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?

As a Christian, I don't want to engage in any activity which is built on the premise of the souls of the dead being on earth, after having died. Remembering our beloved departed, is one thing, contemplating a day where the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, is something else. Something I have researched, know about and prefer not to engage in.

But isn't all this a human interpretation of something of which we can't possibly be certain? How can there be a 'veil between the living and the dead?' I'm genuinely interested. I don't usually subscribe to 'woo' but I accept that we don't know everything.

I absolutely hate how shops get decorated with tombstones and coffins alongside witches/ skeletons etc. I am in lreland. I complained once and the guy said...get a life!! But l cannot see anything to celebrate around coffins/ death where children are concerned. Surely if we needed a coffins for our child we would be devastated.

We mostly ignored it with our dc. We lived out the country so it wasn't such a big deal. If they were dressing up in school they choose their favourite costume but we steered clear of witches and demons/ devil's.

There is a poem which describes Hallowe’en called appropriately,
Hallowe’en, by Leonard Clark, the last two lines
answer all doubts that it is indeed a pagan and superstition based ritual,
the last night of fun for witches and demons, begone, cleared out now for
the advent of Christmas, angels, goodwill, family, babies and home.

It must be very comforting having a grave of a loved one to visit, tend,
commune, it’s respectful.
My grandad’s grave is a mass of forget me nots in Spring, when we visit,
all relatives in close proximity.

La Toussaint in France, chrysanthemums in glory on plain graves, total respect.
I’m not too sure of the Day of the Dead in Mexico, also ritualistic, inclusive
without a doubt.

I noticed there is some real anxiety and fear of witchcraft in this thread. As a European/US pagan and a witch, I assure you the witches I know are generally keen on herbal medicine, green witchery, benign spells and divination. They are nature worshippers.
Most witches believe in karma and the rule of 3... whatever you put out will be returned by 3.
So there is nothing to fear from us. Modern witches have embraced Halloween too, that's okay.
Below Professor Ronald Hutton, an expert on modern Western paganism talks about modern Western witchcraft, which is benign vs. other cultures where it is not.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vxl70A9ArF8

@HughCanoe thanks for explaining your belief on the matter. I do appreciate it.

Not at all Wanderinghome. I grew up in Ireland. I can't get used to Autumn starting in September, for me it's always 1 August with 1 February as the first day of Spring. For me St Brigid's Day for others Imbolc.

I wonder why people insist on calling themselves "Christian" when Christian is actually a very vague term. I think they should narrow it down and identify the specific strand of Christianity so it would be possible to trace the origins of certain ideas around ancient religious and secular feasts. There are a great many Christian denominations, and they don't share beliefs, even around basic elements of religious belief systems like what happens after death. My church throws a 'light party' daily. It's called Mass.

As to the distaste for the current commercial form of Hallowe'en - is that not just a matter of aesthetic preference?

The question of encouraging children to interact with strangers too - separating the world into "Us" and "Strangers" creates a deep well of fear and distrust in society. It gives children too much awareness of danger and plants the seeds of a habit of mind that is distrustful and afraid, which males community building very difficult. People you don't know become people you know through encounter and interaction. And children are not unable to grasp that rules come with exceptions - otherwise they would expect to wake up on the 26th of December to find presents under the tree, or insist on setting off for school on the first day of the summer holidays.

Protecting your child from fears isn't a rational parental aim. Every child with a working imagination has fears. The trick is to show that you as a parent are ready and willing to listen to your children's fears and not make the subject of those fears seem more serious or more frightening than they seem to the child.

Children can't be protected from frightening things across the board. They can be exposed to the reality of life in small doses. There's no need for a child of four to be watching the evening news or exposed to reports from the current battlefield or mass shooting. But they will naturally come up with questions about death and suffering through the loss of beloved pets and family members and neighbours, and their concerns about these parts of life can't just be shushed or swept away with a change of subject, or through avoiding funerals or goodbyes.

Children can be shown that they can rely on their parents to talk to when they feel frightened or sad or bewildered. A once a year exposure to masks or costumes or items like tombstones can actually bring certain important themes into focus and can be an important part of building a child's trust in a parent's ability to exist in the world as it is, the world the children live in, as opposed to avoiding it or hiding from it or being cross about it.

I think it's important for children to feel their parents are confident and culturally fluent navigators of the world, not people who washed up from somewhere else with no or few ties to the culture of the society they find themselves living in. An experience like that can damage children far more than the sight of a vampire at a supermarket checkout.

It seems to me that parents sitting the family in the back room of a darkened house out of fear was an example of inflicting trauma on children that could have been avoided by simply buying a few bags of cheap sweets and getting over themselves?

Yes, I agree with this very broadly.

I wouldn't use the word magic, but Bruno Bettelheim in "The Uses of Enchantment", imo correctly identifies and explains the importance of the myths and legends and fairy tales we expose children to. Santa Claus, for instance, fosters confidence in the abundance of the universe (if you're a believer in God, you could easily translate that into a belief in the absolute goodness of God).

I initially gave the simple reply of just recognize that it is secular for most, but I just had to come back to this thread because I just can’t get past the absurdity.

at Christmas we have Christians telling people they shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas if they aren’t Christian. This is true even though the holiday is really a winter solstice celebration co-opted by Christianity and now morphed into its current hybrid secular-religious form.

now at Halloween we have traditional fall festivals that were again co-opted by Christianity and turned into religious festivals known as Halloween and All Saints’ Day. Yet now the christians are trying to ret-con the holiday and disclaim the heavy religious association, instead pretending it is a celebration of evil.

@Ponderingwindow
I think the Scots and Irish churches have always recognised Halloween.
I don't think the Church of England has ever recognised it as a festival of any description. Hence the view that it's an 'American thing' rather than a Celtic thing. I don't know about Wales.

If CoE has never recognised it, why would they want to be associated with it now that its all pumpkins, nylon outfits and plastic decorations, Not a bin bag witch, bed sheet ghost, turnip, apple or monkey nut in sight.

@Wrongsideofpennines just sending you a supportive hug and to say you are demonstrating wisdom.

My takeaway from all it is that some Christians are now learning how it feels to have a celebration you don't like and don't want to celebrate forced upon them!

My takeaway from your post is that Christians don't force celebrations on anyone. If you dislike "Christian festivals", feel free to ignore them. The vast majority of people "celebrating" them aren't even Christians! There is absolutely nothing in Christianity that suggests people should overload five supermarket trollies with food and drink they probably won't use at specific times of the year.

You're right - loaves and fishes, just in time catering rather than hoarding (Christian here)

Hmm, it's kind of hard to ignore all the Christmas carols, tv programmes, and creches. As a child my family would happily spend Christmas in NYCs Chinatown, a holiday free zone.
I do, like Elphame, find a certain mordant pleasure in the complaints against an unreservedly pagan holiday!

You are right @HughCanoe . If midwinter is 21st December then it stands to reason that winter began on 1st November. Therefore springs begins on 1st Feb St Brigid's Day / Imbolc. It annoys the hell out of me when ppl describe the spring Equinox as the beginning of spring - as opposed to the middle.

Who is forcing anyone to celebrate anything?

Hello! I'm sorry that I'm just replying as we have had a hectic few days and I've not been feeling very well to boot. I am absolutely do not feel put on the spot and love talking about my faith; nobody ever initiates a conversation about it so I rarely get the chance. Unfortunately I don't think I'm not going to be very articulate so bear with me. I don't think i have the energy to look for all thr Bible verses but I will come back and add them on when I'm feeling a bit better, if you want me to.

Before I answer, I do want to state that anything I say is in the spirit of answering your question, and not an attack on anyone. I also want to include some information to provide some context as to why I feel so strongly about this issue.

I became a Christian in adulthood, in my thirties. I went through 14 years of Catholic school in Ireland, but was very agnostic in my beliefs. I explored a lot of avenues. I attended a Buddhist centre and I looked into Islam. However, the main area that attracted me the most was New Age, where I became very involved in divination. I read the tarot and angel cards and started a process of discovery involving 'white magic'. I was very into horoscopes, angels, and spirit guides and very much came at it from the attitude that I was a good person sending good vibes into the 'universe' and trying to ascend so I could be a lightworker for mankind. As an Irish person, I felt a connection to my druid and Celtic ancestors. I found it all very fascinating. I loved Halloween and certainly felt it really connected to my Scorpio nature. Its a myth that Christians are a monolith of unthinking robots who are ignorant to other faith/ideological systems. There are plenty of us with stories to tell!

Anyway, there was a pattern of my mental health falling to absolute pieces the more I got involved in these practises. It got to a point where I remember thinking that I was dying on the inside. In 2014, I started having these experiences which were attracting me to Jesus. Not the Christ consciousness, ascended master kind of Jesus, but the one from the Bible. Long story short, I became a Christian and stopped doing all of the other things I had been doing and my life changed for the better. I felt like I had come out of a fog; my mental health improved, my relationships improved and other creepy things that had been happening to me stopped.

It says in the Bible that the devil often comes masquerading as an angel of light, and I have experience of this. The Bible says not to consult the dead, or a medium. It also says that Jesus is our only mediator between us and God. A lot of people believe that the notion of not consulting the dead/mediums/divining tools is due to fear/ignorance of the spiritual world. In my view, its the opposite: I was all in and it nearly destroyed me. Trust me when I say I was really stepping into my power as a strong woman in touch with her inner abilities. Turning away from it all and towards Jesus saved me and I've never been the same since.

The only spiritual entity that I communicate with now is God, through Jesus. I don't pray to saints, to angels, to Mary, to nature, to my ancestors, to anyone, because only God is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful. Jesus, who was God incarnate Rose from the dead to show the saving power of the crucifixion. I don't believe that Mary has any special powers in Heaven, nor that she can hear our prayers. Any apparation that anyone has seen of her is, imo, either a figment of their imagination or demonic. Basically (and again I'm sorry for being so waffly and vague)! I only communicate with God. No middle men.

In the past, I tried to harness my own supernatural abilities in order to manipulate my circumstances. Whether this was through manifestation (Law of Attaction) or actual spells, I was using powers outside of God's will. This is witchcraft, whether the intentions are good or not. There are so many blessings to praying within God's will and handing an issue over to Him. The sliding scale for evil changes when Christ becomes the centre of your life, and the things that you thought were OK before, stop feeling OK. Like witchcraft, in all of its forms, whether black or white.

I don't want the veil between the living and the dead to thin, because I don't want anything to do with the dead. Memories and well wishes for my departed, yes, but I don't want contact with them. Am I scared? No. Its just a distraction that I find unGodly.

This is probably so incoherent but I've not been feeling great, but didn't want to not answer as you seemed to be asking so earnestly. I hope you managed to get through it OK and that it made some sense.

Gosh I'm sorry for that stream of consciousness!

I think you explained things really well.

@Isiteverevenreallyover

Wonderfully explained

Hugs from me. Look after yourself hun x

We just embraced commercial Halloween, it's make believe not real, I can't see the issue thus.

I think Christians split into two camps as to how they view Hallowe'en... the ancient/mystical churches and Celtic cultures, with a deep sacramental meaning system of angels, saints, spirits and demons tend to see the festival as a "defence against the dark arts" ie warding away sorcery and evil spirits; whereas the modern, reformed, ritually flattened churches see it as a "celebration of the dark arts" and thus to be avoided, or watered down into "light parties".

@Isiteverevenreallyover

Firstly i hope you're feeling better, I've heard from a few people that they've been ill this past week so i think there's a bug going around.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a comprehensive and honest response. It made complete sense and wasn't waffle at all. It's nice to be able to ask about different people's beliefs and how they've come to them. I suppose with each religion every individual has had a different journey so will have a different approach, perception or relationship with that religion, which is really interesting.

It's good that you've found a religion that resonates so well with you.

Thankyou Isiteverevenalwaysover. You are very brave to tell us so much on here. You have had fascinating experiences and I am very glad that you have now found the one true way though Jesus. God Bless you.