Navigating Halloween as a Christian parent

[Wrongsideofpennines]

Any words of wisdom for managing Halloween with children when your beliefs seem at odds with the 'celebrations'? As a Christian I don't want to celebrating evil, witchcraft etc.

My eldest is 3 and has noticed that homes are decorated for Halloween. They won't understand trick or treating this year and I have no intention of taking them to knock on strangers doors in the dark. But I know this will get increasingly difficult as they get older.

I had planned to ignore it. I was brought up either going to the Light Party at church or staying home in the back room with the lights off. I had hoped to do the same with my children but it is just everywhere - houses decorated, 'spooky season' in the shops and on TV adverts, the childminders house, every baby and toddler group has Halloween special sessions. I don't remember it being this big a deal when I was a child and therefore never felt like I was missing out.

So do I ignore or embrace? Or something better?

Exactly. Halloween started as Samhain. So don’t do a pagan festival if you don’t want to. Up to you.

Great post @Cockerdileteeth Very informative. Personally I think it’s a shame when parents use their religious beliefs to stop their children joining in harmless, fun activities.

My dad was a vicar and we still went trick or treating as kids thirty plus years ago. It's not really "celebrating evil", it's just a bit of cultural fun.

OP as others have said, the pre-Christian Celts celebrated Samhain. This was a way of giving thanks for a bountiful harvest, an offering for a good crop the following year, and the acceptance of harder times to come. The significance of death, was quite simply because the winter months saw an increase in death, very much like modern society where we know deaths are higher in winter. And the darkness which simply signified the shortening of the days. It was the early Christian converts (aka Celtic Christianity) who brought in a more religious significance, and changed the original Samhain festival to All hallows Eve, where the a thinner veil exists between the world of the living and the world of the dead. As Celtic Christianity slowly became under catholic influence (325AD huge meeting in Nicaea ...where Christian's get the Nicean creed from) so Halloween changed slightly and it was now a time to remember those who have died, and a time to pray to a particular saint...in Medieval times pretty much everyone used a saint for their intercessions. And so the 1st of November was traditionally a saints day (and rare holiday/ festival day).
It was only much much later Halloween morphed into something a bit more 'spooky', so some Christian denominations chose to separate themselves from the original festival.
History is your friend here! As for the little words of joy about sacrificing animals and leaving carcasses and bones strewn all around err no, not in any history book I've read, killing off the stock would be futile as you'd have no animals to breed from, yes of course some animals were fattened up over the summer months and then used as food, fuel, and insulation, but there certainly wasn't a mass slaughter, and every inch of the animal would have been used....there simply wasn't the luxury of waste 2000+ years ago!

Oh yeh forgot to add, the carving of the pumpkin, it's unclear when this happened, some historians have argued it was part of the Samhain, some historians have argued that it had Christian significance and was to stop a wondering spirit (not allowed into heaven due to wrong doing) so was said to wonder the earth when the veil between the spirit world and the mortal world was at its thinnest, the Jack O'Latern stopped the wrongdoer from entering and taking refuge in a house, thereby protecting the house from misfortune.

There's a podcast called after dark and an episode on origins of Halloween with lots of talk about Christian relationship you might find it interesting

I was brought up very religiously in the 80s and I hated Halloween. We weren't allowed to celebrate it and we would sit in the dark ignoring the knocks on the doors. I was always terrified someone would attack our house for not joining in, our neighbours house was regularly egged or had loo roll chucked in the garden. My mum made out like it was a terrible, terrible thing and those that joined in were awful people. As a mother now I've enjoyed many, many Halloweens with my kids. It's a really fun, positive experience, the houses with pumpkins that celebrate really seem to love seeing the kids and the costumes. Some in my area make a real effort in decorating their houses. It's definitely a little kids thing though, my DS is 12 and it's probably his last year. His older brothers stopped around his age. My 9 year old DD is Dorothy from the wizard of oz, she won't wear a scary costume. I think if you celebrate Christmas Halloween is not much different!

I was raised Catholic in Ireland and Halloween was massive. We dressed up as witches and lit bonfires and did all the stuff. I loved it.

I left Catholicism in my adult years and joined a Protestant church. I started reading the Bible and my views on Halloween changed.

What Halloween has morphed into is now a celebration of all things dark. Zombies, vampires, demands, witches, the devil, ghosts etc. As a Christian, there are no middle grounds for whether a supernatural entity is of God or not. I'm sure there will be many people who will say, it's just fun, it's all imaginery, I'm a witch and I'm nice, etc etc. Thats OK, you can go and live your life however you wish.

For me, as a practising Christian who believes in a supernatural reality under the surface of the physical one, I don't want to engage in Halloween. I believe that anything that glamorizes the harnessing of and/or manipulating of supernatural power outside of God's, is wrong.

Witchcraft is becoming more widely acknowledged as a benign faith system, with many white witches doing Wicca for example. I'm not here to shame or point my finger at anyone, but for me, as a Christian, all forms of witchcraft operate outside of God's will, both the black and white forms of magic.

In certain parts of the world, witchcraft is taken very seriously indeed, often with very gruesome practises in order to obtain blessings or favour. The things that go on are often disturbing, and as such, I reject Halloween for glamourising it.

I reject the way that it shoehorn quote scary imagery into children's brains. I saw a Halloween party taking place today and there was a 3 year old with fake bloodstains all over her dress. A 6 year old was there with an apron and blood stains on it as well a big knife thing. How anyone could 'go there' in their mind and create a scenario where their child is covered in blood is beyond me. People may accuse.me.of over thinking it, but I can't mentally unsee what I feel.

I don't celebrate it. It was dress up day in school and my kids wore princess costumes and a funny action hero one. They painted a pumpkin for school. Pumpkins are gorgeous, autumn is beautiful, cats and bats are just animals, dressing up as a princess or spiderman is fine. What I'm saying is that I manage to find a balance by asking myself if the specific activity is, in and of itself, inherently wrong. If not, go ahead in the least dark way you can (princess dress, painting pumping in bright colours, doing cat art etc. I don't seek these activities out, but if it's going on in school, I give a little where I can.

I do not buy into the central theme of darkness, fear, terror, and gore. I tell my kids that, and I also tell my kids that in life, sometimes you will have to go against the grain of what everybody else does in order to stay true to what you believe in. I think its a crucial lesson to learn early. Sometimes the right choice for someone is the least popular one. I try to meet my kids half way as a much as I can, so long as I don't feel I'm compromising my beliefs. They had their dress up day in school. On Halloween night, I've arranged a move night with a friend and her kids (Christian).and we'll have all the snacks etc. They are still getting the social aspect without the trick or treat rituals.

Finally, on Halloween night, if there are fireworks going off or something, I show them all of the lights and read them John 1:1, to remind them that Jesus is the light of the world who has already overcome the darkness.

My kids are happy, well adjusted, popular children with happy lives. Not going all-in for Halloween isn't something that weighs heavily on my conscience at all.

Just to say ‘witchcraft’ came before masculine religion. Just saying.

When growing up we had a Baptist minister who stayed next door to us and their kids could dress up as animals so not ghoulish or bloody. Would that be an option OP?

Honestly asking.
What is Christian about dressing up as the devil, witches, zombies, a corpse bride, a car crash victim, a mutilated child? How does any of that embody or even relate to the Gospel or any of the central aspects of Christian doctrine at all? Because I would honestly love to know how it fits in with Jesus? Christian festivals tend to glory Christ, but where is Christ elevated in Halloween?

No one is doubting that witchcraft doesn't have very old origins. It's been around as long as humans have. The unearthed remains of humans sacrificed in pagan cermemonies go back thousands of years. There is nothing new under the sun.

It doesn't make me, as a Christian, more inclined to celebrate Halloween, however.

@Wrongsideofpennines Halloween is not about the occult, devil worshipping or any of the things that Hollywood has ascribed to it to sell movies.

As cockerdileteeth, Sorciere1 and truetruebarneymcgrew have said it’s linked to Samhain. If you’re bringing in a religion to usurp the old ways, then you want to keep your converts happy, so you absorb and update the old ways to keep people onside. The feasts stay but are linked to events in the new religion.

I dislike American-style ‘trick or treating’ so my DSs would go with the childminder and her kids to agreed houses. At home we’d put up decorations, carve pumpkins and sometimes celebrate with friends.

Put your own spin on Halloween.

Blessed be.

Light party at our church too. Fun games, crafts, hot dogs and sweets. Plus we're out the house to avoid trick and treaters. Ideal

This is interesting because I really love Halloween, but have lots of problems with it in its current incarnation, and many of those problems are similar to the Christian ones.

To me Halloween represents the honouring of the passage of time and the natural change of seasons (the "turning of the wheel" in pagan parlance). You take stock of the summer time passed and prepare for the winter ahead. It symbolises a connection to long lost traditions, like lighting lanterns to bring light to the darkness and dressing up to scare away the spirits that have wondered the wrong side of the barrier between worlds. I don't believe that spirits walk the earth on Halloween, but I do like the idea of introducing these ideas to children in playful and gentle ways.

Halloween also represents fun and community. It's a night of small transgressions, like eating lots of sweets and being a bit spooky out at night. Being out at night is fun, seeing neighbours is fun, giving sweets to little excited children is fun.

Anyway, for all of these reasons, I absolutely hate the horror and gore element that has crept it, just the same as I hated the over sexualisation of Halloween in the early 2000s. To me the horror and gore has absolutely no place at Halloween. It should be a gentle and fun first experience with darkness, but one that reminds the child that WE are not of that world. We glimpse it and respectfully co-exist with it while the (metaphorical) barriers are thin, but then we scare that world away with our pumpkins and costumes.

The best Christian arguement against Halloween in my opinion is "we believe spirits are real and evil, so we can't have fun pretending they are here, and we're genuinely afraid of accidentally meeting one". If you feel this way, don't celebrate and tell your kids it's because you think spirits are real. The rest I'm not convinced of. @Isiteverevenreallyover you say you won't dress your kids up as witches because magic is against god - do you apply the same logic to super heroes or Elsa from frozen?

I celebrate Hallowe'en with my children and it most certainly isn't about gore, violence, death or evil. This year one of them will be a pumpkin and one of them a spider. Hardly terrifying symbols of Satan. The theme is more like "autumn". The marking of the passage of seasons is fairly universal across cultures / beliefs.

I think there is an element to which talk of Hallowe'en being a some kind of unholy "celebration of evil" at odds with wholesome faith is a remnant of centuries of anti-pagan (and actually in the case of Hallowe'en anti-catholic) Christian/Protestant propaganda.

You can approach Hallowe'en however you want to, it's not mandatory to paint a slit throat on your preschooler. I don't personally see the need to boycott something that is mostly about community, the changing seasons, and innocent fun because of a minority's bad taste, which will continue whether you participate in Hallowe'en or not. I find much of the rampant consumerism of Christmas to be in bad taste, that doesn't prevent me from celebrating Christmas with my family on my own terms.

Just my 2pence. I expect it is equally not a childhood ruining disaster not to emphasise Hallowe'en.

I try to steer clear of all things magic, yes. I don't make a big deal out of it, or forbid it but if its a choice between a character with magic and one without, I go for the one without. Its a subtle approach and if my daughter really wants to watch Frozen, I let her. Its a very tough subject to tackle and she's too young to understand my reasoning. I'll explain my feelings to her as she gets older but I think for now it would confuse her, so I just try to limit it. I never rated Spiderman's powers much but same for the heroes. I don't make a big deal out of it either, but yes, apply the same logic.

Most people with young DC just see it as an excuse for a bit of fun with their DC

It's really not that deep

Get dressed up

Eat sweets

Op if you want an alternative to Trick or Treat you could take the Scottish (maybe Irish too) rhyme
The sky is blue
The grass is green
Please may I have my Halloween.

Kids are expected to tell a joke, poem or something, before sweets are handed over.

Will we get similar debates about Easter and how Christians feel about chocolate eggs and the Easter bunny?

Weird that as a Christian you don’t know that Santa is based on an actual person Saint Nicholas (Bishop in Turkey). I grew up in a Christian country and Santa us massively celebrated in church and faith schools on December 6th. He is not the one who brings the presents on Christmas though.

Hey!! Witches aren't all bad 👻

Sure, am happy to share my views. I don't do the Easter bunny. Chocolate is fine. Egg shaped chocolate is also OK as there's nothing inherently wrong with eggs, but we don't go mad with them. I eat creme eggs all year round and actually eat just normal hens eggs all the time too. I actually came from an egg, so no hostility towards eggs at all!

Not sure where you live but it's very much a longstanding Christian tradition in the UK. As with all Christian traditions and feast days, they were probably taken from pagan celebrations and appropriated anyway.

The Guardian has an interesting article about begging for 'soul cakes' in English history that I'm going to try and recreate as it was traditional in my area. https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/26/english-heritage-sites-to-give-out-soul-cakes-to-halloween-visitors

Don't celebrate if it makes you uncomfortable but it's originally about scaring away evil and saving souls from purgatory. You are not going to hell for joining in.

Ever heard of a Christian pumpkin lantern. You choose it, wash it, clean it out, carve a smiley face on it and put a light in it. It reminds us that Jesus chose us, cleansed us, forgave our sins, makes us happy, and wants us to shine as a light in the world.