Halloween!?

This blog was inspired in part by this blog: Halloween Blog and also by our struggle to find our place in this and our voice in this.

We have decided to let the kids go trick or treating.  But, we have explained to the older to that we arent going "trick or treating" we are going to show off our costumes and get some candy and bless others.  So I asked our oldest how we could bless others and she said to say Thank You and God Bless You when they get candy.  She also said that we should give out more candy than we get.   So we are putting a bucket of candy out on our porch.  We also decided to try to use our costumes to teach the kids something about the Lord.  Madi was dead set on beig a snow princess, so we decided to make the 3 (plus one more we are doing a respite for starting on Sat, i know we are nuts.) the 4 seasons!!  We are teaching them the concept of the seasons and what the look like, plus we talked to each of them about how awesome God is that he made such beautiful seasons and beautiful things in the seasons.
We also carved our pumpkins... well, Mike and Madi and I did,  Dee Dee and Bubba made there pumpkins into dogs with Mr. Potato Head peices... tooooo cute!  My pumpkin has Jesus' name into it with some flowers and vines... very pretty if I do say so myself... and I think its shining my light!! :o)  Madi decided to carve a palm tree a sun and an island into hers... becuase thats what she thought might be in heaven.. lol, thats definitly my kid, heaven as a tropical oasis!! Mike's has a monkey on one side and Hope on the other side.  They are proudly displayed on our front porch.  So our pumpkins arent scary and arnt there for any satanic reason, just as artwork!!  I personally LOVE to carve things!  I carved a watermelon once for a party.... I also carved shapes in a pineapple to make it into a lantern for a tropical themed baby shower!  Its fun!
Another thing we did was talk to our kids about halloween and the "bad stuff".  We decorated for fall, leaves, pumpkins, a wreath and gourds, but we dont use anything "scary".  No witches, bats, black cats, spiders or ghosts.  We explained that those things are bad becuase they are used as symbols of people who worship Satan.  Trust me, that was a LONG and difficult conversation, filled with LOTS of questions! lol!  But I think they understand.  We are worshipping Jesus every day, including this day.  We are dressing up and showing our costumes and getting some candy and blessing people in Jesus name!  We are not celebrating a pagan thing, but having fun at harvest time.

I think that we truly are doing that.  Hopefully.  Prayerfully.