Anyone else not digging Halloween season? About This Page:

[tikibird]

First off - I know most of you really enjoy this holiday - this is a personal decision for me.

I can never wait until it's over. [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I don't like anything about it, particularly not the witches/ghosts/ghouls etc. stuff. Just something I began to feel strongly about when the kids were younger; I used to get dressed up, decorate the house, the whole nine yards.

So, my question is - anyone else feeling this way this time of year?

[Perky2sol]

Sandy, I am so with you on this. I just try to ignore it, and eventually, it does go away. I do decorate, but it is more of the harvest nature than the Halloween nature.

You are right, of course. It is a totally personal decision.


Gail

[AKLRULZ]

Hi Sandy,

Boy, do I understand what you are going through - 95% of my church feels the same way and we honestly struggle with Halloween to some extent as followers of Christ. It's obviously got some very evil roots, but I guess we justify it (like we do Harry Potter, The Haunted Mansion at Disney, and other things of the occult that are very much sanitized or generally accepted in our society these days) and chalk it up to fantasy. We don't allow the kids to dress up in violent or horror costumes (nor do we), we don't decorate for the holiday other than carving a pumpkin, and we don't attend horror type Halloween activites (haunted houses, etc). I guess I look on it from the days of innocence when we were kids and it was just a creepy fun night of going out with friends, dressing up in a fun costume, and loading up on enough sugar to last until Thanksgiving - my parents did a great job of shielding up from the Satanic side of Halloween and that is what we're trying to do with our kids. I've probably idealized it to the point of it being very much like "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" - to me that Peanuts special epitomizes Halloween for me! But it's harder these days since the horror aspect is so prevalent everywhere you go. When we went to Party City to pick up my youngest son's Hulk costume he saw bagged body parts and was horrified that someone would be intersted in that - a bit of a loss of innocence for him surrounding Halloween, but it brought up a good discussion of good versus evil. I personally think as long as you're grounded in the Truth - and you convey that to your children - that there is a place for Christians to participate in (not celebrate in) the fantasy of Halloween.

God Bless and don't feel alone in your thoughts.

[mrsmaup]

Im with you, but my husband(also saved) isnt, so we pass out candy and the kids dress up. Usually we spend Halloween at our Church and have done that for most of my kids lives, but this year we are going to be at the mall of America.

Next year we are going camping!!!

Personal decision here too. Not out to tell anybody else how to live their lives, but dont want them to tell me how to live mine either.

[MegglesMom]

As I was reading your post, I suddenly realized that I agreed with you! I have nothing against the trick or treating or the pumpking carving. But look at what we're celebrating! Some of these decorations that are out now totally shock and disgust me.
Oh to go back to the days of childhood innocence, when the most worrisome thing was whether you got enough baby Milky Way bars! [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[Dumbo]

When I was young I remember our youth group had a haunted house at the church. It was an old church and just turning off the lights made it scary. I remember we got to feel a carrot and jello. Nothing to bad. Years later we did a haunted house for Cub Scouts also at a church. Nothing to scary there either just what a bunch of 10 year olds would think of.

I have a porcelain pumpkin house and 2 pumpkin candles in the window. I don't think I'm going against my Christian roots. In fact, having trick or treaters was one of my Dad's favorite nights. He loved having children come to the house. That was until one child one year thought he could have all the candy and the mother agreed. Dad led a very Godly life.

Growing up my brother and I never wore anything violent but I don't think things were violent back then.

I really believe that the dark side of Halloween has come out since the Omen movies starting in the late 1970's. Movies have gotten more violent and so has the themeing of Halloween.

Signed,

Longing for the good old days of Halloween.

[denwol]

We basically do the same as Steve and family...

no violent or satanic costumes, just some fun dressing up and collecting candy, carving pumpkins, hayrides, etc...

[chezp]

I am so with you on this one too Sandy! I just never have liked Halloween at all - I think it's something to do with an unpleasant experience when I was a kid. I was staying with a friend of mine in her house and her parents had gone out shopping. We were about 12 or 13 and a gang of teenage boys (about 16 or 17) came trick or treating. They were outside screaming "we know you're in there and we're going to get you" and by the time her parents came back, we were near nervous wrecks. [img]graemlins/cry2.gif[/img] Not a nice experience.

[*Pixie*Dust*]

I’ve never believed I had to chose between being a Christian and enjoying Halloween.
Most major Christian holidays have been exaggerated by the media and modern times.
Christmas has become a shopping free for all and a lesson in excesses.
Easter is no longer the celebration of the death and resurrection of Christ, but a time to gorge ourselves on chocolate bunnies and marshmallow peeps.
It is our faith that allows us to look past all the commercialism of these holidays.
All Soul’s Day (November 2) was established by the church to convert pagans to Christianity. It is a day to recognize and celebrate the spirits of the dead.
And guess what, it was celebrated in the same way as the pagan Samhain festival on
October 31st, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils.
What I am trying to say is, I will continue to enjoy the little hobgoblins running through my neighborhood every All Hallow’s Eve and I don’t believe it is a sin I must confess come Sunday morning.

[Suzie]

I have to agree with Margo, I don't think that celebrating Halloween has anything to do with Christian values. The celebration itself has gone through so many changes over the centuries. My parents, who were children of the teens's (1908 and 1915 birthdays) remembered Halloween mostly as a prank night when peoples outhouses got turned over, ash cans were rolled away, and front gates were removed from their hinges and placed on peoples porch roofs. So, when Halloween came for me in the 50's, they were always worried and locked up our trash cans in the garage and made sure that the cats were in the house (so kids could not tie cans to their tails). But all I ever saw on Halloween of this kind of thing was the soaping of windows of the houses that didn't give out candy, an occassional toilet papering and, for the really "bad" kids, egging.
I agree that some of the costumes are really icky these days due to the realistic masks but I think that this is just another phase of Halloween and it too will pass.
My memories of the celebration center more on running up and down brightly lighted streets and getting candy from friendly neighbors. I am glad that my kids still have that pleasure!
Suzie

[simbarel]

I attended parochial school for years and we always celebrated it there...
If it's good enough for nuns, it doesn't make me feel that bad!

Signed,
Corporate Evil Frightens Me More!

[tikibird]

Originally posted by simbarel:

Signed,
Corporate Evil Frightens Me More!

<font size="2" face="Comic Sans MS, Arial">Hee hee, I know that person! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Thanks for the great feedback everyone! Our church holds an event called "Light the Night" on Halloween, where we hand out hot dogs/hot chocolate, and have games/candy for all the trick or treaters. I really do enjoy this, as it gives us the opportunity to meet people that might not ever come through the door of the church, but will stop to chat for the evening.

And, BTW, I have many close friends and family members that enjoy the holiday, including my mom, IMHO one of the finest Christian women you'll ever meet. [img]graemlins/love.gif[/img] Again, it's just a personal thing.

[ProChristo]

We don't have kids yet, but D.B. and I have had several discussions on this very topic since his days as a youth pastor and in preparation for that time when God does bless us with a child. I'd say we fall in line with Steve's thinking on the holiday. It's easy to fall into a trap of legalisim on such topics, but it's important to remember we are under the Covenant of Grace as the redeememd in Christ. Should we glorify Satan through this holiday? Of course not! But can our children enjoy trick or treating? I think so. My home church hosts a dress-up event where the kids come as their favorite bible characters. Maybe that is a good compromise for Christian parents.

Of course, as protestants, we happily celebrate October 31st as another holiday, Reformation Day. Reformation Day is the anniversary of the date Martin Luther nailed his now famous 95 Theses to the door of the cathedral at Wittenberg, Germany, attacking the catholic church for their corruption of the Gospel (and general political corruption as well), signalig the start of the Reformation. In reality, it's a holiday both catholic and protestant can celebrate, as the protestant reformation triggered the catholic counter-reformaion which cleaned up the corruption within the Catholic church and clarified the defining theological doctrines of both camps.

[LilMarcieMouse]

I belive Halloween is for the young. I do some decorating but only for Trick or Treaters. But In know that Halloween has change from it's orignal root.

Halloween is a popular holiday that takes place on October 31. In the United States and Canada, children dress in costumes and go trick-or-treating. Many people carve jack-o'-lanterns out of pumpkins. Halloween parties for children feature fortunetelling, mock haunted houses, scary stories, and games, such as bobbing for apples. People decorate their houses and yards with images of ghosts, skeletons, witches, black cats, bats, and other symbols of Halloween. Many communities across the United States also hold parades and other celebrations for Halloween.


Halloween developed from an ancient pagan festival celebrated by Celtic people over 2,000 years ago in the area that is now the United Kingdom, Ireland, and northwestern France. The festival was called Samhain (pronounced SOW ehn), which means "summer's end." The festival marked the beginning of the dark winter season and was celebrated around November 1. In the 800's, the Christian church established a new holiday, All Saints' Day, on this date. All Saints' Day was also called All Hallows'. Hallow means saint, or one who is holy. The evening before All Hallows' was known as All Hallows' Eve, or as it came to be abbreviated, All Hallow e'en. This name was eventually shortened to Halloween.

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[BostonTeaParty]

Thank you Margo, for articulating so thoughtfully another point of view. Also, thank you Marcie for your enlightening information about pre-christian celebrations. As if there were any doubt around here, I definitely dig Halloween. [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img]

Another celebration that takes place November 1, and November 2, throughout Mexico that I find fascinating and quite wonderful is Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is an ancient festivity that has been much transformed through the years, but which was intended in prehispanic Mexico to celebrate children and the dead. Hence, the best way to describe this Mexican holiday is to say that it is a time when Mexican families remember their dead, and the continuity of life.

In the Aztec calendar, this ritual fell roughly at the end of the Gregorian month of July and the beginning of August, but in the postconquest era it was moved by Spanish priests so that it coincided with the Christian holiday of All Hallows Eve (in Spanish: "Día de Todos Santos,") in a vain effort to transform this from a "profane" to a Christian celebration. The result is that Mexicans now celebrate the day of the dead during the first two days of November, rather than at the beginning of summer, but remember the dead they still do. The day's activities consist of visits by families to the graves of their close kin. At the gravesites family members engage in sprucing up the gravesite, decorating it with flowers, setting out and enjoying a picnic, and interacting socially with other family and community members who gather at the cemetary. Some bring along picnic baskets, bottles of tequila for toasting the departed or even a mariachi band to lead a heartfelt sing-along. The booming reports of pyrontechnic rockets may announce the commencement of an open-air memorial mass, the ocassion's most solemn interlude. Families remember the departed by telling stories about them.

Because of this warm social environment, the colorful setting, and the abundance of food, drink and good company this conmmemoration of the dead has pleasant overtones for most observers, whose festive interaction with living and dead in an important social ritual is a way of recognizing the cycle of life and death that is human existance.

Two important things to know about the Mexican Day of the Dead are:

1. It is a holiday with a complex history, and therefore its observance varies quite a bit by region and by degree of urbanization.

2. It is not a morbid occasion, but rather a festive time.