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If your local weather isn’t screaming “summer is over!” the stores sure are. Even the “Back to School” shopping is over. Now everyhere I turn, from the grocery store to the shopping mall, is deep into “Halloween”.
And so understandably the big question on kids’ minds as soon as the weather turns crisp is “what are they going to be for Halloween?”
So, how do you feel about Halloween?
As a Christian, I do not like the background of it. But, I also remember how much fun Halloween was as a kid. As a Christian family, my parents still allowed us to dress up and trick or treat. We just did not focus on any of the evil aspects. As mothers, Susan and I have struggled deciding what to do. Most of our Christian friends and church families are allowing their children to dress up. Last year, we went trick or treating for an hour and then went up to the church for an alternative costume fair.
So this year we will probably do the same — trick or treat for a bit (we live in a safe neighborhood and just go to our close neighbors) and then head over to our church activity.
Jackson has already chosen his costume. Since he’s obsessed with Star Wars, he’s dressing up as Darth Vader.
We still haven’t decided on a costume for Julia. Jackson wants her to be Princess Leia
.
But there are so many adorable outfits, I’m having a hard time choosing.
If you don’t like the evil aspect of Halloween, but still want to allow your child to have fun dressing up, a great option is to dress your child in an inspiring costume like a firefighter, pilot, police officer or astronaut uniform.
Perhaps your church also has a costume evening that isn’t “Halloween,” but still allows kids to dress up in imaginative costumes.
If so, you might want to check out our incredible costumes. We have the most realistic, high quality kids costumes in our pedal car store. We sell them year round and Jackson loves to dress up no matter what month it is.
These costumes are wonderful for encouraging positive pretend play year round. But I must admit, I hope Jackson and Julia never actually become astronauts — it would terrify me to see them blast out of this world!
So are your kids dressing up? If so, as what? And if not, are you doing something special as an alternative?
Karla Porter says
I struggled with this for the first several years after our first born was born. My husband really wanted to do the trick-or-treat thing with our children and so I decided to compromise and we made sure that our children understand our views on Halloween and stay away from the evil aspects of it. There is a great book called “Halloween, Are you For Real” by Howard Myra that teaches a Christian view of Halloween by presenting it as a holiday on which to celebrate God’s victory over evil and evil spirits.
Our church does “Trunk or Treat” — everyone comes to the church parking lot, decorates their cars and the kids and parent (while one stays at the car) walk around to the different cars treating! It’s a great way to get to meet the other families at church. There is a chili cookoff and other fun things.
The costumes are to be non-scary/violent etc.
Blessings, Karla
http://fruition-designs.com/default.aspx
and http://karlascrazylife.blogspot.com/
Karla says
Great minds think alike! I posted a question similar to this at my place yesterday. Come on over and check it out. It has made for some very interesting respectful debate so far. 🙂
Our Bean has also chosen her costume for this year. Well, she’s 2…we helped her just a little bit. 😉 She’ll be Minnie Mouse (which I’m not putting on my blog, in case the in-laws stumble upon it — we like to surprise them with her costume).
We’re still torn about the idea, as a family…
Great costume ideas though! 🙂
Heather says
We have struggled with this as well. LAst year the Lord brought something our way that helped: Redeeming Halloween. We stay away from the ghosts and goblins, witches and skeletons side and focus on lovingly giving out the “best” candy and other things instead of holding back for fear of adding to the mahem. (As Christians we are supposed to be giving. Which is more Christian, being the house with the “good stuff” and a smiling face or a scowling face looking out the window and lights out?)
Mom2fur says
Oh, and costumes. My youngest still goes out with his friends, but at 16 he mostly puts on his father’s clothes (over-sized) and has his sister make a fake ‘beard’ on him, so he looks like an old man. It’s pretty funny. We’ve done everything with the four kids from bumble bees to Slimer from Ghost Busters. But have you guys seen some of the masks for grownups in the costume stores? Geesh! Scary, and not in a fun way! Some of those are grotesque!
Mom2fur says
I used to teach religion (Catholic) and this is how I explained the history of Halloween. I told my kids that long ago, when the days started turning dark and the cold winter was coming on fast, people were terrified. They truly believed evil spirits came with the dark and the cold. So they put on scary costumes and made Jack-o-lanterns to show those evil spirits that, “hey, don’t mess with us! We’re scarier than you!”
And then one day, they learned about the light of Jesus. They learned that, with the love of Jesus, they didn’t have to be afraid of the coming winter!
I don’t believe Halloween has anything to do with worshipping the devil. I think, as I just said, that it was a way that a naive peple dealt with their fears. But the treats and the dressing up were fun, and that stayed with us.
For the record, the Church condemned Christmas celebrations for years! (But the peasants didn’t listen because they were having too much fun.)
Adventures In Babywearing says
We don’t celebrate Halloween. It will be interesting this year since Noah just started school. Good thing is that his school does a Halloween night party- not during class time. Otherwise, we’d take him out of class.
So, our kids do not dress up and trick or treat, but we do let them dress up all the time anyway- they have two big chests full of costumes and make-believe gear. Also, for Gray’s 1st birthday in a couple weeks we are doing a cowboy theme and I got all three boys the cutest cowboy costumes from Old Navy. So, they don’t miss out on the dressing up, and they don’t need candy from strangers anyway! I don’t feel like they are being left out!
Growing up, my family celebrated Halloween. My husband’s did not. So it’s been an adjustment for me, but I still think if you REALLY get truthful about it, Halloween is the devil’s holiday and there is no way around it.
Our church does a fall family fest and other churches in the area do Neewollah as alternatives for young kids to teens with Christian entertainment messages- so that the kids are doing something that night rather than out trick or treating and getting into trouble.
I am sure many people think we are party poopers, but this is how we do it and the kids will turn out fine!
Stephanie says
The roots of Halloween are evil. I agree that it can be just dress up and candy now, but there are always those spiritual elements there. (witches, ghosts ect) Even if my kids are dressed as heros there are always others that are gross, scary and evil.
We struggled with this a lot when our oldest was little. Then we said he is little, he doesn’t care if we go out and get candy. We kind of felt that there was really no need to go out and get more candy than he should have in a year.
All the other holidays that have become secularized (Christmas, Easter, Valetines Day ect) have some redeeming point to them. Something you can make positive and valuable. We could never find that with Halloween.
As he got older (he is 8 now) we just never made a big deal of it either way. He only asked about it a few times. Not in a “it is not fair” kind of way, but just a factual way. We homeschool and I am sure it would be different if he were in a public school.
That is how it started and so far the others have reacted the same way. sorry for the long comment! 🙂
amelia says
Our little one isn’t quite 2, so we’re just entering this phase. Our church has a big fall festival where all the life groups set up game booths, local radio station comes, etc. The kids (and many entire families) all dress up for a fun night of games and candy. If I get the costume sewn in time, she (at my husband’s request because he thinks she looks like her) will be Tinkerbell.
Heidi says
I agree with every thing you said. I too grew up Christian and was allowed to dress up but never as anything bad or evil like you say. I pretty much agree with this since it is fun for kids to dress up as something they’ve always wanted to be or have an interest in. This year our son is going to be Mickey Mouse, he really likes him.
Chaotic Mom says
Hubby and I studied Russian in Monterey. Just before we graduated I had a speech class with one of the teachers and explained why we didn’t like Halloween (in Russian, mind you). I was so excited, I ran out of the room when class was done, and told another classmate, with whom we went to church. Another classmate overheard and thought I was condeming anyone who celebrated Halloween. I wasn’t, of course.
That Halloween we also participated in an underwater pumpkin carving contest. I felt horrible, because I thought I was betraying my values by participating. We carved a cross design into our pumpkin. The club director grabbed two strangers from the park to judge the pumpkins, and they chose OURS! How funny! And they explained why to us later, for pretty much the same reasons we carved the cross in the first place. 😉
Now our kids DO participate in Halloween. Sometimes I wonder if I’m too tired to think about it much these days.
I enjoyed your post very much. It has me thinking about this again. 😉
MoneyDummy says
The thing that concerns me about Halloween is not the origins, but people. Some people are creepy creeps. Sending my kids out to the homes of people who are creepy creeps creeps me out.
Still, I remember the rich headiness of Halloween, how it’s the gateway to an absolutely magical season of leaves and pies, harvesting, corn-mazes and neighbors bringing each other bread and cakes. How can I deprive my kids of that feeling?
I’m going to have to find some compromise before BabyMoney becomes old enough to care and have opinions. I have to establish traditions now.
Anyone have any good ideas for alternate tradition for Halloween?
pamela says
You can put a lot of things under a magnifying glass and and you can ask 100 people to paint what they see and you will get several different answers.
I always explained firmly that Halloween was simply just dressing up, having fun, trick or treating for candy. We are Christians and we do not support any other thinking.
In otherwords, it means nothing more to us than dressing up and having fun. 🙂 Those are cute costumes you have!
Barb says
Halloween was just dress-up, lots of (carefully checked out by Mom) candy and the occasional kid party when my girls were growing up. We never went near the subject of evil or anything like that. I’m sure it never occurred to my girls it was anything more than a children’s costume parade through our small town culminating in a party at our rec center and much anticipated trick or treating that evening.
Diane says
Very thought provoking and relevant post today! My children have outgrown the festivities of Halloween so I am breathing a sigh of relief! I always felt a little conflicted about Trick or Treating! Our church began having a Fall Carnival several years back…and it has been a welcome alternative for Christians. It reaches many homes, Christian or not, and is a great outreach tool. It’s a really fun carnival with games, rides, treats and a Christian magician. Yep, you heard me right…a Christian illusionist who preaches the Good News!
I believe that if, as Christians, we worried about our activity each and every day of the year….not just one…..we’d be better testimonies to a lost world! People are watching us every day–not just on Halloween. So it is a relevant post…for today..and everyday.
Diane
Susanne says
Our family has always never celebrated Halloween. Whether we want to admit it or not it is steeped in occult and witchcraft practises and is a holiday to celebrate these practises. That being said, in our area there is several local churches that have huge penny carnivals or harvest parties for children. They are being attended more and more even by “non-christian” families. The element of fun and candy without the darkness and going door to door to strangers houses is more and more appealing around here. Some of the churches do dress up, some don’t but never turn away those who are, they just encourage the type of costumes that you’ve shown here rather than evil, occultish or gross costumes. Some have an evangelical element, some don’t. But all are well attended and filled to capacity every year. These are what we did when the kids were little.
Theresa says
In our city where lived the last few years (Dallas area) most of churches in our held a ‘Fall Festival’ and we usually went to one those on the weekends and then dressed up and went trick or treating. I’m like you though, I’m not a big fan of it’s background, but it is definitely a fun childhood memory of mine. And I think we as christians can celebrate it responsibly. Claire is going to be Tinkerbell and Victoria is going to be a cat – but she’s four so that may change tomorrow! (It’s already changed twice!) 🙂
P.S. I’m hosting a “Blog-O-Lantern” online contest at Bullfrogs & Butterflies if you or the family is interested. Just look at my WFMW to get more details! Happy Fall Ya’ll!
Sandra says
Halloween for us also means just having fun with the kids and getting them candy. I try really hard not to think about the background of it, because if I do then I wouldn’t allow them to enjoy the holiday.
Last year Jasmine was a Southern Belle and Nicholas was Robin from the Teen Titans. This year Nicholas is Spiderman and Jasmine is a Witch…all because the dress is black and red her favorite colors. I’m not sure I’m thrilled with the “witch” thing at all, but to her it’s just a pretty dress and a hat and so I’m glad that’s all she thinks about it.
It really is tough, I just don’t know how to act with it, on the one hand I see the background of it which is horrible, but on the other I see my kids having a blast for one night, just thinking about dressing up funny and getting candy.
Laura says
Halloween, for us, is just a time to get candy and dress up. I really think thats all it is to most everyone now. 🙂
I almost always make my kids costumes… I’m not sure what they’re going to be this year. Last year I had 3 super heroes- Batman(girl), Superman(girl), and Robin. I’m hoping they will want to keep a theme thing going tis year, too!
EaglesWings98 says
I don’t like the background to this holiday either, but remembering as a child dressing up as clowns, hobo’s etc and trick or treating..
I didn’t want to let our oldest son dress up last year but my husband wanted to make it an innocent fun – so he dressed him like a little hunter. and he had so much fun.
Our church also has an alternative to this night with a big outreach to the community – sharing the gospel – which we got involved in last year and will probably do the same.
Pass the Torch says
I wrote an article about my son’s costume last year. It just came out in Field and Forest Outdoor Journal. He’s a fishing nut and he pulled together his own “fishing guide” costume. Very cute!
Kailani says
Of course Girlie Girl want to be one of the Disney Princesses, probably Cinderella. I’d like Baby Bug to be a ladybug. We usually trick-or-treat around our neighborhood.
Christina says
I am always in a dilema about this holiday. I let my kids dress up and trick or treat, but I go to a church that is really not in agreement with this. I am considering just doing the church thing this year, because I always feel like such a hypocrit when I don’t follow the rules. I always stress to the last minute about this one, and then come up with some cockamamie excuse that makes me believe trick or treating isn’t so bad. I know I am not being much help with this one, but I am hoping to check out other comments and then once again wait until the last minute to actually decide what to do.