OT: Halloween

Ditto Sara B. and my3boys. Plus we don’t live in a hot spot for trick or treaters so we don’t hand out candy. Grandma & Grandpa come and walk around the neighborhood w/us and the boys and then we order pizza and hang out. Its pretty low-key.

We don’t do Halloween. I just can’t see a good reason to do it and there are certainly lots of bad practices that can be associated with it so we prefer just not to start. Not far from here, in Salem MA, Halloween is BIG and it is evil. It kind of scares me off the whole thing. But I could see if we lived somewhere else there might be other issues and influences.

Nebby

http://www.lettersfromnebby.wordpress.com

For the past 12 years, our family has chosen not to celebrate halloween – mostly for the obvious reasons of its origin. Robin Sampson has an excellent article & video http://heartofwisdom.com/blog/should-christians-observe-halloween/ , which sums up our reasoning. May you all enjoy a beautiful Autumn.

We don’t celebrate it.  Ditto ServingWithJoy and csmamma.  Another verse that always come to my mind is

Philippians 4:8
Finally, brothers and sisters, 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.

I don’t feel I can ask my children to celebrate Halloween when, for example, this morning we read in the Bible how King Josiah tore down every alter to idols in the land.

I think someone mentioned what about Christmas/Christmas trees.  True, Christmas (celebrating Christ’s birth) replaced a pagan festival, and the Christmas tree was changed to focus on Christ’s death on the tree.  So the way we handle that is to hang only nativity decorations up, and we talk lots about what Christmas is about…and what it’s NOT about.  Jesus becomes very much the central focus.  We talk about what it meant for him to hang on the tree.  I know though that Christians differ in this area.

Halloween seems different from Christmas in that it has nothing to do with Christianity  and I have no reason to celebrate it personally.  Unlike Christmas, it’s a night dedicated to the occult by practicing pagans around the world.

HTH

Blessings

No. It’s a witches’ holiday, the witch’s New Year, also called Samhain. God hates witchcraft and says not to mix light with darkness. 

Samhain, (pronounced SOW-in, SAH-vin, or SAM-hayne) means “End of Summer”, and is the third and final Harvest. The dark winter half of the year commences on this Sabbat. 

It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two “spirit-nights” each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted. Communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easy at this time, for they journey through this world on their way to the Summerlands. It is a time to study the Dark Mysteries and honor the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, symbolized by the Crone and her aged Consort. 

Originally the “Feast of the Dead” was celebrated in Celtic countries by leaving food offerings on altars and doorsteps for the “wandering dead”. Today a lot of practitioners still carry out that tradition. Single candles were lit and left in a window to help guide the spirits of ancestors and loved ones home. Extra chairs were set to the table and around the hearth for the unseen guest. Apples were buried along roadsides and paths for spirits who were lost or had no descendants to provide for them. Turnips were hollowed out and carved to look like protective spirits, for this was a night of magic and chaos. The Wee Folke became very active, pulling pranks on unsuspecting humans. Traveling after dark was was not advised. People dressed in white (like ghosts), wore disguises made of straw, or dressed as the opposite gender in order to fool the Nature spirits. 

This was the time that the cattle and other livestock were slaughtered for eating in the ensuing winter months. Any crops still in the field on Samhain were considered taboo, and left as offerings to the Nature spirits. Bonfires were built, (originally called bone-fires, for after feasting, the bones were thrown in the fire as offerings for healthy and plentiful livestock in the New Year) and stones were marked with peoples names. Then they were thrown into the fire, to be retrieved in the morning. The condition of the retrieved stone foretold of that person’s fortune in the coming year. Hearth fires were also lit from the village bonfire to ensure unity, and the ashes were spread over the harvested fields to protect and bless the land. 

Various other names for this Greater Sabbat are Third Harvest, Samana, Day of the Dead, Old Hallowmas (Scottish/Celtic), Vigil of Saman, Shadowfest (Strega), and Samhuinn. Also known as All Hallow’s Eve, (that day actually falls on November 7th), and Martinmas (that is celebrated November 11th), Samhain is now generally considered the Witch’s New Year. 

About 10 years ago I worked at a doctor’s office. After a new girl was hired, I was in charge of training her. After a a week, she related to me that she practiced Wicca, which is witchcraft. And that she actually belonged to a local coven, which is a group of witches. The things she told me about the significance of Halloween for them chilled me to the bone. Our office was a “christian” practice and I suspect she agreed to the mission statement just to “get in”. Once she was hired she caused all kinds of problems both corporately and spiritually. She was fired not long after that but what I learned stuck with me. As a Christian, and the mom of a then 3 year old, we had been going to our church’s trunk-o-treat, etc. However, after that encounter I began to see that day for what it was and God spoke to me through that. I realize it is a personal choice for each family, yes, but I just don’t see anything good coming from celebrating that day. It is just evil in my opinion. We basically treat that day as no different from the rest.

This year we have actually found some like minded families getting together on November 3rd to celebrate Reformation Day! We are excited! “Martin Luther” will be speaking and there will be yummy fall food. For two years we rented a cabin in the mountains during that time to unwind as a family by paying board games and watching movies. This got us away from the trick or treaters that bang down my door every year, regardless of the sign I place out.

Robin Sampson’s blog post was a really good one on the subject also.

As for the Christmas tree thing….that is a current discussion in my family. Each year we keep scaling back. I struggle with it each year. Right now we do a Jesse Tree and we read through the Ytreeide books. We don’t do anything with Santa either. For us it is focused solely on Christ’s birth. My husband sees alot of symbolism in the tree and how it demonstrates so many things about Christ, as someone else mentioned. Sort of as if it has been redeemed of sorts. I can see both sides so we are in prayer about this. However, for us we just don’t see how Halloween can be “redeemed”. KWIM? So, it’s a BIG NO for us.

We also don’t take mention of Easter. We do not do baskets, egg hunting, etc. We celebrate Resurrection Day in stead. We read the Resurrection Story and bake resurrection rolls and sings great songs and worship at church.

We don’t.  Simple rule: if it doesn’t honor God, then we don’t celebrate it.  We celebrate Easter as Resurrection Day and Christmas as a Jesus birthday party. 

Having read all of the prior posts, I must say I still see that there is no correct answer to this issue. If we were to analyze many “traditions” or “practices,” we would see that a large majority of them have no Biblical basis and many actually come from pagan practices.

In fact, the simple act of celebrating birthdays is a pagan practice. The only 2 times that a birthday celebration is mentioned in the Bible were pagan celebrations. In Genesis 40, the Egyptian Pharoah’s birthday is mentioned. On this occassion he had the chief baker hanged. In Matthew 14, Herod’s birthday is celebrated. The result of that celebration is John the Baptists head being requested by Herodias. (I’d say neither of these are desirable results.)

The Bible gives no date for Jesus’ birthday and we know it wasn’t Dec 25th. Also, in the years he walked the earth, we see no mention of celebrating his birth. He did tell us to remember his body and blood when we drink or break bread, but never did he tell us to honor his birth. 

I do not say this in order to convince you that we shouldn’t celebrate Jesus’ birth. I simply mean to point out that all holidays could fall under great scrutiny. We must use discernment and respond as the Lord convicts us individually. I believe that we should look into each activity that takes up our time (even just one day) and consider whether it is worthy of that time. Is there any part of that activity that causes us to dishonor the Lord? Is there any benefit coming from that activity? The answers could actually be different for each family.

As for our family, we participated for many years in Halloween. I never allowed any costumes that I deemed inappropriate (whether it be immodest or ghoulish, Satanic, etc.). I had detailed conversations with my kids about these things. However, after much discussion and consideration every year, they chose to stop the participation in the Holiday; because of it’s negativity but also because of the wastefulness involved. 

We have had a Christmas tree in the past as well; however, I don’t  know if we will this year because we simply may not have room for it. We have downsized to a much smaller house. If we have no room for a table to eat together, we probably won’t have room for a tree. 🙂

Perhaps one way to determine if any item should go is to ask yourself if you could go without it. If losing the tree would ruin your holiday, then perhaps you’ve placed too much value on it. Just a thought.