I thought I would take a post and try and explain our Halloween traditions that we are using in our family. No big reason, except we’ve heard and seen several different views on how to celebrate Halloween and this is our take on it for our family. I know not everyone agrees with our views but this is for our family and what is going to work for us to bring glory and honor to Jesus.

Mark and I both have very fond memories of getting all dressed up for Halloween and all the candy we enjoyed. It was never ever a scary time for either of us. My dress ups included a princess, Princess Leia (from Star Wars), an angel, a clown, a punk rocker (that one was pretty funny) and anything else that mom could make or we could throw together. None of the store bought stuff for me. I remember my mom, sister, and I (and sometimes dad if he wasn’t working) traipsing through our neighborhood picking up candy. We loved it.

Mark and I both wanted to allow our children to have the same happy memories of trick or treating and playing dress up with a lot of other people for one night. However, we both realized that as time goes by, Halloween has gotten, for a lot more people at least, to become a pagan/scary celebration. We have agreed we didn’t want that for our children.

As we’ve heard and read several people talking about the origions of the actual Halloween, we’ve realized that the term Halloween and the official holiday is rooted in Christianity. All Hallow’s Day or All Saints Day is November 1st and is a celebration of the Saints who are now in heaven with Jesus. All Hallow’s Eve is also a time to celebrate the Christians who are alive with Jesus today. So, we’ve agreed that this is the route we are taking with our celebration. Right now, our children are young and their knowledge of the saints is very limited. So, our celebration is limited as well.

We allow them to dress up but in nothing “scary.” This year, the Cat in the Hat and Thing One and Thing Two will make an appearance on our blog. We’re still working out how to share with them now about the saints, but that will come.

Also, we don’t hide behind closed doors and turned off lights on Halloween night (well, this year, we’ll be in another city so technically we will have a turned off light). Instead, we pick the best candy we can afford and hand that out. We’re still discussing handing out a trac with the candy but haven’t decided on that. Our reasoning behind welcoming trick or treaters is because Jesus welcomed ALL people to come to Him. If we close our doors and hide, what does that tell the ALL about us? That we don’t want them to come to us.

I heard about this just this year, and Mark and I both think this is a neat way to share the gospel and the honor the saints who have died on this earth. When the kids get older, we will host a Halloween party for friends and neighbors. We’ll have hot dogs, roast marshmallows, and towards the end of the night, we’ll gather around the campfire and tell a “scary” story. This story will be about one of the martyrs who has given his life for Jesus. We’ll also be able to share the gospel after that story.

A lot of our ideas have come from a book called Redeeming Halloween by Kim Wier and Pam McCune. I confess, I haven’t gotten to read the book (on my to do list) but I have heard them being interviewed several times and have read other things about Halloween.

This is just a little bit about how we are and will be celebrating this controversial holiday. As stated earlier, we will be out of town for Halloween, so I’m not sure what we will be doing on that day (besides sightseeing) but we will participate in a canned food festival on Thursday in which the kids get to dress up and walk around to area vendors to get candy (mine and Mark’s munchies for our trip…I’ll write about that later).