Halloween
Here are just a few things to take a look at, if you're interested. I'm NOT taking the position that a Christian cannot have innocent fun celebrating Halloween. I have many friends that simply enjoy taking their kids to family and friends houses for Trick or Treating while dressed up as bunnies or princesses or whatever.
However, I can attest to the fact that people can get caught up in it. As a kid, I liked it a little too much, and I was greatly drawn to the mystical aspects. My kids haven't always understood why we don't celebrate it, but I've tried to make what we do as an alternative extra fun.
History and Customs of Halloween (a secular site)
Halloween Specifics - This is written by Pastor David Brown, a Baptist pastor in Milwaukee. I have spoken with him numerous times and even was a guest with him years ago on CrossTalk, a radio program. After every Halloween, the Milwaukee police department calls him to identify whether particular crime scenes are actually Wiccan or Satanist "religious" sites. There are links to other articles, too.
Witchcraft and Wicca - An article by a former witch. This is not specifically about Halloween. However, again, I can attest to the fact that being drawn to Halloween can also draw you to being interested in witchcraft.
Halloween or Samhain as Witches call it
This is from a Wiccan site. I started to have the link to it, but thought better of it. This is one of the milder things that I've seen. There are sites that I've run across (like when researching for my Harry Potter article) that I couldn't back out of fast enough. They just exuded evil. I don't know how else to explain it. Here is a portion of this Wiccan site's explanation of Halloween:
Samhain
(pronounced Sow-in, Sah-vin, or Sahm-hayn), known most popularly as Halloween, marks the end of the third and final harvest, is a day to commune with and remember the dead, and is a celebration of the eternal cycle of reincarnation. Samhain (once again Halloween) is the most coveted sabbat by the Wiccan (and many Pagan) religions.Halloween, plain and simple is our favorite time of year. A true time for witches, Witchcraft itself, and Wiccans alike who feel that on this night the separation between the physical and spiritual realities is its least guarded and its veil the thinnest. It is a time for dimensional openings and workings. It is a somber holiday, one of dark clothes and thoughts for the dead. It is said to be the time when those of necromantic
(calling up the dead) talents can speak with the dead, and it is certainly a time to remember one's own dead. Witches believe it is a time of endings of relationships and bad situations, and it is the time when one can see the glimmer of hope in the future. There are as many concepts attached to this holiday as any other, truly a time of remembrance of our ancestors and all those who have gone before.
I have several books on Halloween and many on the occult in general. In addition, I have an audio tape and a (somewhat scratchy) VHS movie. If you're interested, just let me know.