Clarissa Howard, of Longwood, set out to answer her five-year-old daughter’s question: Why do we celebrate Halloween? Here’s her story:
I couldn’t answer her innocent question. I thought my answer was, “Well, we don’t celebrate Halloween because churches don’t and there’s a reason why they don’t.” But I had no idea what that reason was, so I went knocking on the churches doors – Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian and Methodist – to see what their answer was. And after my husband raked the Internet for historical background, a tremendous amount of discussion, deep thought and devoted prayer we have our answer, an answer that I truly feel is the right one for our family.
We are a young family with three children ages 5, 3 and 1 who have been attending a Christian preschool. Until now we’ve been able to skirt the holiday by attending the church’s fall festival on Halloween night. But now with our daughter in the public school system, it has become more difficult to avoid. It’s on TV, it’s at every store, and now it’s in our home. School art projects displayed Halloween images and Halloween themed library books started coming home. My husband and I were struggling with the figuring out what will be our family tradition? We were torn between the evil, dark side of Halloween and the innocent and fun side of the holiday. More importantly, what is the Christian thing to do?
Here’s what I took home after talking with the churches:
Catholic – Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day. People used to go door to door asking for food to prepare their All Saints Day feast and now that has transformed to trick-or-treating. Costumes were worn to mock the evil spirits. The church officials I spoke with all went trick-or-treating.
Baptist – I found that this is the one church that actually provided a fall festival on Halloween night, which I thought was because they truly wanted to provide families with an alternative to trick-or-treating. While some members of the congregation were 100% against the holiday, others were more accepting. After a heartfelt discussion and a beautiful prayer for discernment and guidance with the church member, I left with a feeling of comfort and hope. The families of the church officials I spoke with also went trick-or-treating.
Presbyterian – admitted that Halloween was not a Christian holiday, however, church officials celebrated the good aspects of Halloween, the neighborly camaraderie, the friendships and the fond childhood memories. They too went trick-or-treating.
Methodist – middle of the road. Similar to the Catholic Church, they recognize All Saints Day, although their definition of saints differs from the Catholic meaning. They acknowledged Halloween is tied to a Christian holiday and the church officials I spoke went trick-or-treating.
It was clear to me, at the end of my interviews that despite your religious affiliation, whether or not to celebrate Halloween is purely an individual choice. Although there is a dark, evil side to this holiday, there is a stronger brighter side to it as well. Halloween, regardless of its historical roots, has become ingrained in the American culture and I’ve learned it is not anti-Christian to participate. All church leaders I spoke with celebrated the goodness of the event. To steal the innocence of this holiday and give the dark side more weight than it deserves would be unfair and un-American. Our family will be celebrating Halloween this year with non-scary costumes on our body, buckets of candy in our hands and God stronger than ever in our hearts. Happy Halloween!