Christians Celebrating Halloween? You Bet!

Can you believe Christians celebrate Halloween?  Aren't we all sticks-in-the-mud that only allow harvest parties?  That's the only sensible thing to do if you are Bible-believing Christians, right?

We don't think so.  Our family loves Halloween!  The dressing up, the decorations, the candy candy candy - it's all fun to us!!

This weekend we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  The kids had a fun time, as usual.  My oldest daughter informed me, after viewing a gory set of decorations on someone's porch, that it gave her the "geebies."  It was a gory-looking fake guy on a chair in the corner of the porch.  Meh.  Doesn't bother me so much.  But it does bother our kids.

Although we prefer the happy pumpkins, friendly scarecrows and candy corn, we understand that some people decorate differently than we do.  Sometimes those images keep my oldest daughter up at night, and we hear about it for weeks.  Is the point of Halloween gore, gruesomeness, and death?  For some, I suppose, it is.

When one or our kids can't sleep because of these scary things, it gives us the opportunity to snuggle close and talk about what's real and what's not, and how we should focus on good, pleasant things and try to forget bad images.

We can remind them that the Bible says, "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."  Focus on the good.  Let the bad things fade from memory.

Would I prefer that our children not see the yucky decorations during Halloween?  Yes.

Should we give up trick-or-treating to avoid ever seeing anything evil?  In my opinion, no. 

Would I give up this teaching opportunity?   Nope.

Teachable moments are priceless.  These times prepare our whole family for the future.  To trust parents' wisdom, to seek us out when they are not sure about certain things they've seen or heard.  This is one of my parenting goals - to be sought out by my children when they need advice.  Am I the ultimate source of wisdom?  Definitely not, but for now I have the role of guiding them in the right direction as I am given wisdom by God through His Word, the Bible.

Our favorite Halloween traditions are watching, "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," "Garfield's Halloween" (who's up for some pumpkin innards?), and decorating pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns (no, we do not believe jack-o-lanterns scare away evil spirits).

We are spending time together as a family.  And we allow our children to be whoever they want to be for a night.  Allowing them to dream and pretend and...dare I say it???

Eat their fill of candy candy candy!!

This post was first published on October 31, 2014.