I Hate Halloween

I've never understood Christian Halloween alternatives. Probably because the first time I heard of such a things was when I was first married, with no kids, and not many concerns about the day. I heard it proclaimed from our other newly married Christian friends that "we refuse to give the devil any honor on his special day, so we will be throwing a big party where everyone can dress up (in non-scary costumes, of course) and pass out candy to all the church kids on October 31st." I think they figured that if they called it fall festival and held it in the church it would somehow not be a Halloween party. Somehow, that just didn't make any sense to me. Call me crazy. I pretty much figured then that I would either be for or against Halloween and not do this "let's pretend we're not celebrating Halloween when we really are" thing.

...and then I had kids...

We have done many different things about Halloween over the years. The ideal thing would be to know what stance we're going to take and stick with it. But so far, we just haven't been able to do that. Some years we did the door to door thing. Some years we did the fake Halloween church thing, depending on our church's plans that year. A couple years we've just sat it out and treated it like any normal day.

But the main reason I now hate Halloween is this... CANDY! I hate my kids getting loads of candy. It's not fair that now that we eat a pretty healthy diet, I can't use sweets as a reward for a job well done, good behavior, and as a "school treat", but because of a ridiculous holiday they get a year's supply of sugar that I have to figure out how to deal with. If we let them do Halloween in any form, we have two options of what to do with the candy. Let them pig out until it's gone and over with, risking putting their little bodies into anaphylactic shock or a sugar coma. Or ration it out so that I have to face Halloween candy, one piece at a time, for the next four months. It's the holiday that lasts forever that way. I suppose we could figure out a way to make candy not be part of it, but try telling that to my candy-deprived but obsessed kids who know exactly what they will be missing.

This year, the lady who helps me by watching the kids on Fridays is all excited about bringing bags of candy for them when she comes to babysit. She's one of those people who shows you how much she loves you by feeding you. And she loves my kids a lot!!! So, I took the opportunity to let my kids know that Miss Crystal is saving them from a lot of hard work going door to door. We'll just watch a movie together at home this year... and eat candy... grrr.

Oh, and please don't feel that you have to pray for me to see the light about the spiritual evils of Halloween. I know, I know, I know! It's not really a good thing at all to celebrate such a terrible holiday. But I just couldn't resist that cute little pumpkin costume when my first-born was a baby. Call me weak. If I had my perfect dream come true, we would never do a thing on Halloween except be together, enjoying each other as a family, like we do on most every other Friday night.