Tens Of Thousands Petition To Change Halloween To A Saturday

Tens of thousands of people are asking the White House to change the date of Halloween. That change.org petition has more than 31,000 signatures.

Advocates want to move the October 31st celebration to the last Saturday of the month. The supporters believe it would make Halloween safer, longer, and stress-free. 

All Hallows Eve has become a night of frock where children wear costumes and run amok. And running amok on Halloween would be so much sweeter on a Saturday. That's what tens of thousands of people believe who signed an online petition. 

According to the Halloween and Costume Association, the organization that started the petition, 70 percent of parents do not accompany their children trick-or-treating and 3,800 people are injured every year in Halloween-related incidents. They say changing the holiday to a Saturday would make it safer.  

“You could start things earlier, or they could go longer and maybe it wouldn't all be at nighttime when it's completely dark,” said writer and editor of “Scary Mommy” Cassandra Stone.  

Stone wrote about the "Saturday Halloween movement" on the website "Scary Mommy." For her, it's also personal. Her husband Justin almost missed trick-or-treating last year with their now three-year-old daughter Vivienne when he got stuck in traffic coming home from work. 

“Often times parents are rushing home they're trying to get the kids fed and in their costumes and out the door. If it was on a Saturday that would kind of eliminate all of that,” said Stone.

Federal holidays have been moved before. In the 1960s, Congress moved George Washington's birthday and Labor Day to Monday so people could conveniently observe with a three-day weekend. But Halloween is not a federal holiday and likely won't become one said author and historian Kenneth C. Davis.

“It would be very unlikely and certainly difficult to create a new holiday for Halloween. It's very expensive for the federal government to declare a federal holiday. So, I don't see any time soon a new holiday for Halloween,” said Davis. 

For Cassandra Stone, moving Halloween to a Saturday would be a treat for all. 

“It would be nice if we could all be together like we are with other holidays,” said Stone.

Davis said Halloween began as a pagan tradition more than a thousand years ago and gained popularity in the U.S. in the 1930s.

Many of those opposed to the change argue Halloween's date is rooted in long and historical tradition and because of that, the date should not change.