Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Churches vs. Halloween

I handed out candy to about 40 kids yesterday. I was a little disappointed in the costumes this year (let's face it, halloween is all about little kids putting on a parade of costumes for my criticism!). The cutest costume was this little toddler dressed in a huge duck costume. I was hit by the sudden urge to adopt the unsuspecting duckling. The cutest moment was when one of my little neighbor kids came over and as she was walking down the sidewalk to leave, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder and yelled, "Goodbye Miss Jennifer!" and smiled really big. It was funny because I didn't know she knew my name. I wanted to adopt her too. One little kid showed up in regular clothes--just a flannel shirt and some jeans. I was confused, but I gave him candy anyway. Perhaps he was a lumberjack. Best News? There were no clowns! Yay!

I saw that a local church was offering pony rides at a Halloween...oh wait, no...."fall" carnival. I have a couple of things to say about that.

1. Is there a weight limit to what you can sit up on a pony? I would have liked to ride the pony!

2. What's up with churches having Halloween parties but naming them alternate things like:
a. Fall Festival!
b. Fall Carnival!
c. Harvest Festival!
d. Harvest Carnival!
e. (best one yet) Hallelujah Festival!

If you're going to take a stance against Halloween (for whatever reason), take a dang stance and don't participate in it. Is there something in the Bible that says that Trick-or-Treating is wrong unless you do it in a church parking lot? You're not fooling anybody by having a Halloween party and naming it something else. That's just silly to me. At least the one at my church when I was growing up was called a "Halloween Alternative"--Noah's Ark themed, mind you. One year the folks dropped me off there. Due to the theme, I could not go in my usual "clown" costume (need I remind you about last year's Halloween blog?), so I got to go as a pig. Cutest darn pig you've ever seen! And no tripping around in Daddy's huge shoes!

3 comments:

Mandy said...

I always liked trick or treating better. Funny post!

Anonymous said...

I agree. Go all-out or stop kidding yourself.

Anonymous said...

Just as society is taking Christmas out of everything and replacing it with "Holiday" the Church has adopted the same rule by taking Halloween out of Halloween and replacing it with something shiny and new.

Glad my Church does not have any "Fall" events such as you discribe.