Halloween brings strong emotions for many people, and for others it is just an opportunity to dress up, have fun, and eat candy. I must admit that I have been torn between the two. I KNOW that Halloween IS a VERY EVIL day because of what some people choose to do. I also know that many make this a VERY FUN day, too. So how should a Christian respond? Should we shun it completely? Should we just have fun? Or should we choose to use it as an opportunity to share some LIGHT? Well, when you throw the third choice in there, the answer seems obvious, huh? I am not a philosopher or a Bible scholar, but here is an answer from a wise man that you might find interesting, challenging, and thought provoking! I hope you enjoy reading it!! =0)
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Meanwhile, while we were in Texas, we just had fun on this particular day. Next year I hope to do something MORE significant. What? I'm not sure!
Normally on October 31st, we go to our church's Fall Festival... at least here in SC and when we lived in Texas. In Ohio, we went trick or treating (gasp) because there wasn't a Fall Festival.
When we started talking about going to Texas during this time, our kids were sad to miss our Fall Festival here. Well, as parents do, we really talked up our Texas Fall Festival and told them it was bigger and better (you know... like everything in Texas!). =0) (No offense to our SC friends!)
Well, Wednesday before Halloween, Wesley got sick! UGH! Not just sick, but we're pretty sure he had the flu... you know... the swine flu! We were pretty sure the Fall Festival was out, but we weren't telling anyone just yet. Well, when Friday night rolled around and Wesley still had a fever, we knew we weren't going to the festival. Even though he was sick, he was still playing and having fun. (We'd had him on the homeopathic flu stuff that makes the flu MUCH milder.)
So, as I was in bed Friday night, I was thinking about what we could do instead. I knew the internet was full of fun ideas. I decided to get up in the morning and do a little research! Thanks to familyfun.com, I had a lot of great ideas. After a trip to Wal-Mart, I was ready to make the evening fun for the kiddos... and us! What made it even more fun was that Wesley's temperature broke in the early afternoon, so he felt even better! =0)
The older girls wanted to be mermaids. Olivia saw a costume in my Family Fun magazine that was pretty "easy" to make, so we did. The boys were cowboys. We got the hats at the Dollar Tree; so for $2 the boys had costumes since the rest of the stuff was just ordinary stuff. Virginia wore her sweet tutu that a friend made & gave her when she was born! We already had the rest of her stuff, too.
Since we were on a nice street, we thought we'd take the kids to a few houses to trick or treat (gasp again), but first they needed a snack. We ate bones (made from bread sticks).
When we returned, everyone made their own mummy pizza (which happened to be great because we recently studied Egypt for school).
We also had jack-o-lantern oranges that Dano "carved." (What a GREAT Daddy.) They were
filled with the oranges that were removed and grapes. We added some edamame for something green. Then we had some frozen bananas covered in white chocolate with chocolate chip eyes and an m&m mouth to make a ghost. (I normally avoid all things involving witches, ghosts, or anything that could be evil... even if it is a "cute" witch or ghost. However, I decided to do the ghost since it involved a banana. I know... that is lame!)
In the end, the kids had a GREAT time. At first when I told them we weren't going, Olivia cried. =0( The other kids' expectations weren't set so high on things, so they were open for change. Thankfully, our evening turned out wonderful even for Olivia. They got about 10-15 pieces of candy each, and with good planning it might go bad before they have the opportunity to eat it! I'm such a candy scrooge! ;0)
Blessings,
Melinda =0)
PS Let me know if YOU do something to spread LIGHT during this holiday! I would love to know what you do. (and for the record, we do spend a lot of time talking about this holiday and the danger of it and why we don't do certain things because of our choice to live for Christ and God's Glory... but next year, I hope we can SHARE God's light more intentionally during this season!)
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