October 27, 2008 9:03 AM
For parents: Why Celebrate the Saints?
Why Celebrate the Saints? A Parent's Perspective
Barbara Curtis
Crosswalk.com ContributorMaybe it's my background as a teacher. Or maybe just because I've been raising children for 39 years (with a few addendums through adoption) - but no matter how academic or ethereal the subject, I tend to look at it through children's eyes.
I make no apology for this. I will admit it's not often the most respected point of view. But I hope God is pleased by this approach to the big theological questions. After all, he said "Unless you become as a little child. . . ." Sometimes that's not so easy for grownups. But sometimes it can help us see the simple truth about a complex subject.
Since becoming Christians in 1987, our family has pretty much ignored the last day of October - except for Halloween 1990 following our flight from a legalistic church when we celebrated our newly-realized freedom in Christ at the expense of my limited seamstress skills: four knights-in-shining-armor and one fair damsel costume traipsing the neighborhood, looking for treats.
Then, comfortable that our decisions about extra-biblical issues were our own to make, we promptly dropped Halloween from our family traditions - opting instead to cozy up with the lights off for popcorn and a movie.
Parish hall harvest festivals never appealed to me. Their effort to replace a secular holiday begged the question whether something was missing. Nothing missing at all, I thought.
But now I think there was. The empty spot belongs to a longstanding, but often ignored, Christian feast day: All Saints' Day.
Read entire article here.
Posted in Holidays, Homeschooling, Inspiration, Mothering | Permalink
Comments
Us, too, Barbara!
We don't do Halloween. Husband and I did youth ministry for many years (12 years total) in a previous church and our association of churches. Whenever our young people had questions, we tried to provide answers. Because of their interest and need for understanding, we talked about and even did in-dept studies on the occult every few years. We learned what made one want to worship this way and how to respectfully make a difference in their life. Once when preparing to share some materials with our group, I saw an interview/testimony of a young man who had formerly worshipped Satan. He said (and I'm paraphrasing) that he didn't understand how Christians could celebrate Halloween because that is Satan's high holiday. That convicted me. I have no comdemnation for others who do chose to celebrate on October 31 (some just don't realize; others redeem the day), but I've just never been able to celebrate on this day.
When my children were little, no matter what we did (we did plan stuff at home as a family) this was sometimes difficult for them because they knew the rest of the world (in their eyes) was getting to play dress up and get candy.
We do however celebrate All Saints Day on November 1. We read stories of saints and martyrs and eat a little fun food. The day is sometimes not as much of a celebration as I would like it to be, but then other years it is.
I would be interested in knowing what others do to celebrate All Saits Day.
I realize that this is all a little odd for a famiy of evangelicals, but we just want to honor God in what we do.
I will say that since we moved 4 yrs. ago to a more populated area, God has had us meeting and talking with more and more people who don't celebrate Halloween. Knowledge of that has helped my children to not feel so weird or lacking.
Barbara, thank you so much for posting this! I'm so distracted this year that I had not given a thought to the approaching dates. I should make plans!
Posted by: von | October 27, 2008 10:24 AM
We are a family of evangelicals who celebrate All Saints Days as well! Loved your article by the way.......for years now we divide up our family into 2 teams and put on little skits about different Christians that we've read about in our homeschool during the year. The other team has to guess who it is. Kind of like charades except props can be used. Some of the people that will be on this year's list are:
Mother Teresa
George Mueller
Jim Elliot
Nate Saint
Joshua from the Bible
Gideon
After the skits we have gingerbread with caramel sauce and whipped cream!
Posted by: Kozimom | October 27, 2008 5:41 PM
