Halloween 2008 is just days away. I came home to Oregon to enjoy the fall, but ironically am missing the festivities in Taiwan, where we always enjoy celebrating Halloween.
I’m eating the candy we bought for the kids and considering whether or not I want to go out, get a costume and find a party. Probably… not. Interestingly, I was nearly invited to a Christian friend’s anti-halloween celebration. Rather than denouncing Halloween completely as evil, this group will simply throw a party with costume and candy, on the same day as Halloween, but it will not be Halloween.
On the one hand, I think it’s great that a church can be so accomodating to its members, who obviously want to participate in a huge national holiday. On the other hand, there just seems to be something strange about the whole thing. Throwing a party on Halloween, because it’s Halloween, copying the customs of Halloween but not celebrating Halloween… its exactly what the Church has always done, for countless other holidays, including Christmas, which was originally a huge pagan sun-worship festival and nearly of the traditions have been usurped under the pretense of celebrating Jesus’ birthday (which, even if he was historical, certainly did not happen on December 25th).
But I digress. The reason I wanted to share this post is because, I few days ago I was carving pumpkins. Like usual, I made a quick, messy, pretty ugly pumpkin. My friends got more creative. We even started discussing phrases or slogans it would be funny to carve into our pumpkins. Here are some of my favorites:
- No soliciting
- No candy
- Go away
Etc…
So, what’s on your pumpkin?
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