As a child, Molly Karleskint didn’t celebrate Halloween. Her parents wouldn’t allow it.

“They thought it was ungodly and thought it would taint us somehow,” said Karleskint, Fort Scott freshman. “I couldn’t stay for school when they were doing the Halloween festivities.”

To avoid the trick-or-treaters, the Karleskint family would always turn off their front porch light Halloween night.

Karleskint, whose parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses, didn’t partake in Halloween activities until she was a high school junior.

“Whenever I would leave the house, my parents would always give me a talking to,” she said. “They would say, ‘Do you know what you’re doing is a sin?’”

Karleskint is just one University student who wasn’t allowed to celebrate Halloween because of the stigmas associated with the holiday. Now, she said she still isn’t crazy about the “night people use as an excuse to chase ghosts out of town.”

“It evolves into something else as you grow up,” she said. “It starts out as a cute dress up holiday then you just get more annoying about it as you get older, and now it’s just a party thing.”

The Halloween we celebrate today originated from not only pagan traditions, but Christian beliefs, as well. Its history goes back further than many other holidays, even Christmas. Over 2,000 years ago, the Celts celebrated Halloween night as Samhain, the eve of their new year, which began on Nov. 1.

Christianity eventually collided with Celtic traditions, which then meshed into a Halloween practice acceptable to the Catholic church.

Halloween is now the second-largest consumer holiday for decoration spending, garnering nearly $5 billion in sales, according to the National Retail Federation. And, according to a news release from PR Newswire, nearly 94 percent of kids between the ages of four and 12 are expected to celebrate nationwide.

Tony Bedora, Interim Pastor at First Christian Church and Director of Campus Christians, said he thought a problem with Halloween was also the loss of innocence.

“It began as a holiday for young children,” Bedora said. “I’m always surprised to see some of the costumes; they have definitely changed.”

This year, Bedora said the First Christian Church is hosting an event they call Trunk of Treats. On Halloween night, members of the church decorate the trunks of their cars and hand out candy to the children who come to trick-or-treat at their trunks.

Julie Boyle, Communications Director of USD 497, said some of the 15 elementary schools in the district do have Halloween celebrations, but others choose to have more of an autumn harvest celebrations instead.

“There are no district rules on how to celebrate Halloween,” she said. “It’s very much a school by school decision.”

She said sometimes on Friday afternoon some of the schools allow students to wear costumes to class and the PTO might host an evening activity for students.

“Usually the parents will meet and decide what to do,” Boyle said. “When my son was in elementary school, I remember they made apple cider and did other autumn activities.”

Kelli Huslig, Administrator of Veritas Christian School, 256 N Michigan St., said they leave the celebration of Halloween to individual families.

“We have children here from various religious beliefs,” Huslig said. “The school doesn’t involve it in our curriculum and we have no opinion about it one way or the other.”

Ellen Feldman, novelist and social history writer, researched and wrote a history of the ghoulish holiday for American Heritage in 2001.

“The holiday has lost its innocence,” said Feldman, noting the transformation it has gone through even since the beginning of the new millennium. “Halloween has become a huge adult holiday with elaborate parties, expensive costumes, and formerly makeshift parades becoming highly organized civic events.”

She said she would describe this change as a “theft from children.”

According to the NRF, Halloween is also the sixth largest overall consumer holiday. People are expected to spend almost $4.75 billion on this single holiday this year.

The NRF’s 2009 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, expects 18-24 year-olds to spend an average of $68.56 for costumes and decorations.

“Halloween seems to me a reflection of our current culture,” Feldman said. “It is thoroughly consumerist, no longer fit for children, and infantilizing of adults.”

Margaret Walck, St. Louis junior, has celebrated Halloween with her family since she was a child. She said she and her mom used to decorate the outside of their house for Halloween every year, and views Halloween as a consumerist holiday as opposed to associating it with pagan practices.

Walck said her family has a favorite Halloween decoration, a “little ghost man” named Joey.

“He even talks,” she said.

She said her family has been celebrating Halloween for nearly her entire life, and she’d never thought about it any other way.

“Why let it ruin something fun?” she said of the stigmas generally associated with religious beliefs.

Karleskint, however, said the main reason she doesn’t like Halloween is its pagan background. She said the candy and costume aspects of Halloween were fine, but objected to other means of celebration.

“Halloween gives people the license to use ouija boards and tarot cards,” she said.

— Edited by Megan Morriss