Friday, October 26, 2007

Trick-or-Treat!

Pin It Now! As part of a home school lesson this year I decided to do a study on the origins of Halloween. As a Christian parent, I want to instill in my children a desire to seek TRUTH on all matters and to test all things in light of Scripture.

Personally, I have never felt that is was blatantly wrong to dress up, carve pumpkins, and go door to door to receive candy. In fact, I really like that last part. Dressing up is so much fun, and if I had the extra $, I would even want to participate. I have always wanted to pretend to be Arwen, the Elven Princess! And pumpkins, well, I just think they are so beautiful! The carving part is a lot of work, but seeing the result with the candle glowing inside is fun. The pumpkin squeezed in between my boys was carved in honor of my love of M&Ms!

In all of my research on Halloween, I found out some very interesting things. Trick-or-treating for example, is an American activity that originated around the 1930's. It was created by local city clubs, such as the Boy Scouts, in an effort to control and displace mischievous pranks. Well, to me it is a good thing to provide alternative to bad things. So my views on this activity remain the same.

I did find out that the celebration of Halloween can be traced all the way back to the ancient Celtic Fire Festival, Samhain. Since November 1 was the beginning of their New Year, October 31st was to them as December 31st is to us. And yes, they did make animal sacrifices and crop sacrifices to their god/gods on this night. God knows my heart. When we dress up, trick-or-treat, and carve pumpkins, I am in no way honoring anyone but God alone. I am personally not going to get caught up in the "origin" thing, b/c then I wouldn't be able to celebrate Christmas or watch the Olympics, etc, etc...

Many things that have been practiced on Halloween have been nothing but pure evil, so don't get me wrong, I am not trying to promote this holiday as some holy event. I just think it is great, though, when Christians go to the trouble to provide wholesome alternatives to worldly activities!

For anyone interested in further research, I found a few interesting sites on the subject. My favorite articles were these 2:

http://www.new-life.net/growth/holidays/the-history-of-halloween-its-probably-not-what-you-think/

http://www.new-life.net/growth/holidays/the-history-of-halloween-part-2/

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! That was a really amazing post.

Anonymous said...

Nice Post!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Well, I said it was amazing even when the content was missing. Now, it's really amazing.

Carrie said...

You'd make a great Elven Princess!

not up to code said...

Very interesting. I figure that if people can celebrate Christmas without worshiping Christ, then surely Christians can play a little Halloween without worshiping the Devil. Hsssssss.

Brandi said...

Well, my hubby informed me that my post is full of grammatical errors. Yes, well, that is what I get for not proofreading. I was furiously typing away so I could get to the next home school assignment. I am not going to correct it, b/c it looks like everyone has already read it anyway!!

Unknown said...

excellent post...
you may have inspried me to write why I do not really "celebrate" the day. It isn't for any reasons you may think obvious "Christian" reasons...hmmm, perhaps that will be my Wedenesday post that day.

I love your pupmkin. So cute. I saw M&Ms right away!!!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...