We're fortunate in that we live so close to a decent size city, but are in a very small town school district. The town where Anya goes to school is known because of the large Amish / Mennonite community. This makes for a very nice dynamic in the schools, and a very conservative environment in the town.
So when Halloween came around, I wondered what we would do, where we would go, if we would participate. When I heard about how our little town handles Halloween, I loved it - and we decided that was how we wanted Anya to be a part of Halloween!
There are a lot of schools of thought out there about this "holiday". To us, it isn't a holiday, we aren't celebrating anything. We simply are engaging in a seasonal tradition by carving pumpkins and allowing Anya to dress up in a costume. For us, it isn't anything scary, satanic or spooky...it is simply a little girl dressing up as Ice Cream and running from house to house with her friends. And that is how our little town thinks about it too - a celebration of the children.
Since the majority of the area is made up of farms and rural homes, everyone comes into town and collects treats (for please and thank-yous) up and down Main Street. There are several churches along the route, and they open their doors to the community by welcoming people and passing out candy to the kids. One church also offers a meal, free of charge, to anyone who wants it - don't you love that? Rather than condemning they have decided to embrace and take advantage of those who might be looking for a church, or seeking an answer. I actually saw one Pastor praying (off to the side of the line of kiddos in costumes) with one of the parents.
After an hour or so of getting to as many homes as possible, all the kids meet near the center of town, the street is closed and the parade starts. All of the kids march around and the town council (or maybe town Marshall...not sure) offer prizes for the best costumes. We saw a jelly fish, 3 little pigs, lots of princesses and Supermen, so many cats and dogs I lost count...but what I noticed was the absence of Snookie, Lady Gaga or anything scary.
For Anya, a child who complains about new things (until she does them of course) and is easily scared - this was the perfect way for her to start to learn about this American tradition.
The best part of our Halloween / Parade / Costume Festival were the lessons learned. We went around with 2 other families - between us we had 3 kids. At one house, one of the girls didn't get a piece of candy (for what ever reason). So Anya gave her one out of her bag.
Anya got 33 pieces of candy (don't you LOVE that? Not an overload of candy that you have to say "no" to a thousand times a day). When we got home, she was very excited to spread out the loot to see what she got. She divided up all the candy into 3 piles, and gave one to me, one to Marty and kept one for herself. She said, "not fair that Mommy and Daddy don't get candy too".
Now what kid do you know that does that?
3 comments:
This is how we feel about Halloween, so glad we're not alone! We usually have a chili party...and call it a Harvest Party...kids dress up..but never anything scary or weird. Just good food and friends :-)
The scariest costume our kids have ever worn is Maddie's freaky Barbie costume this year. :) Freaked me out!
Glad you guys had a great time. The part about the free meals and the pastor praying for the parent was awesome...just what the Church should be doing-engaging the culture instead of condemning them.
You know, when I was a little girl, my dad was a church youth leader, and he always did a Halloween spook house as part of an outreach. That was before it was really, really scary, but they always had a good time. We also used to have a trick or treat walking school field trip to the houses of church members close to our Christian school. I'm so glad Anya had a good time! My kids would have loved to have been right there with her.
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