my least favorite holiday

I love dressing up in costumes, the carving of pumpkins and the trick-or-treating to get candy (especially the chocolate)...but to be honest I am so glad that Halloween is over....as the title says it is becoming my least favorite holiday of the year. I'm sick of walking through stores and all I see is blood, fangs, witches, etc. and my little Jude telling me "scary mommy".

I love learning the history about where this holiday originated but I am really sick of the pagan influence of the holiday...and that's what sucks the fun out of Halloween for me. It's amazing to me the obsession of death and evil in our culture. I realize those two things are very real in life but as a Christian that is not what I celebrate in. I celebrate that Christ conquered death for those that believe in Him (John 3:16), so that we might have life in Him. I want this holiday to be a memory of fun times for my kids, not a night of evil and death and darkness. The whole point of the start of the holiday was to mock Satan and evil by dressing in what they thought Satan might look like. Well I'm sorry but I don't see any children running around mocking Satan and evil. I see children dressing up for shock value, gore and that they enjoy looking and being evil and dark.

So all that to say I love the fact that the local church here has a Halloween party that is what this holiday should be about....fun, games, candy, pumpkins and costume contests.

Why is it as soon as you say "smile" this is how they contort their face?

Carving faces into our pumpkins....I must say the smell of pumpkins made this pregnant mom gag just a bit.

Jude wiping the gooey insides of the pumpkin on his pants...and that is why I had them change into play clothes before we started the carving.

We have this book that my mother-in-law got the boys a couple of years ago called The Pumpkin Gospel which I have read at least 100 times (requested by my boys). The book compares the pumpkin to our hearts...God cleans out the insides (mush, gooey mess = sin in our heart) and makes us new, so his light can shine through us. Well in a 5 year olds mind they take things pretty literally. So when we finished carving, Ethan immediately told me we needed to find candles so that God's love can shine out of the pumpkin.