Why I celebrate Halloween with my family.
We like Halloween in the King house. For us it's not about spooks, witches, and dead stuff. But it is an awesome opportunity to dress up like a favorite character and have some fun. And we always have a lot of fun.
As a Christian father who happens to be a minister it is really important to me that my son grows up to see how I engage with some of the parts of our culture that evangelicals have made unnecessarily awkward. For years the church has replaced the word Halloween with words like "harvest" or "hallelujah". Which is fine. But they still celebrate Halloween.
Let's be honest. Celebrating Halloween is dressing up, and candy, and all of that other stuff that is so great. Doctoring it up and calling it something else doesn't change what it is. So let's stop being confusing, unclear, and intellectually dishonest.
Rather than pitch a fit over wording, and get lost defending how we "don't celebrate Halloween"—my family has decided to do something different. And we know we aren't the only ones. Instead of pretending like we don't celebrate it, let's just fess up to it, go all out, and enjoy it. Let's see just how much fun we can have. But, and here's the clincher, let's redeem it.
So Halloween for the Kings isn't about demons and darkness. It's not a celebration of dreariness, death, and decay. It is about life. Enjoying life together. We will be who we are in all of our Nerd-filled wonder, and use this fun day to shine the glory of God around us. Who knows, on a day like Halloween someone just might be paying attention.