the war on halloween
I have a complicated relationship with this holiday. It began simply enough, with trick-or-treating country-style while we lived at a rural parsonage. The Halloween of my kindergarten year was marked by my dressing in a cat costume and piling into a car with some other church kids (One of whom, Becky, was dressed as a bag of garbage if I recall correctly and I sincerely doubt that I do) and driving around the range roads of northern Alberta where each farmyard would net us a full-size chocolate bar or several tasty Kool-Aid-infused popcorn balls.
We moved to a city the next year and I still trick-or-treated, but in the urban fashion, i.e. on foot. I was a (pink) rabbit.
But then, things changed. I don’t know what the impetus was, but my parents converted to the school of thought that Christians ought not celebrate Halloween in any manner, least of all gallavanting around the neighbourhood ringing doorbells. In later years, my mother explained to me that Halloween was quite a get for the devil: “It’s the two things kids love best: dressing up, and candy!”
To be fair, my brother and I did still get the candy; half an ice-cream pail each, not a bad haul for not having to leave the basement. Which is where we hung out, every Halloween, with all the upstairs lights turned out so as not to alert any trick-or-treaters to our residence. All the upstairs lights, that is, except one: the oven light, the door left ajar so it cast a ghoulish blue glow over the kitchen (but not down the hallway, where I skittered on my way to the bathroom only the most desperate of pee-breaks). And that, of course, was the most cutting irony. On the night in question, we the family who didn’t celebrate Halloween, had the creepiest house on the block.
I did have a few opportunities to dress up during my elementary years, even after the trick-or-treating ban. There was occasionally an alterna-Halloween party at the church, where costumes and candy were permitted but any mention of pumpkins or witches was not. One year I was a princess in a blue gown with a sparkly cape that was continually choking me as other party-goers stepped on it. Another year I was (and how’s this for Evangelical cred?) an Israellite. In a pink-and-white striped robe and matching headdress. Probably the less said about that, the better.
My parents’ aversion to Halloween was so instilled in me that even once I was ostensibly able to make my own decisions about celebrating the holiday I still responded to it with an overwhelming “meh.” Only in the past few years have I begun to tentatively embrace it. Because mom was right: if there’s two things kids like, it’s costumes and candy. And since I still think of myself as a kid, there are two things I like: costumes and candy.
This year I celebrated with a Saturday-night dance party. I went as Olive Hoover from the movie Little Miss Sunshine and had a great time. I have also eaten massive amounts of candy, which has now formed an extra layer of protective padding around my belly.
I’m not entirely unsympathetic to my mom’s plight. Christian culture does a lot to demonize (ha) anything remotely pagan. In the face of peer and liturgical pressure, what’s a believing parent to do? I don’t know. I do wish they had just let us go trick-or-treating. I know I felt pretty awkward and generally dreaded the end of October, especially since we’d usually get pulled out of school for the afternoon of Halloween when there was usually an assembly and whatnot. I mean, most kids don’t mind staying home from school, but on the funnest day of the year? That’s just mean.
Is shutting your kid away from Halloween festivities really going to shield them from the “evils” of paganism? Christmas has deep pagan roots, but you don’t see any Christians boycotting its celebration (for obvious reasons, but it seems kinda double-standardy). Is the adrenaline rush of a kid-friendly “haunted house” constructed in the gymnasium of an elementary school really going to throw a Christian worldview into question, our counteract some fundamental tenet?
Like I said, I don’t know, and in the end all parents are just trying to do the best they can, whether they’re Christian or Pagan. All I know is, I have a lot of Halloweening to make up for, so I’m already thinking about next year’s costume…
November 1st, 2006 at 7:37 am
Go as pre-fall Eve next year, sans clothing. That should help you make up for lost time, and it will be biblical to boot.
On a more serious note, I live near a pretty evangelical place in the States (Wheaton, IL) and it seems to me that most Christians here aren’t so weird as to not celebrate Halloween. That said, there is a church near me that had a Harvest Celebration, which I’m sure you know to be the fundamentalist code for a “safe” alternative to Halloween. No devil worship or child sacrifice at a Harvest Celebration, unlike at those pagan parties. I’d say the Christians that avoid Halloween are the same ones that think Harry Potter teaches witchcraft. Ironically, many of those Christians love the Narnia series, which, like Christmas, is also chock full of pagan stuff.
November 1st, 2006 at 8:13 pm
Easter also has some Pagan roots, too; but you don’t see Christians boycotting it, either. In fact, it seems to me that there are some Christians out there that are seemingly obsessed with it (well, actually, the obsession is more over Good Friday, thanks mainly to The Passion; but it spills over into Easter, methinks).
I’m now starting to think that if a Christian parent has to go so far as to stop their kids from celebrating Halloween in all its “glory”, then the parent probably doesn’t have much faith to begin with. And, like Kevin so astutely pointed out, most of those same parents probably don’t let their kids read Harry Potter; and they probably got up in arms over The DaVinci Code, too. (And oddly enough, I was also not allowed to go trick-or-treating, or to dress as anything “evil” for Halloween (though, one year, I went to a church party as the Witch of Endor–she who counseled King Saul after that whole war debacle). At the moment, I am “meh” about the day; but then, I’m thinking I’ve become somewhat cynical over the years anyway.)
Yet, of course, they’re totally into the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which, from my understanding, is far more violent than HP) and would let their kids see or read Narnia (which is also in the fantasy genre, like HP). And, of course, those parents–more likely than not–also love them some Christmas (its Pagan roots notwithstanding) and probably think there’s a “war” on it because more people in general say “Happy Holidays” than “Merry Christmas”, even though the word “holiday” means “holy day”. I swear; the ignorance of some Christians out there is astonishing.