Monday, August 20, 2012

HALLOWEEN: What should we do?

Sometimes when little kids fall down they're more scared than hurt and will either burst out crying or shake it off, depending on your reaction.  If you rush over and make a big deal of it, they burst out crying.  If you make light of it, they shake it off and just move on.

When I was young I dressed up as a hobo, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, (ya, I'm a girl), a ghost, a cowgirl, and yes, even a witch.  We all understood that halloween was just a fun dress up night where we got a whole lot of candy.  My parents didn't make it a big deal so we didn't either.  We went to church and Sunday school every week and were solid in our faith and a secular holiday was not going to change that any more than Santa or the Easter bunny. 

Some people, however, have a problem with halloween.  They battle it by having special parties at church where kids dress up like Bible characters, have elaborate fall carnivals, Reformation parties, or "Trunk-or-Treats" (a clever name for a fall carnival held in the parking lot where people decorate their trunks and hand out candy from them, though I'm not quite sure why dressing up and going from trunk to trunk to get candy is inherently better than house to house in your neighborhood - except they're all close together and the people are all from church).  These kinds of events can also be used as a huge community outreach opportunity. 

That being said, in my opinion, we do not need to have a Christian alternative to every secular holiday.  Instead of making a big deal about secular holidays, why not just celebrate the Christian holidays more intentionally!?!

No comments:

Post a Comment