Halloween

15 November 2019|

Halloween.

To celebrate or not to celebrate?

This year, I had a few friends and followers reach out to ask why we celebrate Halloween as Christians? And I had some friends that reached out to have a good discussion about their fears of allowing Halloween into their homes, as well as friends who chatted with me about being confused by this holiday and we had some great discussions and reached some interesting conclusions. I was so grateful that everyone that reached out did so with great respect and understanding that people have different beliefs and opinions. And that’s ok.

Why do we celebrate Halloween if we are Christians?

This is something I have asked myself in previous years – as at one stage, my heart and head were conflicted and I needed to explore a greater understanding in order to make the right deacon for our family. We chatted to friends and family, we researched and read articles, and we chatted to our pastors and elders at church. Every conversation had it’s pros and cons, reasons to celebrate and reasons not to. And we valued everyone’s opinions and respected their decisions for their families.

Our decision is based on the following:

We do not celebrate death or evil. We are very open with our girls about the dangers and evils of the world – from ghosts and witches to every day dangers that we may encounter. We choose to celebrate life and joy, and we instil this in our girls on a daily basis. We don’t give death and evil conversation time in our home, and we don’t open our hearts and minds to this.

We choose to celebrate the fun of Halloween – not to give into peer pressure – but it is also difficult to dampen our kids excitement over collecting treats when our whole Estate and groups of friends are doing the same. We believe that dressing up in fun costumes, and not scary ones, and skipping from house to house to collect treats is a fun and exciting activity for them. This may be irrelevant that it is done on one specific day of the year.

We do fun things like decorate pumpkins, bake cute biscuits and houses, and dress in Halloween pajamas – all which include cute and fun images rather than anything scary or deadly. The inclusion of a cute ghost is something that we had to explain when our girls first watched the movie: Casper, the Friendly Ghost. It was fun entertainment and they know that movies aren’t all real. The same goes for the cartoon, Vampirina – she is a cute vampire living in a human world but it is cute, fun and innocent and my girls know and believe that little vampires aren’t real.

As a family, we believe that our faith is based on what is in our hearts and what we believe. We don’t allow evil into our hearts and mouths, we don’t speak about death and evil – we don’t believe in it. We do speak about celebrating life and joy and the Word of our Jesus. We fill our hearts and minds with good, and we believe that this does allow us to enjoy some of the fun and very innocently too.

Side note:

Another question that was raised over this time, was the practice of yoga. I attend yoga classes and I recently went on a yoga retreat. To me, yoga is a practice of being calm and exercising my body. And again, it is what I allow my heart and mind to be opened to and believe during this time that is important. I think happy thoughts, I think of Jesus and scripture, I think of gratitude and all of life’s blessings during this time. And that is good for my heart and soul.

In saying all of the above, I completely respect and understand that many people (including friends and family) have very different opinions and beliefs on Halloween, yoga, ghost movies and religion. We are a diverse culture, and we are all entitled to our own opinions and beliefs – without any judgement and condemnation. And I am always grateful for people sharing their views and questions in the most respectful way. Thank you to those that reached out.

Do you celebrate Halloween? I would love to hear your thoughts.

x

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I'm Caley a thirty-something wife & mummy from Durban, South Africa. Ellie Love Blog is all about me, my family and our beautiful life.

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