I mentioned to Amanda on a post at Impress Your Kids that I had a lot of thinking to do about how we are going to approach Halloween and celebrate it as a family. In conversations with Hubby over the weekend, we as a family have A LOT of discussing to do before this is settled. Thankfully we have eleven months before we need to tackle the next ordeal.
Most of the difficulty I have with fully participating in Halloween is with trick or treating. I love the dress up part when the kids are cute, fun characters. But when they want to dress up like witches, the undead, and other scary characters is when I get uncomfortable. And some of the houses in our neighborhood go all out with their decorations, including gravestones, skeletons, and (ew) monstrous spiders.
I personally do not like being scared. Scary images stay with me, and yes, they tend to give me nightmares. I remember when Hubby and I were dating the M. Night Shamallan movie Signs was brand new. I had nightmares from that movie, and I can still get freaked out about it even seven years later. Some of those images are engraved on my brain.
And those are not the things that I want in my mind. I want and need to fill my mind with good things. With things of God.
Reflect on this: your mind is like the open candy sacks that kids held open on Saturday night. They were asking others to fill their sacks with whatever they wanted to give. What if they were handing out real scorpions instead of candy?
Your mind is the same way. It is an open vessel waiting to be filled. Will you allow others to make choices for you and fill your mind with what they whatever they want to?
We need to be careful about what goes into our minds.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
Philippians 4:8
I've done a lot of thinking about things like this since I became a parent. I think our culture in general underestimates the importance of being scared. I mean, there are all sorts of horror movies and scary shows and Halloween-associated things. The more we expose ourselves to things like that, the more numb we become to them & the more it takes to scare us.
ReplyDeleteBut as I've thought about it, I've realized that I WANT my children to be scared of certain things. I want them to keep the innocense and purity of childhood, rather than becoming jaded & thinking gruesome, evil, scary things are just "no big deal."
I think my position on this solidified when hearing my brother defend some of the (to my mind) inappropriate movies he lets my nephew watch. "He's fine - it doesn't scare him." Yeah - but maybe it should.
I agree. I was quite uneasy with our experience this year for the first time. I think it's because it was the first time that we really went out "trick or treating". I like having my kids dress up in cute costumes, especially as they are young....it's just fun. But they were really scared of many of the costumes they saw as we were out and about. I'm just not sure that it's worth it for them to be so scared and like you said, have those images in their minds. We have some discussing to do in our home as well.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just do a trunk or treat or a fall festival at your church and skip the neighborhood trick or treating? I don't see what that part has to be included in the tradition. I think new families are about creating new traditions.
ReplyDeleteI'm a Christian too and "halloween" has been an issue for me as an adult. I grew up in a Christian home and we trick/treated. As an adult following Christ, I had much thinking about the obvious to do. Here's my bottom line.
ReplyDeleteWe don't celebrate the "evil" and honestly as a born-again Christian, halloween is a bit like Christmas and Easter. They all have pagan input or roots. Christians make it "Christian" and non-christians make it pagan if they choose.
Halloween is a PERFECT time to get out tracts to those searching for hope- those you haven't met Jesus Christ yet! That is my focus at halloween. My oldest is 5 so we can look ahead to other issues in the future. For now, its fun for him to dress up (nothing evil) and get free candy.
The scary stuff makes me so uneasy too. I guess I'm still figuring it all out too, but so far I try to talk a lot about this with my 4 year old, and will do the same when my 2 year old can understand. In our own home, we don't watch Scooby Doo or movies with ghosts, goblins etc mostly because of the IMAGES. They ARE scary and I don't want my boys desensitized or going to bed thinking of something creepy.
ReplyDeleteHalloween is trickier for me though. We work hard at staying focused on the good fun and if something scary appears in our neighborhood, we talk about it (in understandable language), how we feel about it and why it's not something we want in our lives or home (while trying not to sound harshly judgmental of people who display scary stuff...yeah tricky). If that rambling makes any sense at all, it'll be a miracle.
I LOVE the social part of Halloween. Our neighborhood comes alive with friendliness and community, and I think it's really important for my kids to learn that they're a part of that and can be their own little lights in the darkness...literally :)
I don't blame you. My husband and I took our 4 year old trick or treating and there was one house that was over the top with this little scary enclosed walk up to the door complete with several things that I thought inappropriate for young kids. Sometimes there isn't enough moderation. But then I have similar complaints about prime time television too.
ReplyDeleteAs a VERY non-confrontational person (my easy way of saying "I'm keeping my nose out of the fight" LOL) my only comment is that I hope you and your husband reach a consensus that you're both happy with.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking about you since last week. Grace got SO MUCH candy and treats on Halloween; it was crazy. Fortunately, a lot of it are things like Goldfish crackers and pretzels. But there's just so much of it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I hate Halloween. If Grace wouldn't be aware of being left out, we would skip it all together.
She is aware of the holiday, though, so I play along. But I still hate the scary focus that it always seems to have.