Musings on Halloween

THANK YOU
First, I'd like to thank the Woolery's for the lovely butterfly costume. Deborah danced around all night pretending to fly. She had so much fun dressing up, and she loved getting to wear wings. She was adorable! Thank you.

FAVORITE GROUP
I stayed home with Deborah (Jake was at work at FM) and answered the door to give out candy, and my favorite group this year was composed of: one very tall teenage boy dressed as a soldier in camouflage and obviously in charge of the rest; three middle age boys (7th-9th graders)- one in a cape & some kind of superhero, one dressed as a student from Hogwarts, and the other was something scarey; and finally, (the best part) two little ones- a tiny little girl (2 or 3 years old) dressed as a tiger-striped cat, and a little boy (4 or 5) dressed in something red, either a power ranger or a samurai. I loved the way the older kid made sure everybody got candy, that the little ones were in front, and that everybody said thank you...

DISTURBING TREND NOTED
I jumped off Jon Polk's site and found this very funny, very sad story from a guy with three daughters who took them to buy costumes. I wish I could remember this guy's name, but I just can't... He noticed that most of the costumes for girls followed a trend: slut vampire, slut princess, slut witch... I have to say there is a LOT of truth to that, particularly after answering the door all night, and I'd like to add my own observations to the trend: slut fairy, slut cheerleader, and the ever-popular slut prostitute with pimp boyfriend accessory (I'm not lying... they were with another girl who was dressed as a witch, but the two of them were obviously some kind of pair).

OUR CHURCH, OR RATHER OUR NO-LONGER CHURCH
We found out that our old church no longer will be doing a Harvest party/Halloween alternative because of our lovely new pastor's convictions. We still have contact with some of the members, who were/are dear friends... Our church has offered a Halloween alternative party for a couple of years and it's been a great outreach to our military post. In fact, I know of one family who joined the church because they came with friends to the Harvest thing and then ended up visiting the church that Sunday... So, the hospitality committee was busily planning and organizing the party when our new pastor preached a sermon about "why we will never offer a fall festival event".... And the hospitality committee called everybody that Sunday and pulled the plug on their plans... Pretty sad since it was such a great outreach event... Reflective of this new pastor and his beliefs and also reflective of why we've left the church.

I've got to say to everybody who gets all up in arms about Halloween and it's pagan origins: "CATCH A CLUE!!" Almost all of our Christian holidays have pagan origins!! If you're going to complain about one holiday, why on earth are you not forgoing all of the holidays????!! When Constantine converted over to Catholicism and performed entire army baptisms (mass sprinklings) and forced so many people to become Christians one of the things he did/ or the local priests did/ or somebody did (I actually don't know if it was the people who changed these holidays over or the guys in charge, I just know it really happened) to make Christianity more acceptable to everybody was just adopting over most of the pagan holidays... Wholesale they took over all these holidays and all of their trappings and made them Christian holidays. They made Yule-tide (sound familiar?) into Christ-mas and adopted the tree and wreaths, Easter was adopted as Christ's resurrection day because it was the day the old god was regenerated and the baby animals and eggs were symbols of his return... For more information on these holidays, check out this site: http://www.geocities.com/lavenderwater37/holidays.htm
So, if you're gonna get all upset about Halloween, I'd think you'd want to give up at least Christmas and Easter as well. Some of our other holidays have pagan origins, too...

Anyway, I'm just sad they'll no longer be offering a party where kids can dress up and have fun. While I don't like some Halloween costumes, (notice the slut comments earlier) I LOVE dressing up, and going to parties, and eating candy... We always went to the parties at our church or at school, and though I never really went trick-or-treating, but this was always a fun holiday for me. I know there is a spiritual world all around us that we can't see... I'm just not sure it's any closer on one day of the year than it is on any other day... At least not for a Christian who has Jesus living inside him...