by It felt so good staying home tonight, gutting pumpkins with hubby and doctoring up the seeds with the girlies. Acappella singing “This Little Light of Mine” in the background and chicken stir-fry sizzling in the skillet.
My theory on Halloween is that it’s not worth losing friends over. Every year I’ve struggled with not wanting my girls to feel like they’re “missing out”, and you know what? They aren’t. Halloween is a big deal to my in-laws. We used to participate, dressing the girls up as princesses, ballerinas, ladybugs… and my middle daughter dressed as “Mary Had A Little Lamb” for about three years in a row. (Hey, it was a fantastic costume hand-sewn by yours truly! And middle’s a puny lil thing, youngest is growing into middle’s shirts and jammies, etc)
Clarification: When I say “participate”, I mean we’d go to Grandma’s with frosted pumpkin cookies for everyone and show off our cutenesses and then make a couple more special stops, dropping off more cookies as we made our short trip back home.
Last year we went to a church-sponsored Fall Festival. That felt even more like “Halloween” than dressing up and making the family rounds. Not for us. So my youngest had no idea what Halloween was about. We had dental appointments in town today, and of course, ran into some adults dressed…weirdly. She has now had an education about October 31st.
My oldest tried to prepare youngest for some cousins stopping by that would be dressed as witches. Oldest said very seriously, “they’ll be dressed like little old ladies in black, sweetie”…hee hee. Sigh.
I realize my viewpoints on dressing children as witches is antiquated and borderline offensive to most who see it as harmless. I *try* to give the benefit of the doubt, but knowing that the Wiccan religion is alive and well, and that there are actual colleges of witchcraft, well, seeing little ones treat it lightly kind of makes me sad. I know they’re only doing it in fun. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and Exodus 22:18 show us God’s view of witchcraft. Why emulate something He condemns, even in fun?
So back to tonight. We bought candy at the Christian book store…strawberry cremes with scripture verses printed on the packaging, and we stamped crosses and verses on white treat bags before filling them with a variety of candies. When you live out in the country as we do, you don’t get many trick or treaters, and the ones you do get are usually family.
We had two! They brought us treats as well, which was the best of them! In case my oldest sister is reading this, thanks for the dirt cups…the worms were a real hit with 3 year old! After supper, she was happily digging in and said, matter-of-factly, “Is this out of Aunt K’s garden?”
And for the record, the pumpkin seeds we roasted were nasty. Definitely not as yummy as last years. Not sure what I messed up…
But all in all, still a very nice evening!
My kids aren’t allowed to dress up as anything occult-esque or violent – although The Girl did look a bit witchy, she wasn’t a witch! It sounds like you had a fun evening, too.
That sounds like the parameters we had when we “dressed up”…but we found that even so, we were exposed to the violent-witchy stuff anyway and actually, last year it was my oldest that wanted to sit Halloween out.
It’s not my favorite holiday! And the kids really didn’t need candy coming out their ears right now anyway, having all just gotten over colds.
You are very right that it is not worth loosing friends over. Thankfully it is not important to my in-laws. I think it would be hard for me to get into the spirit even a little. We did not do anything. We did not dress up or hand out candy but we know very few people here. It was interesting going to the grocery store (we always create quite a stir, one year old says hello to everyone we come across.)telling people that we were not going to go tricker treating. I Just said the girls were to little. They seemed to understand. The hard thing is dealing with all the witches that are in the decorating.
We never participated in Halloween as a child. It was always very evil and scary. Even last night I was very apprehensive staying at home by myself with the girls. I remember one year when there was a bunch of cattle killed near our house growing up. My aunt belonged to the Wiccan cult. Halloween was taken very seriously as being of the devil. It was not just harmless fun.
You’re right about it not being worth losing friends over. I’m just so thankful Halloween is done for another year. Trying to keep the little ones away from it is getting more difficult every year. I’ve had to keep them away from certain places for over a week now. Ugh. It’s just not for us.
I have had always wonderful memories of Halloween and I know that I am in the minority here, but my boys are too young to see the harm in it. And I enjoy watching them dress up and getting a lot of candy.
We also went to our church and they had a bonfire and hay ride, but no costumes or candy were given out. It was almost like just a regular church gathering with homemade food and goodies.
From my perspective, I have come to see Halloween as training in greed. That sounds harsh I know. When Mary was small we lived at the top of a horseshoe shaped street and people from neighboring towns would drop their children off at one end of the horseshoe and then pick them up at the other. Children would ring the doorbell, hold out their sacks and then rush to the next place. You could almost see a frantic rush to get to as many homes as they could to get as much candy as they could. I guess I’m a wimp but after we had 200 children one year, we called a halt and thereafter sat in the dark on Halloween night. My girls thankfully don’t come by for treats (we have 18 grandchildren, 9 of them local). I have come to see there is a greater reason than training in greed for downplaying Halloween…and that is ‘whatsoever you do in word or deed, do for His glory’ (that’s really a loose quotation but it is true for all that!)
We attended a church carnival, (there’s one every mile or so away) I would have preferred to sit this one out, but hopefully our kids will outgrow this soon. Plus, I hate all the candy because I don’t let my kids eat that much. Before they went to church we had to weed through their Easter Candy and save it for decorating gingerbread houses! I’d much rather not participate but I’m a little out numbered in my family!
Andrea, that’s the hardest thing for me each year, is all the “well-meaning” people who ask the girls what they’re going to be for Halloween, or if they’re going trick-or-treating. It sets the girls up to feel like they’re missing out, though they are super about responding with things like, “We’re staying home and giving treats out” etc. I applaud you for wanting nothing to do with the day, especially with your aunt formerly being a Wiccan. That brings the evil home very loudly, I imagine.
Georgiana, I hear you! You can’t even avoid it though, the decorations go up at Wal-Mart, etc, over a month in advance. I complained to our Wal-Mart about this horrid skeleton standing inside the door that practically jumped out at you as you walked inside. Guess what? They took it down! We wouldn’t have gone into town on Halloween, except that the girls had dentist appts, and I desperately needed some groceries. Funny, when we walked in the grocery store all the grocery cashiers and sackers were dressed as witches and other scary things and toddler didn’t even look over at them…by the time we checked out, they’d all disappeared and only normal people were in their place! God’s protection? The only costumed “weirdos” we saw were two adults leaving the store as we drove up. 🙂
Leticia, your church gathering sounds fun…we’re going to something similar–a fall party–this weekend with a bunch of homeschooling friends. We wanted the kids to have something fun to look forward to, but also to keep it on a different day than Halloween.
Mom, I always wondered why we sat in the dark on Halloween. 🙂 I don’t remember hearing that story. I do remember conjuring up all sorts of scary reasons for it, such as terrible Satanists trying to bust our door down because we weren’t participating in their holiday… That’s a great story illustrating the greed that reigns on this day. Even the phrase “trick or treat” bothers me.
Gina, that’s funny about the Easter candy still being around. We have a parade in town once a year and the candy from that lasts us all year long! Even after the girls initially give most of it away.
When James was on fall break we decided to go to a local pumpkin patch. We quickly high tailed it back out of there when there was 5 buses full of kids. On the way to the to find something else fun to do. We talked about how Halloween really ruined the fun of Halloween. We started talking about how much fun it would be to have a Christian pumpkin patch, focusing more on Thanksgiving. Which is completely lost in the shuffle. If anyone has a nice piece of land feel free to borrow our idea.
Was it Halloween?! I seriously didn’t even remember until a couple children came to AWANA in their costumes! We don’t even think of it anymore here at our house. I know our youngest has no clue what it is all about, but she doesn’t know who Santa Claus is either.
As for the greed…for me Christmas tops that list. I do believe Halloween gives children a wrong message on many different levels. Adults for that matter…but they are old enough to do what they like. I think many people today are just looking for a reason to party and spend money, drink. Of course the retail business picks up on that and runs with it.
I do have fond memories of Halloween as a child, mainly because it was an evening spent with my maternal grandparents and my father took us trick-or-treating, so we were able to spend time with him. I loved dressing up…still do. We always had doughnuts and apple cider which always made me sick, lol, but I still remember it as a happy evening. I don’t remember even thinking of the evil side to it until I was a teenager and we lived in New York. There were several groups there that actively practiced witchcraft on that evening and had animal sacrifices. My opinion of Halloween changed drastically at that time!
Andrea, that’s a great idea! I love Thanksgiving, and what a way to make it that much more appealing to kids. It’s not all about the turkey, for sure!
Deborah, I agree on Christmas. I love the giving and receiving, but hate for it to be the “most exciting” thing about Christmas. Definitely hard as a parent, to balance it all. I’ve missed you in blogland, glad you stopped by, and am looking forward to that phone call!
Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other readers maybe :)) new useful posts from you!
Good luck and successes in blogging!
Thank you!!