The emphasis is now on costumes and trick or treat, with the treat always given and the trick seldom played. Halloween now is a secular holiday that descended from both heathen and medieval observances. It has often had unsavory elements such as occult symbols and vandalism associated with it. The question then is whether these elements have been sufficiently detached from Halloween, and it has become a secular holiday that can be observed without offensive features. There certainly has been a concerted effort to make it so.
Many public schools ban certain types of costumes that are considered too gross or offensive.
The fact that some people celebrate Halloween in offensive ways does not in itself rule out the holiday. If this were so, we could not celebrate New Year s or even Christmas. The fact that Halloween occupies the day of a heathen holiday is not unique. Many Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter in a sense compete with heathen holidays, since both were associated with key points of the astronomical calendar. This is also true of the Old Testament holidays prescribed by God.