Halloween 2009 is upon us and I have become a complete charlatan. For years now, my husband and I have made the decision to withhold from Halloween and Christmas activities for religious reasons. Halloween is so obviously pagan, I believe it needs no explanation. However, Christmas is a little more deceiving by having “Christ” placed so strategically in it’s name. It’s hard for me to believe, first, how many Christians don’t know the pagan roots; and second, the number of Christians that know and do not care. I will attempt to not get into other folk’s choice to celebrate or not, and just deal with mine.
People always told us when we had kids our opinions of the “holidays,” not Holy Days, would change. I’ve always been pretty adamant they would not; I’m like a stubborn bull. Christmas was easy. I find the entire holiday to be so deceitful and such a lie. Besides commercialism, there are the pagan roots, the lie of Santa (fake God), and the worldliness and selfishness it so adequately embeds into our youth and adults alike. To me, Christmas can be summed up into a great idol. So, like I said, it was easy.However, for some reason, just three months before, I was almost in tears on Halloween. This just did not make sense to me. As we drove through our neighborhood, I recall seeing all the kids trick or treating and having so much fun. All I could think was how much my baby girl was missing out on. I struggled so much with this day; it took me by complete surprise.
So this year, I thought to myself, “Let’s give it a try.” The entire time I was out buying candy and costumes, I was watching over my back to see who was watching. It was like I was buying crack in the streets and didn’t want anyone to see. I managed to get out of the store with no questions after seeing two people I know. Since the minute I bought the stuff, I felt so convicted and like an utter hypocrite. I was eating my words and this is something I loathe. Loathe, I say.
We managed to get through the night tonight. We’ve had fun, got hyped up on candy, and managed to not offer any animals or humans for sacrifice. It’s still hard, but didn’t I have such a pretty kitty cat?
We’ll see about next year…
3 comments:
Anything...absolutely anything...can become a false god in our lives if we let it. That includes work, hobbies, exercise, television shows, church, etc.
Kids are going to be exposed to things we know about and things we don't. I think the best approach is to keep things in perspective based in biblical principles and pass that along to the kids when they can digest it. They will eventually make up their own minds on issues anyway.
We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions... but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all (1 Corinthians 8).
Yes you had a very pretty kitty cat; she's absolutely precious.
Tony C - you make a profound point here in your last paragraph; love the juxtaposition of proud mind and humble heart. May I choose to have a humble heart each day as I follow after Jesus.
I've struggled with this over the years as well. My husband sees no harm in Halloween but my children know clearly how I feel about it. My husband will take them to buy costumes and trick or treating, I won't. But I do allow them to dress up. My daughter dresses up all the time anyway!
As for Christmas, a lot of the pagan rituals such as burning the Yule log or decorating the tree with fruit we don't do now that we know the roots of it. We do have a tree and I dont' know if by having the tree we are making idols but I love seeing the angels and the lights decorating my tree. We also make it a celebration of our faith and use it as a time to gather the family together. Our family circle is shrinking so we get together at every opportunity.
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