(Belated) Halloween Post

Most of you know that I LOVE holidays. For many reasons: dressing up, decorating, baking, fun school activities, parties, tradition.. anything and everything. I just LOVE them. I'm not even sure which holiday is my favorite. Probably Christmas, just because it's so huge for my faith... and huge for my family. And then, they're probably all tied. I love New Year's because generally I get to get cute and do something fun (like go to a masquerade party-even though that was kinda a bust the year before last.. hahaha), and there's usually lots of glitter, loud noises, and people. I love Valentine's Day because there's chocolate, talk of love (most of the time I'm okay with this... I LOVE LOVE), sprinkles, hearts, pink, ribbon, you get the picture. I love Easter because 1)it's the celebration of the resurrection of my SAVIOR, 2) there are pretty colors, 3) there are bunnies and chicks, 4) kids look ADORABLE at church, 5) I get to wear an Easter outfit. I love Independence Day because it's at the lake with my lovely family and there are fireworks and hotdogs! I love my birthday because it's my birthday and I can do pretty much whatever I want. :) Plus, it's in the summer. I love Thanksgiving because.. well.. actually I've only recently decided that I re-love Thanksgiving. I used to love it because it was when we went to the Outerbanks with my Mom's side of the family. It was my favorite holiday, actually. But, I'll explain that at another time, that's not what this blog's about.

Anyway.. you get it, right? I LOVE holidays.

Did I miss one? One of the major ones?

"O yeah", you're probably thinking. "Halloween, that's the name of this post... what does she think about Halloween?" Or maybe you're not thinking that at all... maybe you don't care what I think about it. haha. Regardless, I'm going to assume that you care, because, after all, this is my blog, and you ARE reading it.....

So, Halloween. What do I think? Well, before we go into what I NOW think, after being abroad for a while.. let's talk about where I come from, and what most of them think of Halloween:

I'm from a small town in the suburbs of Charlotte, NC. I've gone to church my entire life (began as Methodist, then changed to Southern Baptist, and am currently a member at Freedom Church- a "half-Southern Baptist"... we  are kind of affiliated with the SBC, but act like a non-demoninational church). All that to say that I've grown up around church-goers, and have been a Christian since my early pre-teen years.

Through all of that I've never gotten a vibe that Halloween is "bad" or "of the Devil". NEVER. Now, of course we were not ignorant of the fact that stupid people do stupid things on Halloween (just like every other day of the year). This is the reason our churches always had "fall festivals", to give kids safe options of things to do (and keep them from the scary people that supposedly put razors in kids' candies... AWFUL). So, I always dressed up for Halloween, always went to "Fall Festivals" or "Trunk-Or-Treat". Most of the time I dressed up something fun and cute (i.e. cheerleader, pumpkin, clown, bunny, Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel,etc...), but two times (with a LOT of convincing, mind you), I dressed up as something semi-scary (the Bride of Frankenstein, a witch). Now, my Grandmother loved/loves Jesus more than anyone I've ever known.. and she did not mind me dressing up as a witch... and neither did anyone I knew... so it never even crossed my mind that it was a "bad" or "taboo" thing to do in the church. I always hung out with church people on Halloween. I was never exposed to scary Halloween things at a young age... I never associated Halloween with the Devil or anything occult.

*At the Methodist church I attended when I was younger, we even studied about Halloween. And the only thing I can remember learning was that it wasn't BAD, that it started as as a celebration of the Harvest, and it was on November 1st, All Hallows Day, I think? *

I had GREAT experiences with Halloween. I LOVED Halloween (for all of the reasons stated above). It was just another time to have fun for the heck of tradition. I didn't really know others thought differently, that is, until last Halloween.

I've been going to a Baptist church here. Now, it's Baptist according to Argentines. But, if I were to categorize it into an American denomination, I would say Pentecostal (simply because they're charasmatic... a lot more than the Baptist church I know... ). Anyway, I've gone to this church for about a year and a half, and I really like it. But, about a year ago, a little before Halloween, I saw the below pamphlets:

It says, "Seven reasons to not celebrate Halloween". Now, before I read this.. I got REALLY excited. I hadn't seen anything Halloween-related, and thought that this was a "Finding the Gospel in Halloween" tract. I was wrong. There are things written in there like, "It's demonic", "It's sagrilegious", and a lot of other things I thought were silly (at the time). I was REALLY sad. Okay, I was REALLY sad, AND I thought it was hilairious. Just the different perspectives. And then I found out one of my roomies is also not on the side of Halloween. And apparently most of my other roomies knew the "real" meaning behind it ("real" meaning "bad"). So, after a few discussions with them that made me feel ignorant and worldly, I decided to find out for myself. What is the REAL meaning of Halloween?

While searching, I found a relevant article on Relevant Magazine's website (my friend Kris would appreciate the pun..hehe). You should read it. It's an AMAZING article. Here's an excerpt from the end, which basically sums it up:

"As with many of our traditions, it’s worth taking the time to look back and wonder, “Where did this come from?” Halloween is no exception. And, like many of our holidays, it can be misused, abused and downright non-Christian. But using the time to have some fun with friends and give kids some candy? That seems like a pretty Christian thing to do. Just don’t give the kids a tract instead of candy. That's just mean."

Now, this article did not address Halloween in culture's other than the US. I think it's worth thinking about. If this culture that I'm in sees Halloween as "demonic" and "sacrilegious", should I flaunt my freedom in Christ by celebrating it, because I am not convicted? No. In fact, if I were to live here permanently, I would probably not celebrate it (in public) simply to keep from confusing non-Believers and Believers alike. Become like a Gentile to save the Gentiles, and like a Jew to save the Jews. Follow Paul's advice.

So, will I continue to have fun on Halloween? YES! Do I think my church is ignorant? NO! Cultural context and personal convictions mean a lot. Do I think we should know about the origin of our holidays? Of course! You decide what YOU think. :) Me, I'll carve my jack-o-lantern.

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Just to prove to you that I haven't given up on Halloween.. I will show you my Halloween dinner-creation that I made for my roomies. It was DELISH, I promise. :) I call it "Halloween Hamburger Casserole". And of COURSE, I found it on Pinterest. If you love pretty much anything.. you'll love Pinterest.

O, first, this was breakfast the Saturday before Halloween (they're Cake Batter Pancakes with Halloween Sprinkles and Icing instead of Syrup... I know.. healthy, right?).

And here it is: So, this is pretty much just browned hamburger meat, onions, Worchestershire, pepper, salt, cheese, maybe some other spices, but I can't really remember? Onion powder perhaps? And I'm sure garlic salt... I put it pretty much in everything. :) The outside is a quiche wrapper... you can use a normal pie crust or calzone crust. There are two. I put one on the bottom, put in my filling, laid another one on top (with my Jack-O-Lantern face cut out), pinched the sides, created a stem with the cut-outs, painted it with food coloring, and then baked it. :)

 And for those who just want to remember fall and not Halloween: :)

The fun thing about these is that you can fill them with practically anything... shape them into practically anthing, and dye them any color you want! :) LOVE IT!!

Buen provecho! I also made a Halloween parfait... but sadly, I forgot to take pictures of them. (Vanilla ice cream, crushed Oreos, Halloween sprinkles, topped with a Halloween (or Dr.Who) related decoration). I love fun!