Celebrate Life with Crazy!
Last year on Halloween, our Georgia family went out for lunch and dressed in subtle costumes. This year, we went a little crazy with the costumes, and another restaurant welcomed us with open arms. Both places wisely set us in a back room where the door could be closed. Weird we are. Quiet we are NOT!
How fun! Some of our costumes were recycled from Disney cruises, some were from DragonCon, and some were new. Even Ronald’s nephew and his wife who were passing through to Florida joined in the fun and played along as a pirate and queen with costumes I just happened to have in the closet.
The only new costume I made was for our little princess who was celebrating her first Halloween. Though it was probably her nap time, she was too interested in the activity and the chatter to rest. Of course, she was a smiling angel baby through the entire meal!
I am so blessed to have a family who likes to play dress up as much as I do. Though the boys were out hog hunting all night until 6:30 this morning, all were determined to enjoy the day. The ladies were dressed to the nines with fake eyelashes, crazy outfits, and lovely smiles and giggles. Party time with the Huddleston clan was once again a raving success.
I’m anxious to hear how my daughter and her family in Louisville are doing with their celebration. Last year because of covid, the kids’ Halloween plans were canceled, but they had Halloween Olympics. This year, their daddy built an Escape Box. He built a huge treasure chest with locks, puzzling hints, clues, and prizes. Sounds so fun!
One of the fun parts of the day for me was sharing a special gift with our waiter and the explanation of our celebration.
Though I was in a hurry this morning when I finally decided how to phrase my letter and there are many mistakes in the original message, my heart was in the right place. Here is a corrected missive.
Thank you for letting us play dress-up. We love to have a good time. We are not celebrating Halloween. We are Celebrating Life! I am giving you a Bible. My husband loves this version.
In case you can’t tell or are too young to remember the television show STAR TREK, I am a character from that show. In every episode, Captain Kirk said, “Beam me up, Scotty!” The Bible is to help you for when The Captain of the Armies of Heaven says, “Come with me to Paradise!” You can say “Beam me up, Jesus!”
Many people have issues with celebrating Halloween. That’s your choice, and I respect that.
But like my ability to turn anything into an object lesson, I can turn any activity into an opportunity to share the love of God!
This is out of context, but still says what is applicable to this topic. “So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:8 NLT
This can apply to every day. “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!” Psalm 118:24
A great writing coach, Chad R Allen wrote a wonderful blog about Halloween. I don’t have permission to use the blog yet. I’ll contact him this afternoon, but I want to pass this along before the day is through.
Hey Kara,
I come out of a religious tradition that has had an uneasy relationship with Halloween.
We’re dressing up as evil beings—What?!
We’re trying to scare ourselves and others—Huh?!
We’re running around the neighborhood in the dark asking for candy—!!!???
But a few years ago I learned more about the origins of Halloween—the story behind it. And this story has not only taken the uneasiness away, it has infused Halloween with a lot more meaning.
Also, in the midst of what is still, sadly, a global crisis of sickness and death, this year Halloween has the potential to mean even more.
Here’s what I learned. The term “Halloween” is a shortened form of “All Hallow’s Eve.” That word “hallow” is the same one that appears in The Lord’s Prayer: “hallowed be Thy name.” The noun form refers to a holy person or saint.
All Hallow’s Eve is just a fancy way to say “the eve of All Saint’s Day,” which is a sacred day indeed, when Christians around the world commemorate our martyrs and other faithful pilgrims who’ve gone before us.
In the same way we Christians have a Christmas Eve, we have an All Saints Eve. On Christmas Eve we keep vigil for the arrival (or celebration of the arrival) of the Holy One.
On Hallow’s Eve, we prepare to commemorate our many holy ones by making fun of evil and even, perhaps, acknowledging in a playful way that none of us is perfect. That’s the business with costumes. We’re poking fun at scary and even deadly things because we know God has it all sorted out. We’re even, in a sense, wearing our own imperfections, making light of them, confident God’s work within us is ongoing.
We can do these things because God has conquered evil and death in the world once and for all. And while this reality is hard to believe sometimes, our practice of Halloween can be one terrific night of faithfulness—of reassuring ourselves we do know how this story ends, and it is the essence of a happy ending.
Let me close by offering 5 reasons faithful people can enjoy (not feel weird or uneasy about) Halloween:
- Celebrating Halloween is a way of affirming God has overcome evil once and for all.
- Costume wearing is a way of mocking evil and reminding ourselves we’re not perfect! Amen?
- Candy!
- Celebrating Halloween Christianly can have a good influence in communities where Halloween is sometimes an excuse for vandalism and other harmful behaviors.
- It’s an opportunity for us to spend some meaningful time with our children—to be present with them, to walk in the dark with them (reassuring them the dark is okay, even wondrous), and to have some fun. I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of fun.
So stay safe, enjoy yourselves (enjoy your children!), and know that God is ever with us, calling us steadily onward to a glorious future that has already begun.
Take care,
And in case you want to start writing, Chad has a great program to make that happen!
Blessings. KB
