We don’t celebrate Halloween. I figure I’d better start there so we can avoid any questions about where we stand. Even though Stacy didn’t celebrate Halloween growing up, when I was a kid, Halloween was a big event. Get dressed up, run all over a neighborhood (or few), stock up on all the candy humanly possible and gorge myself for as long as the candy would last – yes, please. Despite getting dressed up as a vampire at one point and who knows what all else, I never associated Halloween with anything other than a fun night to get free candy. It was innocent – honestly. I don’t have a problem if you celebrate Halloween like this. If dressing up and eating massive quantities of candy is your thing – GO FOR IT. We just don’t do Halloween in our family. Here’s why.
Evil
There is a lot of evil in this world and for many, Halloween is a big celebration of it. There are plenty of scary things in our world without my adding to them by celebrating monsters, zombies, clowns, or any other terrifying thing usually reserved for nightmares. We don’t watch horror movies, we don’t do haunted houses/mazes/etc. and we generally don’t try to put scary stuff in our minds. Same goes for our kids. We don’t want our kids to be scared and we surely don’t want to celebrate that. “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8).
Candy
Let’s talk candy. I know we are depriving ourselves and our children of thousands of high fructose corn syrup-laden calories by keeping them from the glut of candy available on that one magical night. We’ve already talked about how we’re mean parents. We don’t do much sugar at the Myers house. We used to be all about it. Now we’re more into butter and bacon (together or separately), recognizing consuming large quantities of sugar in its various forms (along with white flour and the like) is probably a bad plan considering the rate of diabetes in our families is pretty high. We just don’t have that stuff in our house – why would we want to make a huge exception? for more information, this page lists the symptoms of diabetes in older adults.
Dressing Up
Let me just shoot straight about dressing up. Annie LOVES to dress up and does so on an almost-daily basis. She has everything from princess dresses to pirate gear. Why do we need to take a single special occasion to dress up? If she wants to dress up every day, I’m cool with that. Why does Halloween get to be special because of that? We want our kids to be creative and role-play every day. The other kids can have their one day of fun a year; our kids get that type of fun ALL YEAR.
Want to know more? We spent 5 minutes talking about it and if you wanna see what else we have to say on Halloween, check it out below.
Your turn. Halloween in your house? Yes/no and why.
Oh Stacy! I love you! You crack me up.
Do you pass out candy? Or do you darken your house?
It’s just a normal night for us – no, we don’t hand out candy but we don’t hide in the basement either. 🙂
We are setting up apple cider and hot chocolate for our neighbors as they come by. And giving out scripture and church info with the candy.
I grew up doing “innocent” Halloween and my husband did not celebrate it at all. After we got married I was miffed when he said that he did not want our kids to do Halloween (when they came along). I decided I had to follow his wishes since he is the head of the household but we had lots of discussion about it. It didn’t take long to convince me of his reasons why and now I agree wholeheartedly! 16 years of marriage now with 4 kids (age 14-5) and none of them even want to celebrate it. We go out to dinner because the restaurants are EMPTY and then come home and watch a movie. Thanks for this post. It sums up our feelings exactly!
I found your post on Far Above Rubies. Thank you for standing up and sharing your thoughts on Halloween! I also wrote a post about why we don’t celebrate Halloween 🙂 I was really nervous to post it, so I know how hard writing something like this can be 🙂 You did a good job of presenting your beliefs in a non-judgmental way!
Thank you. 🙂 Others didn’t think so. LOL
I’m sure there will be some that don’t think so; there always are 🙂 Good for you for being willing to say it anyway!
We don’t do Halloween any more. We did it a few years because my in-laws really, really wanted to dress the kids up and show them off. That was fun for them, but after a few years, it got old. It just wasn’t like trick-or-treating back when I was a kid, and everybody was just having fun. I don’t see what Halloween has to do with us, don’t feel any compulsion at all to do it, and mostly just ignore it. I admit, I can’t understand why Christians would want to spend an evening taking candy from strangers (which I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t allow under any other circumstances) and viewing all the spooky, scary attractions people put together to celebrate or trivialize Death, the enemy of Christ and humanity. I guess they just don’t see it that way.
my husband spoke on this topic This past Sunday evening. I can say some of the things and scriptures he used on the subject were a reminder to me why we don’t celebrate this evil day. As a child, I think only a few times we did celebrate it. But what I remember is that my parents and family would gather and have a family fun night with games and hot dogs and smores.
We are not going to celebrate Halloween this year. We are new Christian as of March.God is really convicting us to not celebrate Oct 31st this year. We really went all out and decorated and did nasty costumes before. Now seeing all the decorated houses really disturbs me. The Lord has put my life into a complete transformation. I was into the occult for most of my adult like before this. It is true that Oct 31st is a huge day for “witches” and don’t forget about Satanists. I really feel even the energy on that day is palpable – it’s so negative.
As a non-Christian, I find it ironic that so many Christians shun Halloween but celebrate Christmas. Halloween has roots in the Christian “All Hallows Eve,” whereas Christmas seems to have originated from pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. I don’t say this to point fingers, but because it genuinely confuses me why one holiday (with Christian roots) is “evil” and the other (with pagan roots) is touted as “holy.” Any thoughts?
We celebrate Christmas because of Christ’s birth – that’s our focus. 🙂
The difference isn’t in the “roots”, but in what we do with it today. There is nothing redeeming in the purpose of Halloween. Christ’s birth is the very definition of redeeming, even if we don’t know what day it was, or what exactly a tree has to do with it.
Halloween does not have Christian roots. It’s roots are in Celtic superstition and the occult! Later on the church did try to “Christianize” it by trying to use the already established traditions of the people to point them to God. As for Christmas, I doubt most people know the true “roots”, but what Christians celebrate today is Christ’s birth. We know that isn’t really his birthday, but at least there is nothing scary or evil about Christmas. Halloween is all about scary and evil. The two “holidays” aren’t really comparable, although I have heard many people ask the same question 🙂
We do participate in Halloween. The fun, not celebrating evil part. Anyway, just wanted to say you guys crack me up. I love your videos no matter what you do or don’t celebrate. Hope you have a wonderful day!
It was so refreshing to hear your thoughts as I feel the same way and can find few who can agree. I do disagree though that you can say if others want to celebrate that’s okay. I think a lot of the reason we are in the mess we are in is due to the fact that Christians say that’s okay you do what you feel is tight. The Bible instructs us to have nothing to do with evil. If I say to my friend it is not okay to celebrate Halloween due to its evil origins and practices I am not judging I am helping to instruct and if I say it is okay to do what you feel is right the rocks will have to cry out.
It is possible to “spit out the fat” with this type of thing. I have several friends who chose to minister on this day – which we think is great. 🙂
I don’t have a problem with innocent trick-or-treating. Growing up, we did it. But we lived way out in the country, so we couldn’t just go “door to door” to ask for candy. We only went to family members’ houses. That’s kind of how everyone around here does it. This year will be our daughter’s 3rd year “trick–or-treating.” We enjoy getting her a cute costume to wear and taking her to see some of the family. We “hit up” 5 or 6 houses. And really, its not about the candy for her; everyone loves to see her costume and spend a few minutes with her. I won’t ever allow her to be anything “scary,” and if she ever tells me she doesn’t want to dress up and all, we won’t do it. And we don’t do “haunted houses” or spook trails and all that mess. I HATE to be scared. No Halloween decorations for us, either. Its just an opportunity to dress our youngin up as somethin cute and go see some family (and steal some of her candy, lol!). ( :
Growing up, we always did the dress up and the trick or treat thing, as well as the occasional spook house(I was not raised consistently in ). Even as an adult up until about 8 years ago, when God turned me and my husband back to Him, we celebrated Halloween complete with a big party with scary decorations and costumes, all with my daughter present. I am horrified now at the thought! Now we no longer do the the scary movies, the costumes, the parties or any of that. I feel that it is glorifying something that definitely should not be. However, we do the harvest festival and trunk or treat at our church. We live in a very small community and we look at it as an outreach opportunity. We would much rather parents their children to church, where we would have the opportunity to invite them to services and share Jesus with them! I do not believe in celebrating in any way, the evil traditions of Halloween, but I don’t know that, as Christians, turning off the lights and shutting our doors to those that do, is necessarily the right decision either. We are to be the light of the world!
Growing up, we always did the dress up and the trick or treat thing, as well as the occasional spook house(I was not raised consistently in church ). Even as an adult up until about 8 years ago, when God turned me and my husband back to Him, we celebrated Halloween complete with a big party with scary decorations and costumes, all with my daughter present. I am horrified now at the thought! Now we no longer do the the scary movies, the costumes, the parties or any of that. I feel that it is glorifying something that definitely should not be. However, we do the harvest festival and trunk or treat at our church. We live in a very small community and we look at it as an outreach opportunity. We would much rather parents bring their children to church, where we would have the opportunity to invite them to services and share Jesus with them! I do not believe in celebrating in any way, the evil traditions of Halloween, but I don’t know that, as Christians, turning off the lights and shutting our doors to those that do, is necessarily the right decision either. We are to be the light of the world!
I have never celebrated Halloween, not even as a child. When I young, our church youth group would dress up in our group uniforms and go door to door collecting can goods to use in food baskets for the needy during Thanksgiving and Christmas. We did this on Halloween because we knew that most people in town would already be opening their doors for trick-or-treaters. I remember that most people were floored that we would be asking for things for others and not for ourselves. We got more food for baskets on that one night of the year than any other time. Unfortunately, it is not as safe out there now as it was when I was a kid, and many groups have stopped this practice. The safety factor is yet another reason to avoid the Halloween traditions. Back in the “day”, the main concern was razor blades in apples. Now, it’s drugs and other things. I don’t see how a person could even trust taking candy from strangers.
I’ve gone back and forth on this topic. We live in a cul de sac with elderly neighbors. I let the kids put on dress up clothes from the dress up box and go over. It’s a matter of kindness and if we don’t go they will come and find us 🙂 I’ve also given out tracts. How many times a year do people come to your door asking for things? But we only get about 15 trick or treaters anymore so not worth buying candy that I have to deal with later. But I have also heard of people dressing up like persecuted Christians and going and taking treats to other people and talking about the conditions of persecuted and martyred Christians throughout the world. Watch how horrified people are that you would let your kids dress up like martyred Christians yet zombies, vampires and devils are fine. I have one friend whose kids take musical instruments out and play for neighbors and give them cookies. Done the harvest parties, too, but they strike me as the church mimicking the world. Whatever the case, I breathe a sigh of relief when the creepy decorations go away.
While my kids were growing up, we belonged to a church that provided an alternative celebration to Hallowe’en. We called it Kids for Christ, and it was organized and facilitated by our youth group. It was a no-costume event with games, pinatas (Homemade) puppets, music and lots and lots of helium balloons. It was advertised publicly and we usually doubled our child population for the event. We had a happy group of kids and happy parents without the dark cloud of evil. It kept our children AND teens from the traditional activities. Judy
Here’s the thing, though: if we offer an alternative, aren’t we really saying that there’s something necessary about Halloween? That we can’t possibly just read a little bit and then go to bed like every other night, because it’s a special night?
That’s a good point. I found myself torn on that, but my kids were in public school where they were bombarded with Hallowee’en all through the month of October. I did keep them out of school on party day, but felt they needed to be offered something…
No Halloween here either.
My husband and myself both did as children and even as young adults but after some study (wanting to make sure we are in God’s will) we quickly came to the conclusion that Christians should have nothing to do with Halloween. The Bible tells us in Deut. 18 that “…divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanted, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulted with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer….are an abomination unto the Lordl” 1 Thes. 5 :2 says “Abstain from all appearance of evil.”
Of course many other arguments against Halloween could be made as well but let me give one more for those that say there.s nothing “evil” about cute costumes and candy – Anton LaVey, author of the Satanic bible, said “I’m glad that Christian parents let their children worship the devil at least one night out of the year.”
Enough said.
We have 6 children ages 14 and down. I honestly believe Halloween is not a big deal to them. We’ve never made it one. There’s plenty other ways to make memories with our children.
I grew up in a Christian home and was allowed to dress up. I dressed up as a witch several times and regret it. My cousins would also come over and we would go trick or treating. I now have conviction over celebrating the scary side of Halloween. One time I had fake blood all over me as part of a costume. Last year we did not pass out candy for the first time. I was thinking about getting candy that had the gospel on the back and giving that to children this year. I’m not sure though. I think it is a good opportunity to connect with many different neighbors. What do you think should I not even pass out candy? I do love autumn. I love pumpkin pie, weather getting cooler, apples, changing leaves but to me halloween is about celebrating creepy stuff.
I can’t tell you if you should pass out any candy, but we’ve shied away from participating at all.
Great discussion! Thanks so much for sharing. My husband did Halloween each year growing up. I never did as a child. When my husband and I got married we also decided that Halloween just isn’t for us for the same reasons you have mentioned. We would usually go to church, or just turn off the lights and hide! We dreaded it. But the last couple of years we have opened our doors to the neighbor children to give them candy along with Chick gospel tracts. We’ve learned to embrace it, not because of the holiday, but because of the witnessing opportunity literally knocking on our door! We now look forward to this day each year when we have an opportunity to send them on their way with a simple tract, a little nugget of God’s truth to plant the seeds of the Gospel.
Halloween is an evil holiday that we do not celebrate. However it is the only day of the year that tons of people come to your door asking for something. It’s too great an opportunity to miss for giving out the gospel so at our house Halloween is National Evangelism Day. We give out gospel tracts with candy and pray that the good news will go forth and touch lives.
I’ve seen several folks make Halloween a “missional” holiday. Not a bad plan – as you said – how often does someone come to your door and ask you for something…and you’re actually prepared to give it!
It’s good to know there are others out there that feel the same way we do. Our kids are now 15 & 12 and have never done Halloween. If you ask them they would tell you that we found fun alternatives to do as a family & they don’t feel like they missed out on anything. Thanks again for sharing!
I appreciate the fact that you state your stand. You’re right, we aren’t to judge each other but I personally do not feel comfortable celebrating Halloween. I have always felt that Halloween is to the wiccans etc. what Christmas is to the Christian. I cannot, in good conscience, join in a celebration that those who hate God enjoy. We used to make mini-pizza’s, rent movies (that’s the first time we watched Anne of Green Gables) and I did have a big bowl of candy (I guess that’s going to change now). We kept our house dark, and went down into the basement to the family room and enjoyed our evening.
You could not be more wrong about Wiccans ‘hating’ God. Some of you are very misled. Halloween stems from an old Pagan holiday, (like most holidays) honoring our ancestors. It had turned into something different though for many. I am also not a fan of gore or blood.
I wish you wouldn’t say that Wiccans “hate” God. I don’t think that “hate” is a tenant of any religion. Personally, I am a Witch (which is different from being a Wiccan, but I think probably similar enough for this discussion) and I am actually very fond of the Christian God.
I hope you enjoy your movie night with your family on Thursday. 🙂
I really like this article for an opposite perspective. It challenges us to view Halloween as an opportunity to engage with our community: http://troublefacemom.com/2012/10/31/on-halloween/ To date my kids have only gone to the church party and I think they’re old enough that we won’t add trick-or-treating, but I’m rethinking the lights-off blinds-drawn attitude I’ve had all these years.
We Celebrate and Every Year Take Our daughter To Our Church Family Fun Night! our Family And Church Have Decided To Take Halloween Back And Use It Not As A Day To Dress Scary But Another Day To Connect With Our Friends And Church Community! No Trick Or Treating But Lots Of Games bouncy Houses And Truck Or Treat Where I Know People Haven’t Poised The Candy Lol! Why Give Satan Free Reign For A day Every Day Is A Day We Can Lift Up Christ Including Halloween After All Its really Just October 31St! if For Your Family It Works To Not Celebrate Then That’s Fine By Me I Say Do What You Have To Do To Raise Godly children But For Us That’s What We Do!
Good for you, Stacy and Barry. So many Christians today won’t take this stand against evil. Thank you!
I love you!! I’m doing the whole real food thing with catiousness as I see some of my health minded friends jump on whatever new health minded bandwagon that drives by….I found your site as I was researching soaking grains. Always was skeptical, n this was a piece of clearing my conscience for not doing it. I have enough to do anyways! Thanks for the Halloween post too. While dressing up n eating candy isn’t inherently wrong, I don’t need any more evil introduced into my life the way it is! There is so much awful stuff that is around for moms to deal with why bring in more?! That’s my opinion:) thanks! Love ur site!
🙂
About 18 years ago, I watched a video called Pagan Invasion. Since then, we have never celebrated halloween. It was an eye opener that’s for sure. Other than kids out trick-or-treating and having fun, there is many dark things happening on that night. Loved your video! You two are funny!!
I love it! You guys are so funny. My son is grown now, but we always did Halloween when he was younger and it was always a good time. But like you said, to each their own. I pass no judgement on those that choose to participate. As a Christian I don’t believe that those that celebrate in the traditional fashion are going to hell either. Those that ARE going, are going for reasons that have little or nothing to do with how they celebrate Halloween. God bless you both for your honesty. Keep up the good work! 🙂
Ha! Thanks for your comment – spot on with what we think.
my mom never celebrated Halloween either. she pulled us out of school parties and as a kid, it was a little embarrassing. As an adult, I’ve followed her same opinion and have heard much of what she said in your post. I can’t help but get frustrated when people ask me now why we don’t celebrate Halloween..like it’s a crime not too. Thank you so much for this post!
No Halloween here. It’s just not something we care to celebrate – based on our Christian heritage among other reasons. But we definitely encourage dressing up every day, like you do! 🙂
We pretty much are the same here, the biggest thing about Halloween I dislike is the way killing and all the other things are made light of, I too agree there is enough of that that is real to go around! Now dressing up is something we do, we do it for fun, we do it for lessons at home and in church. They same imitation is flattery, I sure don’t want to flatter the devil and his evil schemes. That said some of my children have gone to haunted house type stuff, I remember as a kid my Dad taking my nieces and nephews and I there and being terrified, he thought it was hilarious! I don’t have scars from that, my Dad who died when I was 11, I remember as someone who loved to have fun in his own way and I remember how he laughed at us being scared in this situation, so the memory isn’t a bad one for me. I could forbid my kiddos from going to the h.h. (they are close to 18) and I do tell them I think it’s crazy and why, but they think it’s great fun so I guess we are hypocritical in this area. The sugar end, well don’t even get me started, that is a dangerous avenue in itself! lol Everyone must decide for themselves.
I dislike Halloween. I don’t like to be scared or masks on people. There is enough scary stuff in our world that we don’t need one day to celebrate it with gory clothes or creepy things. Better yet it is NOT a day for grown adults to look and act like strippers with the costumes out there. We do celebrate. It is pumpkin carving, seed roasting, and fun decorations we make. We do trick or treat to 1 court because, well it’s awesome and then we head to church where there are games and prizes with minimal candy. I don’t want to take the day away from my kids, but I also want them to know it will NEVER be a scary day in our house. They will NOT be allowed to dress scary, sinister, or sexy. I will never advocate scary movies or haunted houses. I hope we can keep it fun for them without the scary.
We are on the same page here! While we have all the reasons you have, there are two primary ones: When son #1 was 2 years old, his trick-or-treating expedition garnered candy that was so suspect we had it evaluated. The police department called it “questionable.” Reason #2: My husband is the retired head master of a Christian school. During a “what Halloween’s all about” discussion with some of his high school students, he learned the annual celebration is used as occasion for girls to lose their virginity…enough said. Bless you for writing these things!
Wow – I think that last reason is enough for me to stay away from that “holiday” with our kids.
Thank you.. We don’t do Halloween either. Seems like we are always the party poopers..bleh…We do butter but we don’t do bacon…lol…
No BACON?!?!?! I’m not sure about that. Life without bacon would be much less happy in the Myers house.
We don’t celebrate Halloween at our house either.
When I was a little girl I also dressed up & did the whole bags of candy bit, but never evil, spooky costumes. My husband grew up not celebrating it. He did dress up at school for a parade, but that was as far as his parents let it go.
I never really thought about the evil side of this day until we became parents. After our oldest was about 3 we decided it was not something we wanted to celebrate & our kids have not suffered because of our decision. Lot’s of our friends & neighbors celebrate it & have invited us to parties, to trick or treat at their houses but we just politely say thanks but we don’t do Halloween.
So I guess we are a members of the mean parents club also! We homeschool so there is another reason people think were strange & mean to our kids! No socialization in a public school & you don’t let them trick or treat? Oh my those kids are so deprived! 😉
Love the videos! Thanks for sharing with us! 🙂
I’m totally with you on this. I was involved in the occult before I got saved and I can tell you, Halloween is the most important day for Wiccans, pagans and Satanists and such. I ijust do not feel like that is something for God’s people.
Some churches do alternatives, like Harvest Festivals, not sure how I feel about that.
I’m always concerned about participating in any tradition where the “Wiccans, pagans and Satanists” hold it in high regard. I would hope it would make one pause and think.
I too was in the occult before finding Jesus and I agree with what you said.
When my children were little, we did take the kids trick or treating. It was what I grew up on and I thought no harm, right? When my son was about 5 we went to a trunk or treat at our local ymca. It was the first time we had been around a crowd on halloween. We usually just went to a few friends and families houses to trick or treat. My son has always been sensitive to scary stuff and we don’t do scary movies, costumes, etc. Just made it all about fun and candy. When we went to the trunk or treat, there were hundreds of people dressed up. It was like night of the living dead mixed in with barbies and pirates. My son literally jumped out of his skin after seeing a particularly scary costume and shook from head to toe. I have never been so convicted over exposing my child to something in all my life. God told me right there that this was not His way and we needed to leave. We have never celebrated since and don’t miss it at all. Now we make it a fun fall night at home with special food, a little candy, a red box movie and we turn our porch lights off so no one stops at our house.
I’m right there with you guys, and I talked about some of these same things in my post earlier this week on Halloween. Evil and the occult are very real and we just don’t want to open up our kids’ minds to it.
Thanks so much for sharing your thought on why you don’t celebrate Halloween.
I agree with all you are saying, but wonder why you let your children dress up like a pirate. They are evil thieves and murders are they not? It’s so nice to read your blog every day.
Good question, Christy! I guess I may be hypocritical in saying this but when I think of the “traditional” pirate, I think of the old Disney movies where the pirates weren’t really going to do any harm other than cause a ruckus. Very good point, though, and one I had never considered! I guess I learn something new every day!
That is a good question! It bugs me when my kids read books or watch shows that have “fun” pirates in them because in real life pirates are thieves and murderers, and I’ve made sure my kids know that. Yet, they have a pirate costume and I have never thought anything of it! Well, I’m going to have to think about it now 🙂
We go to our local Chick Fil A and go to their Fall Festival. We are also getting together with my niece and nephew and trick or treating with them. My 4 year old had a party at his Mother’s Day Out, and got candy as well. I have limited him to two pieces of candy a DAY. I LOVE your thoughts on Halloween, and why you choose not have Halloween. I love Stacy’s point about not being the referee over the candy for her daughter. I know what you are saying! 🙂 Could you post that Peanut Butter fudge or whatever you mentioned about peanut butter in your video. Could you post that recipe. Sounded wonderful!!!!! Thank you, Wendy
Ha, ha! I’m not exactly sure what I’m referring to. 🙂 I’ve tried so many different things lately.
We allow our kids to dress up and get candy (which we ration out later), but they can’t dress as something that celebrates death or evil. With that said, there is one exception. We do not allow them to go out if it is Sunday. Sunday is the Lord’s Day and we don’t think it would be appropriate on that day (even if we didn’t skip church for it).
People can also think of it as celebrating Reformation Day (the day Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses on a church door)!
I noticed on Facebook that a lot of people were writing about, “Well, Christmas is a pagan holiday too!” Yes, they’re correct. So it’s really not a reason to defend Halloween. A lot of Christians don’t celebrate Christmas either. In the Puritan/Covenanter days, Christmas and any man-made holiday were ILLEGAL. I know a few people who don’t celebrate Christmas. We kind of waffled on the idea and came to the conclusion that as long as we are not elevating the day above the Lord’s Day (which is a true “holy day”… holiday). We don’t even have Christmas services at our church for this reason. We don’t want to treat Christmas like a “holy day”. So we decorate and give out presents and have a big meal, but that is it. We kind of treat (pun intended) Halloween the same way. We’re careful in how we treat (pun intended) the day.
I hope that makes sense?
Makes sense; a celebration of evil is bad – a fun time of dressing up and having a good time doesn’t have to be! 🙂
Our girls will dress up (6,4, almost 2) in healthy little dress up clothes that we already have here at home. We only go to family houses. Will do something at a local church the night before for them to play some fun games and hang out with some of their Awana friends. They will get a couple pieces of candy and then the rest my husband will bring to work. Nothing but clean, healthy fun for Halloween!
With Halloween so close we still haven’t quite decided how to approach it. Our kids are 8 and 5 and in the past we have and also have not celebrated Halloween, but not the evil side of it of course!! Just as a time to dress up (which my daughter does frequently also) and collect candy. I have done some research of the origins of Halloween and was shocked at what I found out! Halloween started out as All Hallows Eve which is the night before All Saints Day. It is a day Catholics celebrate. On All Hallows Eve Catholic’s would dress up (not as evil) and celebrate the coming day. As the world has become increasingly evil so has All Hallows Eve. As a strong Catholic family, we are unsure if we should try to bring back the real meaning of Halloween or if we should just avoid the evil all together!
We don’t do candy(most of the time!) and we definitely don’t do evil. And then there is the fallout from family members who “don’t get it.”
And I am with you on not wanting to be a mean parent and taking away all their candy. I would rather they don’t get it in the first place!! 🙂
We’ve found that pretty much every major holiday has origins that are either pagan or Christian/Catholic. It seems the “other side” takes whatever the beginning was and tries to make it their own. Another person just commented about Christmas origins and so while I do always try to know a bit about where it all started, I also try to look at what it “means” today.
October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day. It initiates the triduum of Hallowmas, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers.
I have one son who, although he loves chocolate, has always felt silly getting dressed up. Even at 3 years old! He never really enjoyed trick or treating so we stopped doing it years ago. We do enjoy going through a non-haunted, full daylight corn maze, ending at the pumpkin patch. We pick up a couple of pumpkins, not to carve, but just to use in decorating to celebrate autumn, not Halloween.
We are all about a good corn maze, pumpkin patch, apple orchard, etc. Fall is a great season to get everyone to participate in some fun family activities!
No halloween at our house either….we don’t even pass out candy…we usually close drapes and “hide” or go see a movie…its been about 10yrs for us. It is quite difficult to explain why without someone feeling like you are condemning them for celebrating. We were convicted of it…and I tell others if they feel like we are condemning, then chances are Christ is trying to get their attention and they want to blaim a mere person for their uncomfortableness. Course then there is the fact my boys have all 6 star wars movies memorized and lord of the rings is regularly watched….ppl will bring that up as evil. Oh well….we watch them anyway. We have not fallen under conviction for them, yet. 😉 We will draw the line at Harry Potter or any other book or movie that draws off of or portrays in a good light anything to do with the occult.
Ditto to all this in our house with the addition of peanut soy and egg allergies which actually makes it kind of dangerous!