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I am curious...do you allow your children to celebrate Halloween? Do you decorate your house? Do you pass out candy? I am just wondering what my CD family thinks about Halloween?
Personally we do celebrate. It feels like a right-of-passage to me for kids.....
We have 3 (now melted and shrunken from the heat) jack o lanterns now on our front porch..and a few haybales..I agree with you..its kinda like a "rite of passage"..when i was growing up the local church would have halloween costume contest..which I proudly won one year when I was 7..lol...for us..its about having fun..getting candy..letting the kids dress up...its not about evil, or anything else like that..our area churches usually have a trunk or treat in town, where kids can go, and get candy. or coupons for a milkshake or fries..
I went trick or treating, took my kids trick or treating and took some of the grandkids trick or treating..It is exciting for the children to plan for their costume and to help decorate and hope to attend some of the parties...So far none of our family have ever turned into satanists or witches because of Halloween.
Our family did not celebrate Halloween the years my son grew up. (I know some may think that's practically child abuse, but he survived!) We have just felt that Halloween glorifies evil, fear, the occult and the macaabre and as Christians, we don't want to do that.
Our church always had some kind of "halloween alternative" on the night of halloween ... so I don't think our son suffered too badly!
Kay Kay with the alternative, did they still do costumes and get candy and stuff? And no that isn't child abuse!!!!!
Most years they were asked to come dressed as "Bible characters" and yeah, they got plenty of candy! Usually, they had a series of little game "booths" for them to participate in. (kind of like at the fair or something.)
I know some people see this "alternative" as no different than celebrating halloween. But I never had a problem with the "alternative" parties. Sometimes they are called "hallelujah" parties rather than "halloween" parties.
I have to say that I never saw the association with Halloween and the distant pagan rituals they were derived from. Intellectually I am aware of the origins, but the modern symbolism is vastly separate to the point that those associations are no longer relevant. Just as Christmas is not relevant to it's original pagan ceremonies or consistent with the time that Jesus would have likely been born.
The symbolism we assign is all that really matters to the meaning of the event. I celebrate Halloween as a symbol of childhood innocence and the desire to play scary games safely. The candy, the door greeting is all from a bygone era of innocent fun and represent a time and place for safe pranks (actual or imagined).
Even as a small child I knew nobody really thought I was a werewolf, but i enjoyed pretending I was and trying to scare people. They acted scared to pretend along with me and to enjoy the fun. Only an adult will understand the origins of the celebration and bring those obsolete associations to the day. If we let them die, then one day nobody will make those associations. We keep them alive with out protests and marketing of the past.
Our kids do not like going down the Halloween aisles at the stores. They get bad dreams for that and the commercials all over TV during October. We allow the kids to dress up in something fun and non-scary and then we go to our church where they have games, inflated jumper, hot dogs, cake-walk and a play. Then the kids get a sweet bag of candy in addition to all the candy and trinkets they won at the game booths. We also have a dunk tank mostly for the teens.
My extended family has a hard time with us not doing the traditiona Halloween parties but you know it's just not our thing, and even growing up I was never excited about the holiday. I just don't understand the attraction to dressing up like a witch or skeleton or people who make their front yards into a graveyard...then the next day take it down and in a few weeks you see baby Jesus in the front lawn for Christmas. Double standard IMO, and seriously it's just how I view it.
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No...
but he survived!
) We have just felt that Halloween glorifies evil, fear, the occult and the macaabre and as Christians, we don't want to do that.
