Being that tomorrow is October 31, let's have a discussion about Halloween. Let me just say that I hate Halloween. Even as a kid, I hated it. I wasn't stupid; I loved the candy.
But I was never into the costume thing. I was never creative enough to think of some grandiose costume, so I always dressed as a baby or a cheerleader.
Come on, girls, raise your hand if you ever dressed as a baby or cheerleader for Halloween! I know there were many of us!
As a parent, I hate Halloween because of the confusion that surrounds it. I hate how so many people choose to make it scary. Why can't it just be an innocent evening of fun?
Because the world tends to make Halloween all about ghosts, witches, and jack-o-lanterns, Rick and I have decided to not celebrate Halloween with trick-or-treating. Yes, we want our kids to have an evening of fun and bring home lots of candy for me to eat, I mean for them to eat.
But we feel convicted to glorify God in all that we do. Not that we'll achieve that perfectly on this side of heaven, but we strive to do the best we can. Halloween, at its core, does not glorify God. Because of that, we have chosen to take our boys to our church's festival every year. They always have a great time.
Two Sundays ago, our church announced that they want the kids to dress up as a Biblical character or creature. Upon reading that announcement in the bulletin, I began to hyperventilate.
Rick and I discussed it later that day. Basically, it boiled down to three choices:
1) Avoid the the festival, and stay home to watch the boys' disappointment while the neighborhood kids trick-or-treat. We would be parents of the year, I'm sure.
2) Attend the festival without costumes of any kind. Really, this option pleased me just fine. Until I realized that this option would also reward me the mother of the year award.
3) Suck it up, get creative, and make costumes.
We settled on option 3. Rick had the idea of dressing them as the three wise men. Bravo, Daddy! He wins daddy of the year award!
And my mom wins grandmother of the year for making the costumes. Did you think I would sew them?! Oh, no, honey, the boys would wouldn't have costumes until Easter, if we left it to my doing.
Here is a photo of our dress rehearsal today. I may be a bit biased, but I believe they are some good-lookin' wise men!
Some conversations that took place during the dress rehearsal:
Liam: We need swords!
Me: No, you don't need swords. The wise men took gifts to baby Jesus, and I'm pretty sure they didn't fight in front of him.
Jack: Garrett, I like your crown. It's pretty.
Me: Jack, your crown looks just like Garrett's.
Jack: Oh! [Ran to the mirror to check it out.]
Garrett: I'm ALL excited!
Wise Men
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2 comments:
What great costumes! And what handsome little men you have :-) Looks like the Grandmas are winning the sewing awards this month.
I agree with you & your husband. My only child is 15-mths & I have bought him a costume - a dinosaur - only because I have fun memories of dressing up (yes, as a baby or Pippi Longstocking or whatever machination I could drum up for $5) & hubbs & I haven't really discussed what we'll be doing as the little tyke gets older. But I am definitely leaning more towards church festivals rather than anything to do with trick or treating. I drive around our small(er) town in N. California & I can't believe how many dead "people" of some sort or another are hanging from trees, lying next to a tomb stone covered in blood, ghosts of various sorts shrouding people's windows. I do like to see the creativity of costumes & the fun that can be had with a costume party or festival, so I know we'll be "celebrating" the day in some way or another in the future, but I definitely think it's a gray area when it comes to being Christ-like when you consider the history of Halloween itself - you give some interesting things to think about. Thanks!
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