Halloween

I have struggled with this holiday. In previous years, it hasn't been a a big issue because good ol New Zealand doesn't really recognise it. And the kids haven't really been old enough to have caught on to the advertising. But this year seems different. 

It feels like love it or hate it,  American culture is having huge influence our little Island. I actually love America and it's people but I want to be picky about what we adopt from our big brother neighbour and not just jump on every band wagon because America does it. (Starbucks, and New Zealand Idol are case in point.) And this year my kids definitely know about Halloween. Boy do they know about it.  Every bit of junk mail through our letter box this month has  had halloween advertising on it. Costumes, candy, decorations and every kid show on TV has been doing halloween specials. My kids are so excited about it, they are counting down the days on the calendar. 

As a Christian I was unsure how I was supposed to respond to the holiday and for simplicity opted just to say that 'yes it was a holiday that some people participated in, but that we weren't going to in our family.' But this wasn't right either because our church hosts a light party every year as a kind of halloween alternative, a big party for the kids on Halloween so technically in helping out and attending that, we were celebrating halloween and my kids were getting confused. Heck I was getting confused.  

Like a lot of things lately, the whole issue had snuck up on me without me having sat down with Marcus and worked out how we were going to intentionally parent our kids around this issue. I was tying myself up in knots, making up blanket rules without explanations and then contracting myself.  Did I not like Halloween because of the candy that promotes tooth decay? Was it the commercialism I didn't like? Was it the forcing of American culture on our New Zealand identity? Was it the fact that it celebrated death and darkness and scary stuff when we should be celebrating good? What was the history behind it?  Should it be something that Christians participate in or stay clear of? 

I was so grateful when a beautiful friend of mine, posted this article on her Facebook wall.  It is wordy, but boy did it answer most my questions.  The history of this little holiday with it's traditions is pretty fascinating, as is the church's influence, and the last part of the article gave me the freedom I was looking for to decide for ourselves what was the best fit for our family.  

So we have decided to adopt some little halloween traditions like the carving of the jack o lanterns. We have friends staying this long weekend so it was a great activity to do together and as we designed and carved them I was able to talk to the kids about the history of jack o lanterns and why people originally made them to scare away evil spirits. I was also able to teach them that as Christians we don't need to fear any evil spirits because we have God and God is our protector.  

At bedtime I read them Psalm 91 and we talked about when we are scared we can call out to God. Who would have thought that jack o lanterns would be such a valuable tool for leading back to God. Tonight when I walked past these lanterns all lit up,  I was reminded that yes death is all around us, all the time. Fear or worry of the unknown could consume us but God offers us a life without fear. Death has no sting.