“Why cram it into 2 rushed evening weekday hours when it deserves a full day!?!” says the Halloween & Costume Association
By Matt McNulty, People
Is Halloween’s penchant for taking place in the middle of the week cramping your style?
A petition launched last year but gaining viral momentum this month aims to change that by lobbying to move Halloween from Oct. 31 to the last Saturday of the month.
Launched last year by the nonprofit Halloween & Costume Association, the petition to move Halloween would make for a “safer, longer, stress-free celebration,” the association writes in the Change.org petition.
“51% Of Millennials say Halloween is their favorite holiday, why cram it into 2 rushed evening weekday hours when it deserves a full day!?!” the association adds.
The holiday started as a celebration of the end of summer, derived from the Gaelic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the “darker half” of the year, according to the Celtic calendar.
CNN notes that Halloween revelers would go door to door and would provide a dance, song, or prayer in exchange for food or drinks, which eventually became Halloween as we know it today.
The petition garnered more than 80,000 signatures by the time of this article’s publication, with more people adding their names to the list every minute.
The Halloween & Costume Association also emphasized safety when kids go trick-or-treating, writing “63% of children don’t carry a flashlight while they are trick-or-treating. Grab a clip-on light if they don’t want to carry one! Children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car and killed on Halloween.”
According to the association’s website, their mission is “to promote and build the celebration of Halloween in the United States.”
Fans of the holiday who support the idea of moving Halloween to the last Saturday of October can add their name to the petition here.
This article originally appeared in People.
