A West Highland Terrier dressed as a "Queen Bee" is held by her owner during the Fifth Annual Times Square Dog Day Masquerade October 18, 2009. Halloween may be a celebration of all things creepy and macabre, but a growing number of US communities are shunning traditional ghoulish festivities, seen by some as tainted by association with paganism and the occult.
(AFP/File/Timothy A. Clary)