Respondents cite the holiday’s occult roots, and those who do celebrate set firm limits, echoing a growing share of Black pastors who urge congregations to stay away.
By EEW Magazine Online
Decorative jack-o’-lanterns line the porch steps of a home in Saratoga Springs, Utah, on Oct. 26. Most EEW readers surveyed said they do not celebrate Halloween, citing its occult origins. (Photo by Charles-McClintock Wilson/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Americans are expected to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, and nearly three in four plan to celebrate. Most EEW Magazine Online readers will not be among them. In an email survey of 415 Black women ages 35 to 55 across 30 states, 57 percent said they do not celebrate Halloween. They cited the holiday’s occult origins and its open celebration of death and evil.
That puts them well outside the national mood and close to a position gaining ground in Black church pulpits.
“I’m not celebrating anything the Bible does not support,” said Rosie, 48, of California. “Saints should not be trick-or-treating or anything else.”
A quarter of those readers still mark the season, saying they prefer church or community center events exclusively. Those include fall festivals, harvest celebrations and family fun nights.
“I think it’s important for our kids to have somewhere wholesome to go, an environment where they can be safe and sheltered from unhealthy influences,” said Tamar, 35, a youth department leader in Chicago.
Readers who do celebrate set limits of their own. Thirty-three percent described Halloween as harmless fun, centered on dressing up and enjoying time with family and friends, with no religious significance attached. They said they draw the line at parties involving heavy drinking, drugs or club environments.
A woman dances with a child in a mermaid costume at a trunk-or-treat event in Bloomington, Indiana, on Oct. 30, 2025. A third of EEW readers surveyed described Halloween as harmless fun centered on dressing up and time with family and friends. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/Getty Images)
The remaining 10 percent expressed no particular feelings about the holiday either way and said they had no issues with the way Christians choose to celebrate.
That leaves nine in 10 respondents describing a boundary of some kind, according to the EEW Magazine research team, which conducted the survey. For some, the boundary is the holiday itself. For others, it is the kind of party they will attend.
The gap between EEW readers and the rest of the country is wide. The National Retail Federation’s annual survey, conducted Sept. 1-9 among 7,889 consumers, found 74 percent of Americans plan to celebrate this year, up from 73 percent in 2025 and 68 percent in 2019. The two surveys draw from different populations and use different methods, so their figures cannot be directly compared. The distance between them is still hard to miss.
Halloween candy is displayed at a CVS store in Los Angeles on Oct. 27. Americans are expected to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, while most EEW readers surveyed said they will not celebrate. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The pattern EEW readers describe has a parallel in the pulpit. A 2022 Lifeway Research study of 1,000 Protestant pastors found 13 percent encourage their congregations to avoid Halloween completely. Among African American pastors, the figure was 32 percent, placing them among the most likely to urge members to stay away. When Lifeway asked the same question in 2016, 23 percent of African American pastors gave that answer.
Pastors overall lean toward engagement. Seventy-one percent said they encourage members to invite friends and neighbors to church events on or near Halloween, such as fall festivals and trunk-or-treats, up from 67 percent in 2016.
The two studies measure different groups, pastors in one and readers in the other, and cannot be read as a single trend. Both capture the same two responses to Oct. 31: avoiding the holiday altogether and bringing the celebration inside the church.
At the root of the disagreement is the holiday’s history. According to the Library of Congress, Halloween traces to Samhain, a Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest, when people lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated Nov. 1 as a day to honor saints, and the evening before became known as All Hallows’ Eve, later Halloween. Over the centuries, its customs grew into the largely secular celebration common in American neighborhoods today.
Faceless hooded figures wearing crosses stand beside a web-draped skull outside a San Francisco home on Oct. 22. EEW readers who skip Halloween cited its occult origins and open celebration of death and evil. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
For Christians who object to the holiday, those roots, along with its imagery of witchcraft, spirits and death, remain decisive. Others see costumes, candy and neighborhood gatherings as cultural customs with no religious weight. What divides them is whether taking part in the modern holiday means endorsing what it grew out of.
The survey was conducted by email Oct. 17-30 and reflects the views of the 415 readers who responded. It is not a scientific sample and should not be read as a national measure of the attitudes of Black women or of Christians. Respondents quoted in this story are identified by first name.
Most of the women surveyed will let Oct. 31 pass without costumes or candy bowls, holding to a conviction a growing share of Black pastors now preach from the pulpit. A quarter of them will spend the evening at a church fall festival or a family night at the community center, with games for the children and neighbors welcome.