Thanks.

Sarah

Halloween is from All Hallows Eve. This was day before the celebration All Saints Day which is celebrated on November 1. Yes, the Catholic church incorporated various celebrations of the dead. I mean the whole point of All Saints Day was to celebrate those saints who had died. So the celebrations overlapped.

There are those who will argue all of the “pagan elements” of any holidy have been around longer than Christianity, so the idea of Paganism taking over a holiday begun by Christianity… sounds pretty foreign.

We didn’t celebrate it growing up. I had been taught that it was Satanic. Now that I’m older, I feel that people use Halloween as a day to dress up and have a party. I’m not sure what I’ll do with my children. As for the gory costumes, well I find them hugely entertaining. Ok I thought the movie the Shining was boring. As far as keeping kids safe, most people in my area take their kids to the mall or to business.

These were good thoughts.

I’d prefer Halloween like it is in Thailand where it is really more of a memorial day for ancestors past. My brother introduced me to that and I like it. I’m trying to incorporate more of that into our celebration.

I also steer clear of the gory crap in stores. The end of this month can’t come fast enough because while I can steer clear of the crap in the stores, I can’t avoid the highway signs advertising the haunted houses. It makes me sick.

My instant response to a couple of your points (not arguing, just thinking out-loud):

–would it be anything that they wouldn’t already see in Wal-Mart or CVS?

*This is the very reason we revamp our shopping style for these two months.  We don’t visit the major offenders at all, and avoid the “seasonal” sections of the other stores.

–their Halloween theory

* this is interesting, and I haven’t heard this before, but I think I disagree for two reasons.  First, while some people roll their eyes at Santa and bunnies, I think the majority even of them see the involvement as benign at worst and as hopeful at best: because their acknowledgment and participation could reasonably be seen an eventual openness, or gateway to the truth.

Neither of those attitudes is something I want mirrored with Halloween (though the most likely manifestation I see for believers is basic desensitization, which I still see as unhealthy).

Second, while “the devil” may achieve his goals by mocking believers (debatable), I am certain that believers do not fulfill their assignment my mocking the devil.

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I believe that thinking believers can come to different conclusions, but that doesn’t mean I think we can do better than “agree to disagree.”

These discussions are good for clarifying what we believe and why, but we need to be careful where they go.

I, too, worry about them seeing images that will haunt their dreams, but would it be anything that they wouldn’t already see in Wal-Mart or CVS? I would steer them away from particularly spooky houses, but we’ve yet to even encounter in this neighborhood. We are not celebrating the undead; Satan is not a part of this day for us. We don’t decorate the house in cobwebs and skeletons. Cute tigers and baby Yodas. That’s it. We don’t even get the older crowd in our area on Halloween night – it’s usually all 4-5 year olds dressed in adorable outfits.

For us, taking our kids trick-or-treating is less visually assaulting than taking them to the local drugstore during the month of October.

Someone once shared their Halloween theory with me, and I’ll see if I can regurgitate it (and I’m on my husband’s computer who refuses to install Firefox, so I’m typing this whole thing w/o spell check, so bear with me…): They explained that nothing makes the devil happier than seeing people mock Christian holidays with bunny rabbits and magical reindeer while completely missing the redeeming message. And their stance was that they would get back at him by mocking his own holiday with cute fluffy animals and elementary angels.

I’m not saying I whole-heartedly accept their stance as my own, but I did get a good chuckle. And I wondered if there was any truth to it. So I thought I’d share it with you.

For us, until we start seeing the ick of the gory marketing push, personally, in our area, I don’t see us stopping the tradition. But you’ve definately given me something to watch for. Thanks for the post!

I’ll admit to a few people who tried, but it always came out sounding more like an urban legend than anything relevant.

And I can’t pretend my article does anything better, but this topic could easily be a YDKUYK issue, one like many topics where we can be instantly polarized.

Partially because of the extreme nature of these arguments I feel we ought at the same time to be very gentle with those who don’t see things the same way.

I appreciate your link to the genetic fallacy article…I agree that it’s logically inconsistent to reject Halloween based solely on its pagan roots and not Christmas and Easter based on THEIR pagan roots. The real difference is in how they are celebrated today. Halloween is still and death and un-death and gross-outs and fear, while Christmas and Easter have been filled with Christian symbolism that’s worth celebrating.

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I’m going to stop typing here now and make this a post on my own blog. : )