Halloween and Christian Families
Friday, October 31st, 2008While I understand the arguments from folks including other Christians for and against how to handle Halloween, the bottom line is this. Whatever your convictions are, no one has a right to come in and harass you over your decision. When I get the “what are you going to be/do on Halloween” question I respond with a simple “our family does not participate in Halloween”. Most folks just say “oh whatever” and move on, but it is often the fellow Christians who rise up at me with a bitter response. For some reason there are some Christians who seem to be offended that another Christian can act on a different personal conviction.
Explaining convictions to our young children is one of the most difficult things. Finding a way to say that people who participate in Halloween are not bad and most people are just having fun. It is hard when you are using the word fun not joining the “fun”. We tell our kids that Halloween is an activity that we choose not to participate in as a family. This is just one more way that we build family identity and set ourselves apart from the world.
I want to share a note my wife left on a parenting forum this week concerning this subject:
I have found a good book that we read every year to communicate the spiritual issues of Halloween. It is called Mommy, Why Don’t We Celebrate Halloween?
by Linda Winwood. I find it gives enough details about the spiritual side of the holiday without going overboard.
I too have struggled with the balance. As a child, I remember sitting under the kitchen table with all lights turned out (and of course not a word was spoken)! Those kind of actions left me fearful of the holiday and in a sense elevated evil’s power over the power and authority of Jesus. I rebelled when I was older and indeed participated fully in celebrating Halloween. My moral warehouse wasn’t being filled with any reason WHY! I had no idea why we were sitting in the dark except the explanation that “Halloween is the Devil’s holiday.” This was hard to understand when on the outside nothing looked “evil” in fact it looked pretty fun!
A couple of years after my oldest child was born I felt my heart being pulled away from participating in the holiday though it wasn’t until a year later that I learned the origins of many of the rituals of Halloween. Even with that being said, we are very careful to include our own fun. Building a strong sense of family identity makes the perfect opportunity to bring balance to this holiday. There are many things we do or don’t do because of our convictions based on the Word of God. Our children already know (and Riley will tell you) “We’re the Osborne family and we do/don’t do _________” and they know why we do or don’t do things.
The balance? I think that comes in creating our own fun as a family! We’ve had a family movie night on Mom and Dad’s bed before with popcorn and candy. This year we are looking forward to games, movie and sleeping in the living room (which is on the back side of the house
!) We’ll put up a little tent in the living room and we have a huge cardboard box to imagine with. We’ve been saving that box knowing how much fun they’ll have!! I wonder how much sleep we’ll all receive….?!
Have a blessed Fall season!
Sherry for The Osbornes
For those Christians who are led to ignore Halloween or find other alternatives, God bless you, you are not alone even though it may seem so on some days even within your own church family. For those who are led to minister to people during this time of year or just have a good time dressing up and collecting candy, God bless you. You are not judged by our family either way. You are viewed as folks with different convictions.
Previous posts on the subject of Halloween:
Halloween II – Why Christians should not celebrate
Halloween – Should Christians Participate?
