Tricky

I love celebrating holidays.  It is always a good excuse to throw a party, spend time with people, eat good food, dress up, or do something out of the ordinary. But every year, October rolls around and I am encountered with the same dilemma of how to really feel about halloween.  Growing up, we didn’t place a huge emphasis or celebration on the actual meaning of the holiday of halloween, but moreso getting to go to our church’s “harvest festival”, dress up, play games, and of course eat candy, (and yes we were one of the families to pass out tracks with candy which I always thought was realy cool). Now, as an adult, I wonder how I should really feel about the holiday as a whole. I love dressing up in costume. I love carving pumpkins. I always loved trick or treating and now I love when kids trick or treat at my house. Now I can’t move on without recognizing the materialistic view, many of us may have fallen into the category of spending too much on a costume, eating too much candy, or just enjoying the day a little too much. I am not just trying to make this an argument about whether halloween is good or bad or why or why not to do it. I am placing no judgement on how anyone spends their halloween. I am really just in the middle of it, trying to figure it all out. So if any of you have ever had questions about this, let’s be in this together, because it can be rather tricky.

I did a little research on the origin of halloween. Some people look to Halloween as the eve of All Saint’s Day on November 1 which is a tribute to Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the religious freedoms that were won in that time. It was once known as All Hollow’s Eve, the day before you honor all the Saints. And November 1 isn’t about just honoring the saints, but about remembering all the people that have been a part of your Christian journey, all the people that are walking through their adventure of faith, and those who make a difference for Christ. As Christianity spread through Europe, it was countered with pagan or more secular perspectives.

The Celtics celebrated Samhain. These people believed halloween and the time of year’s importance was the time of the season between the harvest, death, and onset of winter. It symbolized separating the living and the dead. This is where some of the evilness and darkness came in to overtake the holiday. At that time, the Christians sought to move the holiday to diminish the celebration of the pagan holiday, but instead it all started mixing together.  Spirits that were not properly “treated” through the celebrations started “tricking” through haunting, superstition, and mystery. Later on the trick or treat moved through culture to become more of a game. The Americans adopted Halloween in the 19th century, but took the bits and pieces they chose to celebrate. (There is much more information, this is just a brief synopsis).

The day does not have to be filled with darkness, superstition, and fear even though it feels like our world places a huge emphasis on the creepiness and wickedness of the holiday. Just last week I was driving past a house and I was horrified at what I saw. There were dismembered limbs, zombies, hate signs, and other outlandish things.  Does halloween give people an excuse to be completely out there? It doesn’t have to be a holiday that “worships satan or death or darkness”… but some people seem to think it gives them the liberty to do whatever they want. Just because there is evil in its history or part of the origin does not mean we should still bring the same amount of wickedness into it today. It also doesn’t mean that filling the day with darkness is the only way to celebrate the day. It is good to be against those things and stay far away from anything that treads through those dark and dreary places of halloween. You can avoid certain places while enjoying others.

As a Christian I want to keep figuring out how to be in the world but not of the world. (Romans 12:1-2) So for Halloween, I am not against it, I  just want to keep figuring out my role and how I can be a light in the darkness. The world is already a dark place. And halloween sometimes makes it feel a lot darker. But what a perfect opportunity to be a light. To be the hands and feet of Christ and to celebrate the Lord. The evil side of Halloween only contains the power we give it.  Living in the freedom of the day rather than the fear of Halloween allows the Lord to work. So as with everything else in our lives, give the day to the Lord. Find Him in it.  Enjoy the fun, let your kids be kids, talk about the holiday, don’t judge others, and eat some candy.

The good sides of halloween:

• Meeting people in your neighborhood and community
• Being together with other people
• Dressing up as fun characters (it’s not every day you get to be in costume)
• Plan something fun
• Opportunity to talk to your kids about the holiday
• Carving pumpkins and other crafts
• Candy is yummy 🙂

But ultimately its up to you what you want to do with the holiday of Halloween. I am not trying to tell you what to do. I am just trying to get you to think.