As Halloween approaches, many students are excited for the holiday and are making plans to celebrate. However, some students either choose not to celebrate or grew up not celebrating, and view Halloween differently than most Trinity students.
Morgan Jones, junior engineering science major, grew up celebrating Halloween, but hasn’t celebrated since his sophomore year of high school.
“The biggest reason of all is that I’m just too busy,” Jones said. “Engineering is hard, and a lot of obnoxious work. I probably won’t even realize when Halloween day will be until I see people in costumes. From my understanding, the bulk of most Halloween celebrations at college just involves partying with unusual outfits. I’m not a party person at all, so it doesn’t seem to be anything special in my opinion.”
Jones explained that not celebrating Halloween doesn’t seem to be a big deal at Trinity.
“It didn’t really matter to me whether I was one of the few or not,” Jones said. “You either went out to socialize or you were doing something else. Last year, my roommate wasn’t celebrating Halloween either, and it didn’t bother either of us.”
Danielle Couch, a junior business administration and technology major, didn’t really celebrate Halloween when she was growing up.
“My family considers it the “˜devil’s holiday,'” Couch said. “For this reason, we didn’t go trick-or-treating, decorate the house or watch Halloween movies. We did have a “˜fall festival’ at church where we were allowed to dress up in costumes and play games to win candy. I always joke that this was our Jewish Christmas since we partake in some traditions, but just so that we aren’t left out. Coming to Trinity was like a culture shock to see how much everyone celebrates and gets prepared for the holiday. I even know people that get gifts for Halloween and go all out. It’s really fun to dress up now and watch Halloween movies and go out to different events.”
Because of the way she was raised, Couch did not realize how uncommon it was to not celebrate Halloween until she started attending Trinity.
“I went to public school but I guess the topic never came up and I was always allowed to participate in wearing a costume to school,” Couch said. “Now I realize that there were some traditions that I missed out on but I don’t think that it ruined my childhood since my parents substituted Halloween activities with fall ones. For example, we decorated our house with a scarecrow family instead of any scary spiders or ghosts. I haven’t adopted the same negative feelings that my family has towards Halloween and I’m having fun catching up on all the movies I missed.”
Couch has found it easy to adapt to celebrating Halloween at Trinity, even though some people may be surprised that she didn’t celebrate before college.
“It is really funny to see people’s reactions when I tell them I never celebrated Halloween but I know that I come from a much more conservative background than most of the other students at Trinity,” Couch said. “I think Trinity is a perfect place for people of all backgrounds to come together and learn about why we do what we do and what makes us who we are and so I love learning all about how others grew up and Halloween is just something new to learn about and experience. I especially love the costume part of it. Also, the church that I go to, The Park, does trick or treat at Mark Twain Middle School and I love to help out and dress up and hand out candy to the kids.”
