Halloween

[serin]

Whats the low down on Halloween from a Christian point of veiw? I am not a killjoy but can't imagine my DD with devils horns! (Her brothers maybe!!!). Our local CofE Church is having a festival of Light, our local Methodist Church is having a fancy dress Halloween ball and our local ASDA is having a field day!

I dont know but I dont celebrate it and there is no way my children will either.

I think it is a lot of old tosh and a great way for stores to make lots of money and I refuse to have anything to do with it.

and do people really think their kids look cute dressed up as devils and witches.

I think not.

It just all seems a bit sinister to me, we had kids call last year who had blood (fake presumably!) dripping down their faces.

We have cousins in US who hand out sweets wrapped in an invitation to attend their local childrens Sunday service, but they do get complaints from the parents.

Each to their own but its a big fun tradition in our family, going back to when we were all kids. We have a party, the kids make decorations and food, we don't spend hardly anything and they mainly dress as fairies etc TBH, they don't want to look too gross! IMO its harmless if done in the right way, just like Christmas. We just get very over-excited about any opportunity to be silly and have a party. But thats just us. Don't really agree with trick or treating - think its a bit rude and scary for some people - would never do that with ours.

All Hallow's Eve Christian Perspective.

Thanks Chankins and Flamesparrow,

Loved the tale of the Jack O'Lantern, might do one of them then!

Round here if you want trick or treaters you usually display something in the window to indicate you're 'participating'. A pumpkin or a skeleton type thing. The more people who do that the more the non-participators are left alone.

Make sure your lights are out and don't answer the door is all I can think of.

I quite like Halloween (have fond memories of it as a child when my best friend had brilliant parties - and we were al good Catholics) and I love getting sweeties ready for trick or treat- sometimes I make decorative things to put them in.
However, I don't encourage ds to go out trick or treating himself and he's never really wanted to - he prefers to be at home and hand out sweets. I did ask my friend's child if they were trick or treating this year, thinking that they must knock on our door, and he replied that they didn't do Halloween as they are Christians (which I knew, but had forgotten they might not hold with it).

Just a basic "No trick or treaters" - no-one will care enough to read an explanation as to why, just a basic yay or nay.

"Sod off" would work too

i like being halloweeny in the home, and taking dd to her creepy crawlie disco at school, but i will never take them trick or treating and knock on a strangers door for lots of reasons

i find halloween fun - to a certain extent, what really does annoy me is when u have teenagers knocking at the door with a cheap mask on expecting to be given money or the constant hammering when u are obviousley ignoring the door and u have kids in bed, what i do is buy sweets and fruit, and open the door for the first hour or so till my stock has been used up, then i just ignore after that. Loopymummy, i dont reccomend u put a note up, i think that would just make the nasty kids more determined to knock at your door, i dont see the harm in spending maybe a pound on a few 10p mixes and just handing them out, it is only once a year after all.

i doesnt understand why parents allow thier children to imitate the druids, that use to wear masks and custumes to burn animals and humans during the fire rights (pagan festival).

According to who?

LOL you are a card, dadtob

webster dictonary, isnt webster dictonary a worldwide accepted book? if not please correct my initial post

sorry i take out the ''(duid festival)'' text apologises once again

i mean its a druid festival not pagan...

Halloween is not Pagan or Druid.

It is a primarily Christian festival, regardless of what some Christians may think of it.

If you want to discuss Samhain, that is a different matter.

I will keep repeating this all over MN if I have to, until people get it.

sorry satangeorge just stating what websters says.
"".....Its earliest roots are found in the Druidic holiday of death....."

that is where i got my statement from.

I don't like Halloween for lots of faith reasons, but alos hate it when my 1 yo comes home from nursery with a set of devil's horns on that he has made there. I want to hand out swetts this time as I cannot do the lights out I'm not at home thing, but want to wrap them up in some sort of piece of paper with a christian message on it, but everything I think of sounds a bit cheesy - any of you clever chaps got a good sound bite tucked up your sleeve?

We do Halloween and the trick or treat thing... the husband is American. MiL sends ds his outfits every year, he's been a dalmation, Superman, and this year he's a Transformer. I think he's the only kid around here that isn't dressed as something scary!

I'm new to Christianity, but I don't think there's anything wrong with giving and receiving sweeties.

Sure, there's a pagan festival around this time, which I have been involved in in the past, but trick or treating doesn't have any bearing on the remembrance of the dead meals and rituals I was involved in.