, is the way we do it where I live.
Delmar is a border town, so named for the two states it occupies (Delaware and Maryland). It’s one of the many towns on the Delmarva (Del. Mar. Va.) Peninsula named for its relative map position. There are other names like Marydel and Mardela. You get the picture.
In Delmar, we have a roving Halloween celebration. We celebrate it on Oct. 31 except under two equally horrifying conditions.
Condition number 1: Halloween falls on a Friday
As you may or may not know, Friday is when high school football games are scheduled. What you probably don’t know is that there is literally nothing more important to Delmar civic life than high school football. Like, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that most of the town goes to the home games.
It’s like having a class reunion every other Friday night! Why jeopardize that once every seven or so years by letting the rest of the town just have Halloween on a Friday (arguably the best day for Halloween to fall).
Here’s the part where I sound a little like a jerk because the official reason for moving Halloween barely (BARELY) makes sense, but it’s also conceivably legitimate. Even though it is illegal (illegal!) for children over 12 years old to Trick-or-Treat, the high school is open for trick-or-treating and (the claim is) the traffic would be a nightmare.
Not having grown up in the country, it didn’t occur to me that more than a few kids live out in the middle of nowhere. We don’t have a ton of neighborhoods. I will always believe moving Halloween in favor of football is a not-so-subtle reminder that if you’re not involved in the sport, you don’t matter.
Condition number 2: Halloween falls on a Sunday
Disclaimer: Anything that is patently anti-Catholic is going to get a little support from me. That said, this one is even less subtle than the football thing. It isn’t just that the town “celebrates” Halloween on the Saturday before, but it is illegal to celebrate Halloween on Sunday.
We’re all on the internet so we all have access to the nebulous history of the holiday, but it is really safe to say that it is at least in part a traditional Catholic celebration, the day before All Saints Day.
My mostly-non-Catholic neighbors still on balance think it somehow anathema to the Creator to celebrate a Catholic holiday on Sunday. I’ve mentioned before that a shocking number of people believe Catholics are Satan worshipers.
It’s kind of like moving Christmas Eve because Santa is an anagram of Satan.
The mayor(s) claim that is has to do with it being a school night. I wonder if they know that all the other days are school nights as well. No Halloween on a school night is (as I mentioned) the second worst way to celebrate the holiday. Abject fear of religious extremists is the first.
The town passed a resolution not only moving Halloween celebrations to Saturday but also making it “Illegal” to celebrate the holiday on Sunday. I guess they mean no trick-or-treating on Sunday, but the temptation to call the police on anyone whose house is still decorated in the sight of God on Sunday is creeping up on me.
Alternatively, maybe I’ll just start celebrating the Day of the Dead and see how that goes over on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026.
Keep the Faith,
Tony
Next time you get this email, it will include a link to my new podcast, A Bagel Manifesto. It’s a lot like this, but you won’t have to read it. I’ll keep it to 15 minutes long most weeks, but it is going to have a dialectic component. If you hear something you want to comment on, we’ll have a conversation about it. Again, more details next week.
From the Unhinged
This week’s essay is based on a Facebook post I saw from one of the people in the Sherry Shriner orbit, if not a former follower. This person went to a “natural doctor” to get treatments that undid the ill effects of the vaccine. I know the idea of telling people they can get their vaccine undone by light rays is tempting, but I don’t know whether it’s right.
I spoke about the Facebook post on this week’s episode of Day Drinking on Delmarva, along with a bunch of other more local stuff.