I suppose I'll get the answer I normally do when I ask something in here ("It depends on people's personal beliefs.") but I'll give it a go anyway!! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I have always been a big fan of Halloween. I think I like feeling and acting like a little kid again... Dressing up, being silly and something I'm not normally for a night.

Well, this year will be the first year I will truly be a Witch (or Wiccan, or whatever). Since you have begun practising the Craft, do you stick to a more traditional Samhain or do you relive your childhood a bit with dressing up, bats, pumpkins, and such for Halloween?

Thanks!

We hand out candy but that is left to my husband since I am at ritual Samhain night (we do ritual ON Samhain no matter what day it falls on)

we usually have carved pumpkins at Samhain ritual. They are a Samhain tradition. Locally, the weekend before Samhain is the Witches' Ball and many people dress in costume to attend that.

As I've gotten more into my spiritual practice, I've really given up the secular Halloween.

I spend Samhain in ritual too and whereas it can be fun, that night to me is about honoring the ancestors, saying farewell to the old year and setting my intentions for the new one.

I can play dress-up and act silly whenever I want, and frequently do!

I have done a bit of both, I am known for bartering with the kids for candy. You would be surprised to see what I will trade for one snickers bar!

You can do a ritual if you like and have fun with the door knockers.

Rae, awesome tat! Is that new?

We used to go all out on Halloween, decorating the house, spooky music, smoke machine, etc.

I've gotten away from it almost totally since I've I become Wiccan, not only because I'm not home now (I'm at ritual as well), but the kids in the neighborhood have started to vadalize things, so I figure why bother. It makes it not so fun for the kiddies that appreciate it, but since I'm not there to monitor what's happening it makes it much harder to deal with.

I've gone from celebrating Halloween, to celebrating Samhain totally. I may still put a pumpkin on the porch and a bowl with candy in it, but that's about as far as I take it now.

Since my son is only 10, I try and do a mixture of both. We now live in a rural are and have to go to town for "Halloween street" and honestly as a family we all enjoy that. We do set the table with 1 extra setting to honor my father (we do honor other ancestors as well), carve pumpkins, and of course Samhain rituals. As my son gets older I incorporate more and more rituals for him to easily understand.

Some people have already answered this question a bit, but if you do integrate the more commericial Halloween into their Pagan/Wiccan lives, how do you do so??

I guess as I grow in my practice, and grow in general, I will get out of the habit of Halloween. But it's always been my favorite holiday. I guess it can still be my favorite, but in a different way.

I guess it will be awhile before I completely give up the more commercial idea of Halloween...

It's been really easy for me to give up the secular Halloween. In the end, it had no personal meaning for me. I know a lot of people who seem to use it as some sort of occasion to dress-up, but as someone who majored in costume in college, I sure don't need that. And really, it's now become so commercial, it's bordering on disgusting.

Also, it's let me find a lot more meaning in the turning of the year than the calendar-oriented New Year's Eve too.

I have pagan friends who host a huge costume party on the weekend before Samhain. But on Samhain itself they are at ritual.

I'm old enough at this point that I dont really get into dressing up and going out to clubs and such in costume. Now ... to be fair, I did go to the Witches' Ball about three years ago in costume ... it was fun!
But - on Samhain night, the most I do for traditional Halloween is to hand out candy and admire the kids in their outfits. They're usually done coming to the door about the same time that I need to leave for ritual (which goes way into the night and starts rather late).