Every year in late October, kids dress up as princesses, cowboys, ghosts, and more. Most childrens’ costumes partake in the traditional trick-or-treating, but those in the St. Robert community have an additional annual tradition. These kids win cakes, candy in a contest, and play fun games. This event is hosted at St. Robert, and it is called the Fall Festival. During the Fall Festival, everybody has a great time eating candy and seeing other kids’ costumes. This year, the Fall Festival made some changes by cutting stations they had in previous years and adding new stations for the first time while still continuing the annual costume contest.

The Fall Festival has not always been “The Fall Festival.” Four or five years ago, the event was called the Boo Bash. At the Boo Bash, one of the most popular stations was a haunted house. This took place behind the stage in the gymnasium. Mrs. Beckmann explains why the haunted house was taken out of this annual event: “The spooky, scary elements did not line up with what Catholics believe. It also was becoming over the top, resulting in kids becoming scared.” Although this insight is true, Ava, a seventh grade student, stated that she thought that the “Boo Bash was more fun [than the Fall Festival] because there was a haunted house. The haunted house made it fun for me and my friends. I really liked how people would scare people out of nowhere.” Many other middle school students agree with her.

The eighth grade class, who hosts the Fall Festival every year, tried hard this year to bring back the excitement surrounding the Fall Festival. According to Naod, a new attraction “…was called the ‘Trick or Treat Adventure Trail.’ There was multiple parts of it: Agrim took people into a place to collect as much candy as they could, and the next station they… put their hands in ‘eyeballs’ and ‘brains.’” Even though the original haunted house may not be able to fully come back, there always will be a small part of the haunted house in the Fall Festival through creative ideas like this one. Spooky elements that don’t contradict Catholic teachings or scare away the little ones can be incorporated.

Additionally, there were other fun stations that many kids enjoyed at the festival. Some of these stations have been around for a long time in the St. Robert Fall Festival history. For example, there is the “‘boo’sketaball, cornhole, the fortune teller, and the ring toss,” Naod explains. Although these are very fun and exciting activities, there is one activity that seems to be a huge attraction to kids: the cake walk. The cake walk has been a station for a very long time. Kids walk in a circle on numbers until the people that are in charge of the stations tell them to stop walking and stand on a number that they have been walking on. The people in charge spin a spinner, lands on a number. The kid that is standing on the winning number gets a full cake as a prize. After kids win a cake, they can keep on playing to win more, which makes the cake walk a very ticket-grabbing activity. Because only one kid can win each round, this station becomes very addicting, with kids replaying the game over and over until they too win. Although many kids might get frustrated with this station due to numerous losses, it is a great way to get involved with the Fall Festival.

Even though the cake walk is very addicting, there is one, last station that encourages kids to be creative with their costume: the costume contest. The costume contest is a competition that is split up into groups of children by grade levels. Each group goes up onto the stage and are judged by a few eighth graders about who has the best costume. The winner, or sometimes winners, are awarded with candy or gift cards, but the prizes can change every year.

In conclusion, the Fall Festival has changed overtime by taking out the haunted house, but it also has many fun stations like the cake walk and the costume contest. Even though many people think that the original Boo Bash was more fun than it is now, the Fall Festival is a Halloween treat that many kids get to enjoy every year!