Someone recently asked me about why we choose not to celebrate Halloween. Most people assume that we avoid the frivolity of the night due to religious reasons and that is probably 95% of it. Our participation is not something we can justify due to the history of the celebration. We do, however, attend a Fall Festival at our church. From time to time, we get a few scattered comments asking how we can justify attending a Fall Festival or isn’t it a Halloween party in disguise?
Well, let me explain how I view it by using a comment I posted on a fellow bloggers post:
A church fall festival is an alternative for families like ours who do not want to have to turn out all the lights and pretend not to be home and explain to our children over and over again why people keep banging on our door. One kid banged on our neighbor’s door, rang the doorbell and then tried to open the door! This is extremely stressful and especially so on our child with Autism.
Also, I have no desire to put my children on display for who-knows-what-mischief. I remember being a child and being chased by teens in scary masks. They clawed at my legs even as an elderly lady (a friend of my mother’s because we didn’t go to houses with people we didn’t know) pulled me into her home and they stole my candy.
Plus, some of the decorations are just evil. Not all, but some, and I don’t want my super-sensitive, highly-emotional children having nightmares. I lose enough sleep as it is.
So, we go to our church where we can we can have fun and be safe. We do dress in fun costumes because it is supposed to be fun and we don’t want to rob our children of childhood nor make them regret our faith because it appears that someone else is having more fun.
I know that there are a lot of people who claim to be Christians judging those who participate in Halloween. I just do not feel like that is my place. I am not the Holy Spirit, and I cannot expect to convinct someone who does celebrate Halloween. Plus, I do not want to get involved in arguments that really do not matter. (1 Timothy 6:3-5)
That’s the real point… do not get bogged down in arguments that do not make any sense when weighed against eternity. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, whether they celebrate Halloween or not. Share God’s love freely and without restraint. Be a blessing to others.
And try… just try… to make a difference in the world, not through your opinions, but through the saving love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, because one day, we each will see Him face to face and wouldn’t it be nice to bring our neighbors with us to meet him?
I remember a time when I did not celebrate Halloween at all. My older children remember it to. However, as adults now they remember feeling left out and as if “religion” took something away from them. I think that in place of bad we should substitute good. If you don’t like Halloween then don’t celebrate it but substituting something in its place is fine. We, as adults, can decide to pretend it does not exist but our children do know others are out having fun and they are sitting at home “pretending” that they don’t care. I am for the Fall festivals of fun. I also do take my children out. It is a personal preference for each family.
Thanks for your insights, Dawn. I think sometimes people feel like they are being condemned for their choices and they lash out in retaliation at anyone they can. I agree that each person chooses the path for their family. We can only pray that the path we choose is the best one possible to meet their needs.
Thank you for this post. I have been struggling with how to explain my choices to my extended family. My mom went and bought my children costumes the other day and expected me to go out trick-or-treating with my sister and her daughter. I started to say that we don’t really do Halloween, but I got jumped all over by everyone so I just said, we’ll see. My 3year-old son is extremely sensitive and we found last year to be scary when I reluctantly took him to appease the family. My little boys don’t need the candy or the scary houses. This year our house is up for sale, but next year I plan to have a fun party for friends and their children.
{{HUGS}} to you, Meaghan. Family can be the hardest issue we face when making decisions for our families. I would just try to bow out gracefully and if someone tries to make something negative out of it, don’t continue the conversation. I am not known for being a very tactful person but I would probably say something like, “We will have to agree to disagree.”
I consider myself a Christian and we DO participate in trick or treating. We talk about how much fun it is to use our imaginations to create costumes, how generous others are to give us candy by merely asking, we talk about sometimes things look scary but really they are not, etc. I realize what Halloween originally was for, but we hope to be part of the reason that Halloween has turned less scary and more about fun.
We live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of young kids and I always am with the kids when trick or treating. We have had to slow down our pace a few times to allow misbehaving kids to get farther ahead. I use those moments to teach my children about respecting others, etc.
I love to read the other posts though.
I think it is great, Amanda, that you have found what works for your family and treat those moments as learning situations. 🙂
I don’t like scarey stuff. Period. Reruns of “Matlock” & “Murder She Wrote” still make me nervous. That’s my #1 reason for not liking Halloween.
Second reason for not liking Halloween is the hypocrisy (in my opinion) of it: we spend 364 days a year teaching kids 1) don’t beg for things, 2) candy is bad for you, and 3) treat others as you want to be treated (do you really want to be scared by strangers, clean tp out of your yard, eggs off your door, etc?). So … we spend 1 day a year telling them, go ahead! None of that really matters – tonight….
I do let my child participate because 1) we only go to houses of folks we know, 2) we ration the candy (we actually end up throwing some of it away because it sits in the pantry for so long), and 3) she’s in elementary school. When she’s a teenager, she won’t be doing this any longer – she’ll be handing it out to the small children who come to our door.
I absolutely refuse to let her wear anything scarey. She’s challenging me this year – she wants to be a witch. Her options are 1) something positive, or 2) don’t participate. Here’s why I don’t do the scarey stuff:
“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
— Philipians 4:8-9
I have strong convictions about this. I do not, however, judge or criticize those who don’t agree with my convictions.
We quote that Scripture in our home all the time. Not just around Halloween but in so many situations. I think those verses provide an excellent road map for all of life’s decisions. 🙂
We had not planned to celebrate Halloween due to many reasons. Mostly, and simply, it does not honor God, therefore is was not going to be something our family takes part in. We also don’t eat candy/sugar/ or sweets in our family as a health choice (we have occasional things of course but it’s not a mainstream staple. We have discussed tooth health and things that cause cavity’s and poor health and the children happily decline candy and sweets and they say they don’t like how they feel when they eat it! Headache, hyper etc.) I agree with you, the kids out there on that night are exceptionally mean…My brother and I have been victim to it when we were little and I’ve seen it happen right on our street (my kitchen window gives an entire view of the neighborhood. The whole thing comes dwindling down to I’d not want to subject my children to any of that and the only good thing is the dress up and my kids are practically in costume every other day!
My children are still little 6 and under, 3 of them…I never had to tell them “No we don’t celebrate Halloween” They chose it for themselves. They came to me concerned about it because they saw the commercials on TV and felt it was bad. They professed to me with certainty that they don’t like Halloween and that they don’t want to celebrate it! I told them don’t worry we won’t do that and they both gave me a big hug…I was shocked and dumbfounded!
At any rate Daddy’s birthday is in October and that is always a big celebration that the kids go bonkers over. Additionally, all through the month of October we celebrate Autumn and harvest time, we have a garden that the kids love to fill there buckets with at harvest time. We go pumpkin hunting for making pumpkin pies. We go apple picking, we drink warm apple cider we’ve heated on our wood stove. The kids and I bake and bake and bake with all those apples…We plan too bake little apple goodies and go and pass them out to the neighbors… The kids LOVE doing this! They have a wonderful serving spirit when they are little and it’s good to help them grow it by serving others in the community…I think Halloween could grow and nurture taking instead of giving…Also the holiday has become so commercialized it’s gross, to us it’s just another day…it comes and goes and no one is in despair. The children are to busy with other fun things to even give it any notice…well that is our take : )
I was just thinking about the commercialism of Halloween earlier today. Brands and media hype it up to be so much more than it ever has been before all for the sake of making money. I wonder if the candy company executives send their children trick or treating or if they just have a huge party at the office, celebrating how much money they made? It’s the same thing with every holiday and celebration. Slippery slope into materialism.
Hi Penny, I feel compelled to drop you a note to say I am a mother with the same ideas about Halloween. I am a Christian woman as well and have tried to teach my children about our religous beliefs and how the world works and how we all can live together with love and tollerance. I just want to tell you that your approach can work. I always wondered if not having my kids join the others in Trick or Treating was denying them something, but our Harvest Festivals at church were a great time for fellowship and sharing. We shared candy and food with the kids getting to play some games. We also did this same type of gathering for New Year’s eve, family game night with snacks. My children are grown now and they are all having children and I get to see little glimmers of the goodness we instilled in them when they make the choices for their children. Have faith in the decisions you make with God as your spiritual guidance counselor and know the children see your love and his in what you do.
Thank you, Tracey, for that encouragement. I love hearing from parents who have traveled this path previously and have a testimony to share. 🙂
We don’t “do” Halloween b/c of all the yucky stuff that surrounds it. Do I really need to take my kids around and see skeletons etc as decoration? Today’s dilemma – we’ve moved to another community and already know some families, including one of the pastor’s families at the church we started attending. We’re invited for dinner tonight at their house and she sent me a text asking if my kids wanted to go trick or treating with hers in their neighborhood.
That does make it difficult, Ruth. I pray that you will have a peace about the decision you make.