Comments on: Thinking through Halloween

By: Karen

Karen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:26:39 +0000

I love Halloween, my kids love Halloween, and I think we, as adults, have taken the joy out of it for our kids by overthinking it and being overly concerned about the dangers.

I am sad that so many people have chosen to “opt out” that when my kids trick-or-treat, there are very few neighbors that actually answer the door. I think it’s a great way for you to meet your neighbors and get to know them.

I will always remember the joy my son had when he was little, running from house to house so fast that we couldn’t keep up with him. Almost everyone was home and he collectied tons of candy. My daughter who is 5 years younger has never been able to experience that. Last year we walked our neighborhood for what seemed like hours and collected very little, and she was so sad.

Halloween is about the joy of dressing up, the joy of getting free candy, and the joy of running around the neighborhood with your friends.

I say we should set our fears aside and give Halloween back to our kids and lem them run wild, have fun, and scare their friends!

By: Garrick

Garrick — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:21:46 +0000

Good insights, Rachel. There are definitely lots of thoughts and opinions on this topic. And some opinions are quite strong, as you know. I think you make some good points. Thanks for taking time to chime in. This is always a fascinating topic of discussion.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:14:35 +0000

I’ll bite

I think that part of the reason why Halloween is so worldly (especially to the protestant church) is because we don’t celebrate “All Saints Day” on Nov. 1st – which is reasonable, because protestants and catholics have very different views on saints, death, and other things that I am NOT going into in this blog post.

Last year, I went to a funeral on Nov. 1st, and saw all the pictures of one catholic parishes relatives and friends who had passed away placed on the alter. It seemed to me that they really used this time to remember those who have passed away, who believed that Jesus was the Christ and their Savior, and how the church is eternal, and that they will see them again. All Saints Day is a holy day of obligation for Catholics, so the Catholic Church thinks this topic is a pretty big deal (as the eternal church should be to all Christians).

Like I said, I’m not going into the obvious differences in the catholic/baptist church….but just wanted to say this…. I think that if as Christians we all remembered (either the day after or not) by either devotion or service, the connection that we do have to all Christian beleivers and to our Christ in heaven (also remembering the maryters of our faith), that we would actually be celebrating the entire holiday. It might change our perspective on Halloween a little bit.