“We don’t particularly celebrate Halloween, but just so you know, our family will be showing up in costume on Tuesday.”
As soon as I had shared this with our homeschool community group, the response reminded me very quickly that Halloween is a rather taboo topic in the Christian community. I thought it odd that no one had yet said anything, considering that Halloween day fell on the very day of our weekly gathering, but perhaps the popular holiday felt better ignored. Though we tend to do that with things that feel uncomfortable.
Halloween is not a holiday you can ignore. Should you disagree with it, your children will still gaze curiously at the mummies set out as front yard decoration and wonder why cupcakes are made to look like eyeballs. You can begin by doing one of two things: prompting them to embrace the fear that drives Halloween, or teaching them a little about American cultures infatuation with experiencing fear as a thrill. Perhaps there is a way to do both and press into fear knowingly, but you navigate through tension.
Nonetheless, you cannot well boast a choice to ignore Halloween when it is all around us. You will have to decide on your game piece strategy eventually.
Jordan and I have found that to ignore Halloween is ineffective in our desire to bring our children into a slow awareness of the world which we are charged to prepare them for. At the breakfast table each October 31st, we are intentional to put Halloween in its proper place. Historically based in the Celtic festival of Samhain where warding off evil spirits and fortune telling filled the night, we open the window of mild conversation to spiritual warfare and our belief that only prayer is a suitable weapon. Of course the conversation will grow alongside our children, for we have found that overemphasis on evil is not worthy of our persistent attention. While some may still look to Halloween as a demonic gateway to the supernatural, American culture has in part forgotten the history of Halloween and turned instead to our cultures celebration of fear.
Many would perceive scary costumes as innocent fun, but that is exactly why we feel the conversation with our children is so imperative. Fear has become not only permissible but a conjoining of both lightheartedness and exhilaration. And with that, entertainment at the expense of others. This generation is subject to our carelessly tossed views towards fear, but should they choose to seek fear out in new ways as they grow, we will have little ground to stand on should we want to dissuade them.
Beyond the acknowledgment of Halloween, we decided to take it one step further. We decided to create an alternative. We opened up our home to a few homeschooling classmates for a costume party… on Halloween Day.
“No thank you. We don’t celebrate Halloween.”
The response to my invitation was rather immediate, and so I responded quickly in turn to this unassuming mama with a question: Is it possible to have such a party, mind you, void of anything that would resemble the fear filled, and still not celebrate Halloween? Which then begs a clarifying question.
What does it mean to celebrate?
A word interchangeable with celebrate might be affirm.
Question: Suppose you are enjoying a glass of wine at a local restaurant while a few tables down, you witness some apparent over indulgence. You aren’t taken aback, as you’ve been here before and a table showcasing their indulgence is not particularly uncommon. Yet you return from time to time to enjoy a glass, never more than two. Are you affirming getting drunk by continuing to come back?
Question: You happily gratify the tradition of Santa Claus with your children. Sentimentality would see to it that you could not feasibly dismiss the fable. You are aware that Christmas is a holiday based on the birth of Jesus, but you give little thought to that matter. You return every year for the gingerbread houses and present laden pine trees. Are you affirming the faith filled element of Christmas by fashioning a form of celebration on December 25th?
We could have different answers, particularly to the first scenario, as some have chosen to completely disassociate with anything counter to their belief system. They are the ones declining wedding invitations because there is alcohol, and ensuring that everyone says Merry Christmas. They have chosen their game piece. I commend them for their zeal.
Although I’m going to assume that many of you would say no to both scenarios presented. In other words, showing up does not indicate affirmation. It’s what comes next that determines what you believe to be celebratory. Your getting drunk is what would affirm approval with drunkenness. Putting faith in Jesus is what indicates that you celebrate the root of Christmas.
Giving way to the fear filled is what affirms Halloween.
Okay so in that case, a costume party void of zombies, spiders, or skeletons cannot give you reason to believe that we celebrate Halloween. At least not yet. For one question still remains: Why bother? (Seriously, I have needed to ask myself this.) Why not acknowledge Halloween but then sidestep the holiday where possible?
Here is our game piece strategy. We have opted to create an alternative, selecting for ourselves the element that are, on their own, a practice we would encourage. For one, playing dress up! Simultaneously we are highlighting with ease that which is worth altogether dismissing.
Participating in this way actually does not give power to fear or evil but becomes a form of standing against.
We’re creating an alternative which prioritizes an atmosphere of safety and brings benefits to our children and even to ourselves. An alternative that says “Here is what we deem permissible, but we have drawn a hard line.” We are communicating where the issue lies and it’s not costumes or bobbing for apples. It’s fear. A tool that [who we perceive to be] the enemy uses with or without presence of the supernatural.
Christian’s have actually engaged this method of co-opting repeatedly over the centuries. Once Christianity replaced Roman and Druid religions, November 1 (All Saints Day) became a day dedicated to honoring those who had given their lives for the gospel, and in Britain the evening before became one of prayer. The day was called Hallows’ Eve’ (The Holy Evening) but later shortened to Hallowe’en.
The Wesley brothers took bar tunes and turned them into the hymns that our faith history has come to so deeply cherish.
St. Patrick turned the Druid spring bonfires, intended to welcome the return of the sun, into Easter bonfires to acknowledge Jesus’ conquering of death.
Even Christmas trees have pagan roots that made early American settlers resistant towards adapting them. That is until an abundance of German immigrants brought their Christian customs with them and undermined the strict Puritan regulations against Christmas decorations.
As we lead up to Halloween this Tuesday, our family has read and discussed Psalm 23, shared stories about when we’ve been afraid and even talked about the way our circulatory system responds as a science lesson. We have not attempted to unsuccessfully ignore what Halloween is all about, but we have instead chosen to engage our children in a slice of history, begin an awareness of spiritual warfare, highlight our cultures infatuation with fear, and oppose it with a donut laden costume party.
At the end of it all, you may still opt to have nothing to do with it and relegate costumes to another time of year. You may choose to make way for the scary and dive in headfirst. Or you may create your own version of alternative acknowledgment. No matter, we should not enter the season without a semblance of thought. Any choice we make comes with responsibility.
What a gift to have these conversations first with our children. To create a safe place for the conversations that lead to wisdom.