I know. I know. Halloween is over a month away. Try telling that to the party-supply store I took my kids to today. The store had about 5-8 HUGE demon costumes hanging from the ceiling. They had attached enormous pieces of fabric to make them look like they were zooming around the store. One was a giant red devil with giant wings and was a little frightening even to me. Lydia showed so much self-control and just closed her eyes when we went by. Which is awesome for her—she would usually start screaming and not stop till we left.
So, I paid for my wares (plates and napkins for Asa’s first birthday party on Saturday!) and pushed the stroller toward the exit door. Suddenly, I hear the cashier say, “You forgot your bags!” Oops! I turned around and grabbed the bags, leaving the stroller where it was. Well, right by the exit door–so you CANNOT get away from it– is a zombie-Michael Jackson that wakes up when you walk by and screams while his red lazer eyes glow. Sure enough, Michael Jackson-zombie awoke while I was getting my bags and Lydia AND Asa began to scream hysterically. The neon-blue-haired cashier did not remotely offer to turn off the thriller-zombie OR to open the door OR to help me with my bags. It was a literal nightmare.
I felt sick when I left. I had to apologize to both my kids for taking them in that store! It was a horrible feeling.
Now, here’s the thing. I’m not opposed to a good trick-or-treat around the neighborhood. In fact, I love me a good costume. And I get excited about candy corn and Reece’s peanut butter pumpkins. I love all the churches that do carnivals and parties in October. The past 3 Halloweens I’ve let Lydia dress up. Last year we went to my mom’s church & their festival, once we went to the Atlanta Zoo’s party and once we went trick-or-treating at my aunt’s house. Lydia had NO idea what was going on. She was just excited that we got to dress up and have candy.
Now she’s 3 1/2. And thanks to our Michael Jackson-zombie she now understands that Halloween=scary stuff. So if we do an innocent dress up this year, it’s going to take some explaining…how do I tell her, “Oh, yeah, well, we don’t like this gross scary stuff. But we are going to dress up in a nice costume and hope we don’t see any scary costumes. And get some candy. So, yeah, we hate Halloween. But we also really enjoy it.”
I had a friend that told me her parents never let her do Halloween. She and her brother were mad and thought their parents were being unfair. One day before Halloween her parents came home with bags of candy and dumped them out all over the kitchen table. They told their kids, “This is NOT about candy.” They wanted to show their kids that they weren’t keeping them from something good (candy), they were really keeping them from something evil (insane zombies, etc.).
SO. I think I’m rambling. But I’m just wondering about what you do. How does your family do Halloween? Or how do you ignore it? It’s YOUR turn…
Teri says
That’s just it. You don’t ignore it. You address it head on, like your friend’s parents. Sometimes as parents we cave on the important issues, like Halloween, because we want our kids to “like us”. We forgo the opportunities to teach moral/spiritual lessons so that our kids can enjoy the fun in life. We forget that our kids can have fun and still align with our Christian values. Sometimes that means being the bad guys and having our kids “not like us”. We need to stand firm in our faith and sometimes that means making a decision that may be unpopular to the world and to our kids. Think about what God wants us to do rather than what is fun or what the world is doing.
Isaiah 7:9 “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.”
elizabth c. says
i have a love/hate for halloween. i have always LOVED dressing up and trick or treating…and we have let our oldest go the past few years (he’s 5 this year)…but i HATE stores this time of year (i won’t even take my kids into walgreens) … it is so hard to explain that we don’t celebrate halloween, but we do go trick or treating (in g-rated costumes) … especially in the coming years, i will be diligently trying to find “alternatives” to door to door – one church around here does a trunk or treat – they have fun and games inside then move everyone to the parking lot where the kids go car to car and the congregation passes out candy that way
AmyG says
We’ve been doing trunk or treating, the last several years. Many churches around here have been doing it. My girls have usually dressed up in Princess costumes, but this year, Emily wants to be a flower & Olivia a dolly. We tend to stay away from the Halloween isles because Olivia hates, hates, hates spiders & they always seem to have big hairy fake ones around. I do tell the girls that a lot of people like to have fun & do haunted houses & scare others, but we never do those things, because I know the girls don’t like it. We keep things fun & light. If they ever say they don’t want to dress up or go trick or treating, then we won’t go. I’ve never forced either girl to go to a house they didn’t want to go to. If they were scared, we skipped it. Halloween is a personal preference. I believe it’s an issue, only if you make it one. When I was a teenager, the church I was attending didn’t believe in/celebrate Halloween, they also didn’t do Santa or Easter. I grew up with those things, but at the same time, was raised to respect how others celebrated. I adapted easily to not going trick or treating. We had a “harvest” party & dressed up as Biblical characters instead. It was lots of fun.
Sandra says
I can relate! When my oldest was one, we went to Whole Foods on Halloween Day, not realizing adults would be dressed up. The butcher was dressed as a zombie and scared David so deeply that for months after that he would cry any time he saw a man with facial hair!
.-= Sandra´s last blog ..Click over! =-.
Leigh says
I love this post- and I love the comments! I was raised with trick-or-treating and the whole shebang, but Josh was raised with doing absolutely nothing for Halloween. We are taking the boys to Fall Festivals around town instead of trick or treating, but those stores! Last year, there was a HUGE billboard with a zombie on it on a road right by our house, and it scared Elias every time we drove by it. We haven’t gotten into the spiritual reasons that we don’t celebrate Halloween with him yet, but we explained that some people think it’s fun to be scared and to scare others – we just don’t. It has helped in stores, too – Elias says, “look, mommy – they’re trying to scare me! But I won’t let them!”
elizabth c. says
when discussing the spiritual aspect, we told our 5 year old that god doesnt like the scary things…it makes him sad when when people have those scary things … what have you others told your children? (and how old are your kids)
Rachel R. says
We just…ignore it. I mean, if/when it comes up, we address it matter-of-factly, just like we would anything else that other families do that we don’t. But we don’t make an issue of it, one way or the other.
And we are teaching our children that we don’t celebrate it because it’s Pagan and we’re not Pagans. Simple as that. (No one bats an eyelash that we don’t celebrate Ramadan because it’s Muslim and we’re not, so this really shouldn’t be any different.)
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..Reformed Beliefs Misunderstood =-.
Heather @ Not a DIY Life says
great comments so far!
Hubby and I have talked about how we will approach Halloween and the things that will allow/not allow. But Ladybug being 2, the main issue is our nieces. They don’t understand why we don’t do the scary stuff because their parents don’t have the same values that we do. In fact, they have been our biggest parenting challenge. The nieces question why we do or don’t do lots of things. I guess they are our practice run for when we need to discuss these topics with our own child.
.-= Heather @ Not a DIY Life´s last blog ..Things I Love Thursday =-.
K says
My hubby and I use Halloween as a springboard to talk about God’s view on what is evil, appropriate behavior, and world religions. My daughter has a similar sensitivity to anything remotely scary. It hasn’t diminished and she is 10. So we do choose where we are going to trick or treat carefully. We allow our children to dress up because they both love it so much and generally we get dressed as well. Last year my hubby was a block of cheese and my son was a mouse. I went as a gallon of milk and my daughter was an oreo cookie. Allowing them to participate in a pagan holiday in a positive God-honoring way has opened up conversations we wouldn’t have had any other way. It has also allowed our children to share with other kids they know how we celebrate and why. It is wonderful to hear your 10 year old daughter tell a classmate why we celebrate Halloween and share the love of Christ all at the same time. We couldn’t have reached that child in the same profound way – all because we have purposely trained our children to live in the world but not be of it. Celebrating Halloween as christians can be a powerful testimony to those around you.