October 11, 2009

Thoughts on Halloween

I was very staunch about absolutely no Halloween anything for our family. I am amazed that people get so excited about it! I mean honestly, let's compare it to Christmas.

Halloween- celebrate ghosts, monsters, skeletons, DEATH!!! Nasty, evil things like witchcraft, blood and guts, and just plain horror.

Christmas- hope, love, giving, joy, light...

The only thing in common is candy and the seasonal movies that come on TV.

So, we don't do Halloween. However, we love fall and decorating for it. My girls adore dressing up in beautiful dresses and anything princess/fairy related. And for some reason, I really like Jack-o-lanterns, even though he isn't totally innocent either...I still like them though.

I also dislike them getting lots of candy. They just do not understand moderation or sugar crashes.

Dilemma! So, I do allow costumes. In fact I really wish I could make them some this year, but it probably isn't going to happen. I did let them go 'trick-or-treating' last year to our surrounding neighbors' homes. Lucky for us, this year, our annual church hot dog roast is on Halloween, so we don't have to do anything regarding trick or treat. Still, they will be decked out in their princess rig unless it's cold. I admit, I was glad we didn't celebrate Halloween as a child (well we did until my mom found out the origins), but I did wish I could dress up and get candy.

So, because we take joy in giving our children joy, they will get costumes and a moderate amount of candy provided by the church I'm sure. If we did celebrate Halloween and get all into the scary stuff, we would have an awesome place for a haunted house/woods thing. Saturday I finally explored the rest of our property, and it's like a little forest back there! There's lots of low hanging branches and vines that would probably look pretty creepy done right.

But, we don't, so instead we'll clear the back out, and I have Christmas light plans for the little forest in the front yard! So exciting :)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We use to go trick or treating but haven't gone in 8 years. I too wasn't big on celebrating such a pagan holiday, however, my 8 year old has never been trick or treating and seemed to want to go really bad and I personally kind of missed having that fun time time with them. So I talked to my husband about it to see what he thought and he was very okay with it.
We have very cute non scary costumes for them. I do hate the gory and scary stuff of Halloween ...it really does take away from the fun and innocent aspect of dressing up and trick or treating. Some may not feel that trick or treating is innocent and
I totally respect those views.

Sherah said...

I know this is quite off topic from this particular post, lol, but I wanted to say thank you SO MUCH for the tea!! I've been using it religiously and I really think it's helping. Harmony is no longer supplementing at night - she falls asleep happy and satisfied. So now she takes about 6 ounces of formula per day! I'm hoping to cut it down even more if I can - I've already ordered another 1lb of the tea. I appreciate it sooo much and hope to return the favor some day! =)

Sherah said...

My boys would be in HEAVEN on your property, sounds like!! They are 7 & 8 and spend hours outside searching for spiders, of all things. They have a collection of live spiders in their little bug house and are always looking for bigger ones. They've talked wistfully about people who have "trees" in their yards - we live in a suburban neighborhood on a small lot, kind of newer, with one tree. =)

liz from new york said...

i think we get too hung up on stuff, instead of taking it in stride...i agree with you when you say it's all about giving joy to our children.i have found they forget about it the next day, and when else can they walk around, or in my neck of the woods, go to a costume party and pretend to be a power ranger, or fairy/ some of my best memories are dressing the baby in a snuggly pumkin costume, with a "stem' beret on top..ahh, so cute. dont miss these lovely times to stand on convictions, it's all in fun, and i dont think God minds!