To Halloween...or not?

Ok, before you start reading with defences as high as your garden fence, relax! This is not going to be a judgemental rant against people who practise something I don't agree with. I just thought this is worth posting about, worth a thought and a discussion seeing it's that time of year again! The time of year when that very Americanised holiday creeps into stores and advertising and bombards us with scary, spooky imagery that provokes conversations with little people who follow us around the shops.

I am a huge believer that we all need to do our homework and make our own choices. Sheep mentality, blindly following something you've been told is just sloppy decision making. And there's nothing like forcing you to look into WHY you believe something, like having little people who ask WHY ALL.THE.TIME... and who aren't satisfied with generic, surface answers.

I have heard all the pro-arguements and point of views for why Halloween is harmless and even beneficial to the community. I get that it gets people out of their houses meeting neighbours, I get that kids get spoilt and it's one big dress-up party. I get that 99% of people who celebrate and partake in Halloween, do it with an innocent motive of fun and games.

My perspective is a little more sinister, based on my experience and I guess it's that, that I've tried to communicate to my kids with heart behind it, not just the blanket 'it's evil'. I guess my experience absolutely plays a part in my decision not to want anything to do with celebrating the dark side. I grew up in South Africa, it is a very spiritual place. I saw witches who practised black magic and dark arts, come to Jesus and get delivered, in my church. I heard testimonies from them. I was exposed to demonic activity and saw first-hand how powerful the name of Jesus was and ho much bondage those people lived in. I was privileged to grow up with an awareness and understanding of a whole realm I knew very little about but enough about that I didn't want to celebrate it.

Hearing satanists and ex-witches talk, they will tell you that Halloween is the biggest date on the Pagan and Wicca calendar, celebrating the day of the dead. I know we've made it cute and animated our witches into Disney series and have books that have made wizards relatable, entertaining characters and somehow that makes it all OK. I guess I just have a very extreme view from knowing how real the spirit realm is. Aside from gory and gross, somehow everything evil and morbid and disturbing is celebrated? I met an 11 year old recently who was finishing the painting of the mannequins he made of his massacre victims in the backyard, he is planning to dress as a serial killer from one of the horror movies he's watched. Sorry for being the kill-joy but I fail to see how this holiday benefits anyone in society? In a world where we need love and joy and PEACE (for goodness sake, PEACE), we dress our kids up and hand out lollies and get everyone all involved in a holiday specifically set aside to celebrate all that is evil. I just do not get it.

Like I prefaced earlier, not everyone shares this view. Of course. To some, spiritual things are a game,  something edgy to fool around with. To some evil is their chosen pathway and they will be celebrating in a very different way to our Westernised, naive version of the pagan holiday. To other weirdos like myself, I've seen just too much of the spiritual 'stuff' in life to want anything to do with Halloween.

If you send your kids around the neighbourhood to capitalise on the free sugar, you certainly will not be getting egged at our house. You won't encounter any signs that say 'GO AWAY'. I won't even judge you, huh! How Christian am I?! It's part of life that we all differ on opinions and come to different conclusions and I'm OK with that.  I know the decor is 'cool', I know the theme makes one hell of a fun office party, I know the carving pumpkins and the incredibly funny costume ideas are all great pull factors to get involved. I just encourage everyone out there to do some research, decide with some education whether Halloween is something you want to partake of and know why you have made your decision.

This has been one heavy post and I can't apologise for that. I just felt after sharing with my kids about this that it's a great discussion to have. This is yet another disclaimer - I KNOW YOU WON'T ALL AGREE WITH ME! And that's totally OK :)

To be honest, who has time for Halloween when Christmas is a little under 2 months away???? I'm already planning my December Christmas build up, ain't nobody got time for pumpkins and witches! The only cobwebs I'll have around are the ones I'm dusting off my lovely Christmas tree come November! Whoop Whoop!!