I have long been conflicted about celebrating Halloween. I grew up not participating in Halloween in any way. I am perfectly fine with that and do not feel like I missed out at all. It was rather easy, in fact. We lived in the country and so no one came knocking on our door anyhow. Now my family and I live in town and I find there are more aspects to consider about Halloween. We have neighbors that are going to come knocking on our door whether we have our light on or not, I realized when we first moved in. That year I wasn't prepared and had to give out candy bars to our new neighbors. :) oops! Though I don't like Halloween, I do love to give. (It's one of my favorite things about Christmas.) So even before we had kids, we decided that we would definitely turn on our light and hand out candy and be friendly. We needed the opportunity to see our neighbors more! Now that we have a child of our own, the questions only grow. This year we will be handing out candy and if Millie would like to dress up, she can. I always loved dressing up as a kid. Halloween or not, imagination and dressing up is always encouraged at our house!
I will always be opposed to the dark, sinful aspects of Halloween. And for now, we choose not to go trick or treating.
Do you trick or treat? Do your kids? Did you as a kid?
Here are a couple articles from Focus on the Family president Jim Daly I've read recently on the subject..
Halloween and Christianity
Halloween: Trick or Treat or Abstain?
He makes some very good observations and the comments are also quite interesting, good and entertaining. :)
