As part of a home school lesson this year I decided to do a study on the origins of Halloween. As a Christian parent, I want to instill in my children a desire to seek TRUTH on all matters and to test all things in light of Scripture.
Personally, I have never felt that is was blatantly wrong to dress up, carve pumpkins, and go door to door to receive candy. In fact, I really like that last part. Dressing up is so much fun, and if I had the extra $, I would even want to participate. I have always wanted to pretend to be
Arwen, the Elven Princess! And pumpkins, well, I just think they are so beautiful! The carving part is a lot of work, but seeing the result with the candle glowing inside is fun. The pumpkin squeezed in between my boys was carved in honor of my love of M&Ms!
In all of my research on Halloween, I found out some very interesting things. Trick-or-treating for example, is an American activity that originated around the 1930's. It was created by local city clubs, such as the Boy Scouts, in an effort to control and displace mischievous pranks. Well, to me it is a good thing to provide alternative to bad things. So my views on this activity remain the same.
I did find out that the celebration of Halloween can be traced all the way back to the ancient Celtic Fire Festival,
Samhain. Since November 1 was the beginning of their New Year, October 31st was to them as December 31st is to us. And yes, they did make animal sacrifices and crop sacrifices to their god/gods on this night. God knows my heart. When we dress up, trick-or-treat, and carve pumpkins, I am in no way honoring anyone but God alone. I am personally not going to get caught up in the "origin" thing, b/c then I wouldn't be able to celebrate Christmas or watch the Olympics, etc, etc...
Many things that have been practiced on Halloween have been nothing but pure evil, so don't get me wrong, I am not trying to promote this holiday as some holy event. I just think it is great, though, when Christians go to the trouble to provide wholesome alternatives to worldly activities!
For anyone interested in further research, I found a few interesting sites on the subject.
http://www.new-life.net/halowen1.htmhttp://www.new-life.net/halowen2.htmhttp://www.thercg.org/articles/totuh.htmlI am sure there are plenty of other wonderful sites, but I just didn't have the time or energy to go any further!! Let me know what you think.
The kids were so excited about getting candy! Lincoln got a little upset right before we left, so he didn't fully cooperate for the group photo. Hmmm, seems like there are quite a few of these types of pictures in our files.
Shiloh was such a good girl and the boys took very good care of her. If she was too scared to go to the door, Lincoln would bring back a piece of candy for her.
Just look at her--she is gorgeous. She loved the bucket that I let her use for trick-or-treating.
After searching for peanut candy in Lincoln's bucket, any off limits candy due to Mullin's braces, and finally any and all candy that wasn't fit for a 2 year old, they got the green light to dig in.
