October 31st. What does your family do on this day? Celebrate the Reformation? Dress up and go "Trick-or-Treat"ing? Both?
I'll admit it, I really like Halloween. I like the decorations (not the gory ones), the costumes, the candy. I grew up dressing up (I loved coming up with a costume idea.) and going door to door getting candy. The Baptist church I grew up in eventually decided to have carnivals on that evening as an alternative to this, but kids still got to dress up. We called it "Stomp the Devil Night" until someone decided this "gave too much attention to the Devil", then we called it "Praise the Lord Night". Whatever they called it, it still seemed like "Halloween" to me, I dressed up, I got candy but somewhere in the mix I learned to feel a little guilty for liking Halloween, "the Devil's night".
But just as my mom never gave up drinking a glass of wine every once in a while (gasp!) I never gave up Halloween.I found this program on Issues Etc. on Halloween to be interesting. Listen HERE.
After my Baptist days I learned about the Reformation and the other significance of October 31st. I'm glad the church remembers this day and of course I intend to teach my children about Luther and the Reformation. I'll spend this week talking about Martin Luther, about church and singing hymns about the Word and certainly "A Mighty Fortress is our God". I'll also make sure they now that Sunday (Reformation Sunday) is a special day.
I didn't want this to be a long post. I just wondered what some of you do around this day and what your thoughts on Halloween are. Please share!
I grew up with Halloween, too. The candy, the trick or treating, the fun costumes, the partys at school. Just so much fun to be someone else for a little while. Of course, we also celebrated Reformation with another church or two by holding a special service with special music, choirs and bells and such. Halloween was never the focus, never the religion, only fun for a day.
ReplyDeleteRan across another good article about Halloween on higher things: http://higherthings.org/myht/articles/current_events/gospel-of-halloween.html
ReplyDeleteWe did trick-or-treating as kids. It wasn't about the creepy things but focused on dressing up and having fun.
ReplyDeleteOur daughter Joanna understands Halloween to be a time for fun and dress-up. She knows about Reformation and the importance of Martin Luther.