Not Sure What I think of Halloween

When I became a Christian in 1974, no one told me about Halloween, but I had an uneasy feeling about it. I believe it was the Holy Spirit giving me discernment.

For a few years, I wasn't sure how to handle my uneasy feelings:
I steered away from the demonic elements of the holiday and tried to celebrate it low key. 

When my kids reached early grade school, I wanted them to stop the tradition, but our daughter resisted. Then one afternoon on the playground, one of her little friends asked her if she was going trick or treating and when our daughter said “yes” the little girl asked why she would participate in the “devil’s holiday”? That’s all she needed, so we stopped the tradition at our house.

But we still struggled with whether to hand out candy:

• We tried leaving the house during Trick or Treat time, but we wondered if the neighbors thought we were just plain stingy.
• We tried explaining our beliefs, but pagan holidays and the occult are not really the best "entry-level" subjects if you want to witness to your unsaved neighbors.

So I began giving out candy again, neither comfortable ignoring it or celebrating it.

Before long churches started having "Harvest Day Parties" to avoid Halloween observance, but in some ways they mimicked the Halloween traditions—at least as far as the costumes and candy. I've wondered what message church celebrations send to our children and our unsaved friends--Do they make us look:

• Godly? 
• Exclusive?
• Compromising? 
• Confused?
• Oddball?

I continue to have questions:

• Are these alternative Harvest festivals the best way to handle Halloween? Some people say that all of our Christian holidays have pagan roots, to include Christmas. I've studied that claim enough to know that's not altogether true, but Halloween is unique. While other holidays may have pagan roots, those roots are forgotten. But Halloween still has an occult theme with witches and scary things being a main feature.
• Or should we just go ahead and celebrate Halloween along with our non-Christian neighbors as long as we make sure our children know that there is a real occult where witches are real people who worship Satan and hate God?
• Or should we never celebrate the holiday in any form even if it embarrasses us, disappoints our children and confuses our neighbors.

Hungary has never had a Halloween tradition, but it's something they're adopting from American influence. We're in Budapest now, and while there's no "trick or treating" going on, lots of restaurants and bars are having Halloween parties. I'm not real happy about this...wish they were adopting Thanksgiving instead.

Both of my children are parents now, and they also celebrate Halloween. I want to believe it's just harmless fun, but then I think back to that uneasy feeling I got as a new Christian at a time when I hadn't yet heard the pros and cons on the holiday.


Still not sure how I feel about Halloween.
What do you think about Halloween?
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