kristaphillips  |
| Annabelle’s first Halloween… Yes, yes, I know the bow was as big as her head…. |
Happy gobs-of-candy-for-your-already-hyper-kids day!!!
It could also be Happy figure-out-how-to-throw-together-a-costume-out-of-misc-stuff-in-the-house day, too.
At least, that’s the case in the Phillips’ household.
Halloween is probably the least celebrated holiday in our house. The whole devil-worshipping thing puts a damper on an otherwise silly holiday. But we’ve always let our kids dress up in something fun and roam the neighborhood with their cousins to pick up gobs of tooth-decaying goodies.
Yeah, I’m making this sound REAL pleasant, huh.
Seriously though, in the “Christian” community, there are a TON of differing opinions on Halloween.
Is it “okay” to go trick or treating?
Is it “okay” to dress up as a witch or ghost or devil?
Is it “okay” for even churches to host fall festivals to celebrate?
My thoughts:
I’m also a firm believer that looking down ones nose at someone else as to how they choose to handle it is, well, uncool.
But… as for me and MY family…
We do the whole trick-or-treat thing. The kids have fun making, mostly, homemade costumes. (Annabelle does have a ladybug outfit I bought used from a lady!)
We do the whole pumpkin thing.
But that’s it. We don’t do a bunch of decorating (I have some pumpkin stickers on our front door window, that’s it!) and we don’t allow the girls to have costumes that we consider “dark.” (I know some do… no judgement, but it’s just something we feel appropriate for our home.)
For us, we recognize the evil intent of the holiday. In NO WAY do we want to celebrate that. And it’s important to us to have the discussions with our kids about why we don’t “go all out” for the holiday.
Because…there IS a spirit world out there, and there are evil spirits having an absolute hayday on Halloween. So instead of locking ourselves in our house and wearing whatever those things are people wear around their neck to protect from stuff like that (is it onions or something??? See, I’m really not in the know…)
We go out, armed with Jesus, and have a clean, loved-filled fun evening. As we walk around, I do lots of praying. Not like a huge religious yelling prayer that would embarrass the life out of my kids, but just silently to myself as God leads.
So… wish me luck as I head out with my lady bug, Minney Mouse, Baker, and Injured person (this is the costume… not a personal actually injured, HA) to collect a rediculous amount of candy that I will then ration to last us until close to Christmas.
Discussion: How do YOU handle Halloween at your house? What fun characters will you have in YOUR house tonight?
in my house we do pumpkins and my daughter dresses up. she is a monkey ballerina this year. i dont decorate for halloween its more fall themed
I grew up trick or treating, and was usually a clown or a cowgirl (my mom loved the cowgirl because I rodeod an that meant she didn't have to buy a costume because I would just have to wear an outfit I rode in) After my mom passed away, I moved in with my aunt and uncle, and they did not do Halloween, like not even pass out candy, and while I know why they do that now, they didn't explain that to me in a way i could understand…so that was pretty hard for me as a kid seeing all the other kids going door to door getting candy and not being able to participate.
that is pretty much how we do it too! the kids dress up in something appropriate…we end up making most of the outfits – not only are there a lot of dark/demon/witchy sort of things, the ones that are not look like some sex-crazed designer created them! – but this year my youngest is going as a crayon. Store bought. Intended to be a very short adult dress, but when my 12 year old wears it over black sweat pants and a sweat shirt, it fits quite nicely!
For the past 5 1/2 years, my husband was an assistant pastor where we were asked to not participate in anything Halloween related. That was hard for me since I grew up trick or treating. Now, God's honest truth is, I HATE the holiday with a fierce vengeance! BUT I also remember how much fun I had as a kid dressing up and going out. My husband recently resigned that position so this year, guess who got to go trick or treating? For 2 of mine, it was their first time. So…in a nutshell, we do what you do. Dress up as something tame and trick or treat. My kids had a great time last night as Superman, Strawberry Shortcake, and Winnie the Pooh 🙂 I made the first two costumes, and found Pooh at a local thrift shop (YESTERDAY!) AT 75% OFF!! It was $2.25. Can't beat that!
Halloween is still not big here in the Netherlands, but it's coming. Today for the first time I had to explain to my pupils in class why some people don't like Halloween. It's a Christian school with a majority of non-Christian kids (and teachers, but that's the Netherlands for you) so I had to tread carefully.
As far as I know you have to wear garlic around your neck … but maybe that's against bats or something like that, LOL.
We take the same approach as your family Krista! We head out as "lights" into our small neighbourhood. Not many children trick or treat here (they go to the big subdivisions) so we really feel like we are blessing our neighbours as they are so happy to see our children. Tonight I am taking out Tin Tin, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. It is also my husband's birthday so we have cake along with all that candy. YIKES!
Have fun.
:)Shannon
We decorate for fall, dress up and participate in trick or treating. This year we had a cat and an Airman. The kids love dressing up as someone or something else. We usually keep 1/4 to 1/2 of the candy (just the very favorites) and then donate the rest to church or somewhere else.
I understand the "dark" side of Halloween. We talk to our kids about what is real and what is not. We talk about God does not give us a spirit of fear. We also talk about putting on the Armor of God and being an example for those around us.
We decorate for "fall" around the house and let the kids dress up as something fun (not scary) and go out to get candy. We really debated this when our first child was born. We started looking at all the holidays and found all sorts of things we did not want to know about all the holidays – Constantine's mother Helena just added Christian things to what was a set of pagan holidays. It was really hard to single out Halloween as bad. Anyway, we have also started to celebrate the Lord's appointed times, too. I wonder if our kids will think that all we ever do is celebrate:)