Halloween

You can feel it in the air – the cooler days, leaves falling, spooky decorations, scary movies, and grocery stores filled with candy – these are just some of the signs that Halloween is right around the corner. It has become one of the most popular holidays on the calendar.

Many people love to celebrate Halloween. Even some Christians celebrate it while other Christians aren’t sure if they should, and still others avoid it all together. Most Christians don’t have much of a problem celebrating the fall season or harvest time. In fact, many churches and communities have Fall or Harvest festivals. But actually celebrating or participating in Halloween is an altogether different and controversial subject.  And it becomes even more complicated when it comes to Christians deciding how to handle Halloween with their kids. So before we talk about how we might approach Halloween with our kids, let’s look briefly at why it is so controversial.

To understand why many Christian parents are hesitant about what to do with Halloween, you need to understand that the holiday does have pagan roots. It began over 2,000 ago with the Celts as they celebrated the transition from summer to winter with a festival symbolizing moving from life to death. This celebration included sacrifices, observances of the dead, and the belief that the spirits of the deceased could mingle with living loved ones on Halloween.

As Christianity grew in popularity, the holiday transitioned to “All Saints Day,” celebrating the saints that had gone on to eternity. However, many of the pagan origins and practices of the holiday became mixed in with what Christians were doing. In America around the 1800s, the pagan traditions of the holiday remained but it became blended with community gatherings and festivals. However, practices such as trick or treating and wearing costumes and masks, that are still popular today and a big part of Halloween, do have pagan roots that don’t honor God. In addition, many of the beliefs surrounding Halloween at its origin are not Christian, such as exchanging soul cake for prayers, talking with the dead, and paying the church to secure a place in heaven.

You can begin to see from the holiday’s origin, that much about it counter the beliefs of Christianity. You can begin to see why many Christians are confused about what to do with Halloween, and even more so concerned about how to approach it with their children.

So with this, let’s turn to a discussion of how we might approach Halloween this year with our kids.

1.     We need to keep it real with our kids

 Halloween is a real holiday with a high profile in our society. Your kids are going to find out about it even if you try to hide it from them or shelter them from it.  You might consider Halloween as a time to ask open questions to your kids about what they know about the holiday, what they hear their friends saying about it, and how they feel about Halloween. This can lead into a discussion with your kids why you have chosen to celebrate Halloween, or how you have chosen to celebrate it, or why you don’t. Giving them a chance to voice their thoughts, giving them the opportunity to be heard and hear your thoughts and position in a calm conversation, is often a better approach than a heavy-handed “I’m the parent and here is what we are doing or not doing.” At the end of the day, you are the parent and you have the responsibility to determine what is best for your children and your home concerning how or if Halloween will be celebrated. However, the other thing to keep in mind is, at some point, they will get big enough to determine what they will do with Halloween, so it is usually better to help them form a solid view of the holiday, like other things in life, based on God’s Word, rather than making them follow your rules that they may not understand or own later in life.

2.     Light and Darkness

It is important as the parent to explain there is a fun side to the holiday – eating candy, dressing up in costumes, being with friends, visiting other homes and carving pumpkins. However, there is also a dark side.  As mentioned above, the origins of the holiday do conflict with the core values of Christianity.  Halloween is a great opportunity to discuss with your kids why you are a Christian and the difference your faith in Christ makes in your life and family.  Halloween can be a time for more than the actual holiday – it can be a time to talk about the bigger issues of life as they relate to your faith.  It is a good time to talk about living as people of the light, representing Jesus, in a dark and broken world.

3.     Safety

While Halloween can be a fun holiday, it can also be a dangerous holiday.  It is a day where kids have been abducted, abused, hurt and died. This reality must be addressed with our kids when it comes to Halloween. Here are some things that need to be discussed with your kids:

• Caution should be given to any strangers approaching them

• Trick or treating only at the homes of people they know

• Not eating any candy until you as the parent have the opportunity to look at (it used to be that some sick people would put sharp objects like razorblades in candy, and while this still might happen, today the greater danger seems to be lacing candy with drugs or mixing in fentanyl because it can look like candy)

• If your kids are going out without you, make sure they stay in the group with their friends and don’t get separated or go off on their own

Finally, Halloween, no matter what approach you decide upon can be used to help your kids do critical thinking, evaluate and own their own values and principles and learn how to make their own decisions while they are still young and in your home. And most importantly, because you are calmly discussing the issues with them, it will send the message they are being heard, their thoughts and opinions matter to you, and this validates them, bringing you both closer to together.