As president Obama likes to say, let me be clear. The reason our little family doesn’t celebrate Halloween is not because we are stick-in-the-mud Christians who are irrationally afraid of the “evil” that Halloween promotes but rather, it’s because we believe we are being good stewards of our money.
I have counted at least three different posts on the Internet from Christian writers that accuse Christians who don’t want to celebrate Halloween of bolting their doors and turning off their lights on the neighborhood (i.e., the world!) and not wanting to be a witness. Apparently we’re too afraid of all the evil that might rub off on us and our children through celebrating this holiday and we retreat to the backs of our homes with the lights off hoping all the little annoying neighborhood kids in their Satanic costumes will go away. People sometimes assume if we’re not participating, we therefore don’t want to ”witness” to a lost and dying world.
The reason our family doesn’t “celebrate” (not even sure why “celebrate” and “Halloween” go together) is because we’re too cheap! I sincerely think that buying costumes for the kids and candy for the whole neighborhood for what is really, the stupidest of all holidays, is a complete waste of money. It has nothing to do with not wanting to be salt and light to the people around us. I’m just hard pressed to think of a more useless cause for our money to go to than costumes they wear once and leftover candy that I don’t allow our kids to eat anyway. All for what? So the kids have something fun to do? So they don’t feel left out? On a whim today, my husband took our two kids to a pumpkin patch so I could stay home and get some homeschooling work done. They got their face painted, petted some fun animals and bought me some decorative squash to put on the table. All for under twenty dollars. So it’s not as though our kids don’t have fun. And our four year old daughter plays “dress up” all the time and will get to wear a princess costume next week when she pretends to be Pharoah’s daughter.
So I wish Christians who particpate in Halloween wouldn’t assume that those of us who don’t are too chicken. Too chicken to get involved in an “evil” holiday and too chicken to witness to non Christians. That’s not the case at all. We’re just too cheap.
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I’ve seen a lot written about how Christians “should” respond to Halloween. Some say avoid it; some say “redeem” it.
I agree with you that it’s a waste of money and certainly unhealthy; who needs all those empty calories?
Taking the kids to the pumpkin patch was certainly more appropriate and fun anyway.
Yeah, thanks Debbie. I don’t look down upon Christians who celebrate it – some of the younger kids look super cute in the costumes. I’ve just reached my limit in hearing from Christians that put down Christians who don’t celebrate it – that they’re afraid of evil and not being witnessess. That’s just not true…