Our Halloween Dilemma...

Since our conversion we have always felt a pull to shy away from all the happenings of Halloween night, we know that if we had converted before our children were born we would have never started the tradition of participating in Halloween.

We didn’t want our children to think our conversion meant they no longer get to take part in fun activities like Halloween. After all they don’t see the harm in getting candy from the neighbours and dressing up as their favourite super hero. If we are going to stop being a part of Halloween we’d have to replace it with another fun activity.

I enjoy hearing about other Catholic families who still hold costume parties for their children with an “All Saints Day” theme. I am going to seriously consider hosting one next year. I guess now that I have put that in print, someone may hold me too it.

In the last few years we have made a point of coming to know and understand the background of Halloween, and it seems depending on which resource we refer to we find varying stories. My favourite is found at American Catholic

We are uncomfortable with entire notion of glorifying evil, so we have placed rules on the types of costumes our children can wear, etc., However, this year there was a new concern for me, as a Mom of a pre-teen boy... the costumes are not just becoming more horrid, now we are finding hyper sexualized costumes for young girls and adult women as well. Hagelin of the Washington Times says is best.

This year when our older son expressed that he has no desire to participate in Halloween, I have to say we did breathe a sigh of relief. We left the decision up to him, but we also did not try to change his mind when he mentioned he’d rather stay home that evening.

Our youngest says, “I’m not missing out an opportunity to get free candy!” We reminded him that the candy is not really free, because Mom and Dad are buying candy to hand out to the children who come knocking on our door. For the candy to be free, we’d have to take him out trick or treating and not buy any to give out. I’m not sure that made any difference to him.

We may do things differently next year...time will tell.

However, what really amazes me is that we live in a society that readily accepts images that are gruesome and horrifying. Why are we so fascinated with walking corpses and representations of supernatural beings like, witches and vampires? Yet, it is so difficult for some to accept that a supernatural being that is all good and loving could exist?

I think about the way Christ and the first Christian martyrs suffered and those images can be pretty gruesome, perhaps for those who are so attracted to those gruesome images for the mere shock value could benefit from a party where we dress up as a one of the martyrs, that could make for some pretty gruesome costumes. St. Thomas More without a head; Blessed Jose Luis with bloody feet after they were skinned off; and many more you can read about more Christian Martyrs.