Halloween is Mixed Bag by Candice Watters on 10/23/2006 at 1:18 PM

Thanks to Suzanne for that post about how to best spend Halloween. I love the imagery of the family loving their neighbors and reaching out to them in the spirit of hospitality. That's exactly what we plan to do, right after we go door to door and introduce ourselves to all the neighbors we never see (and get a big plastic pumpkin full of chocolate, of course).

I remember as a kid, sitting in a darkened house with lights on only in the back family room where we were quietly biding our time, waiting for the trick-or-treaters to be done ringing our doorbell. Frankly, that approach scared me to death. I felt like we were hiding from the demons themselves. Gladly, I can laugh about it now with my parents -- they freely admit they were a bit extreme back then. And I'm glad my kids are aware of the "non-Jesusness" of the holiday without being afraid of it.

That said, one important reason for that lack of fear is that we're careful about who answers the door. If the grim reaper, Jason and the masked villain from "Scream" show up, I know not to let my 6 year old be the one distributing candy. The few times they have seen those shocking (and worse) costumes, they have been truly frightened and no amount of witnessing is worth terrifying my innocent little ones. There's an important balance to be struck.

Thankfully, most of the littlest kids do still trend toward super hero and ballerina costumes. And thankfully, most of the gradeschool set goes door-to-door early in the evening. As the night wears on and the teenagers dressed as "trick-or-treaters" (translation: no costume, huge pillow cases for loot, a little red lipstick dripping from their mouth) start to dominate, we do turn off the front lights and head to a more remote part of the house.

And every year, I pray again for the wisdom to be a light in the midst of this darkest of holidays.