My Little Pagan
Friday, October 30th, 2009
I had the misfortune of being part of the fundamentalist crowd that did not celebrate Halloween. We gave out treats (and tracts) a few years until we moved out to the country where we never had trick-or-treaters knock on our door, but the year after I turned six, my parents said they felt convicted about celebrating a holiday with pagan origins and we were no longer allowed to celebrate it ourselves. (Yes, well, so does Christmas and Easter, and regardless of the origins of any holiday, all have been secularized enough to be easily celebrated without mention of religion at all, which is what I do now.) They did allow us to go to our church saints festival, where we dressed up like our favorite Bible characters, but that only lasted a year or two when they finally said that we were technically celebrating, and they didn’t feel right about that either.
The result is now I live vicariously through my daughter in celebrating to the maximum we can afford. Yes, I felt deprived, and now I am trying to wrack my brain for traditions. I actually had to look up on the internet the time when parents typically take their children trick-or-treating (the consensus sees to be after dinner–from about 5-8). Do people even actually have traditions on Halloween, apart from costumes and going trick-or-treat? If you do or did, please share! I need some ideas!
Churches got sticky on this issue, too. The first church where we ministered celebrated Halloween through trunk-or-treat, viewing it as kind of a ministry. It is probably my one good memory of that church. Funny, too, because I had a root canal earlier that day and wound up not needing a costume to look like the grim reaper.
Our second church, however, agreed with my parents that it was evil. I felt frustrated because I didn’t see a problem with it, but wasn’t really allowed to celebrate. Yes, sacrifice, sacrifice, but all that sacrifice added up! Halloween became one more part of me–of my ideas, my opinions, my thoughts, that didn’t matter. I was okay with sacrificing–I was not okay with feeling like I had to sacrifice because, as a woman, nobody trusted that I had any good ideas on the interpretation of the Bible. When your thoughts don’t matter to others, you feel like your entire self doesn’t matter to others. I reached my breaking point, and fell apart. This was the time when my marriage fell to pieces. I wound up getting to celebrate Halloween that year, because the job and our marriage didn’t make it to October 31. (It was still a total nightmare, though, but maybe I’ll tell that story next year!)
So yes, my dear former fellow fundamentalists. Here is my poor, heathen child, destined to go to hell for eating her Snickers and dressing up like a kitty–a black kitty!
Can't you see the evil written all over her sleepy face (this was taken at 6am this morning)? Dress up at school today, trick or treating tomorrow, exorcism on Sunday!
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October 31st, 2009 at 5:27 am
I presume you know about bobbing for apples? Always a lot of fun! And I have fond memories of halloween brack (fruit cake with coins and rings in it – they mean something but I forget what)
October 31st, 2009 at 6:17 am
I’ve never heard of halloween brack. Perhaps it’s a regional tradition.
We lived in a tightly knit community with a lot of children when I was younger and Halloween was alway a very big deal. Trick or treat time tended to vary depending on the age of the child. Often there were costume parties. I could be wrong, but I think outside of trick-or-treating traditions are rather fluid. Anything scary and creative will do. The was an older woman without young children who lived up the street from us who used to dress very elaborately as a witch, decorate her house and had a big cauldron in the middle of the room which contained a punch she called “cat’s blood.” She used dry ice to make it seem creepy. She also ran around reciting “incantations.” All the kids would wind up there. She was an academic who was very tame the rest of the year.
If you have any good ideas, try them. It’s not as if you can be sacreligious.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Awwww Laura! You have the most adorable black heathen kitty kid!
I wish we lived closer together. I could help you with all of your trivial secular needs. Actually, I wish we *both* lived closer to Esperanza. We could crash her spooky kid party together. That girl knows how to have kid fun!
Hope you have a great Halloween!
October 31st, 2009 at 12:42 pm
No kidding! I could take Halloween lessons!
I like the bobbing for apples idea. Julieanne LOVES apples. And I like the brack idea, too! Takes me back to my Irish roots. I think I will do both of those next year!
November 1st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Okay – not a kid tradition, you should find a live showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s a Halloween tradition at my house! My mom took me for the first time while I was is high school. It was pretty funny to see my 50 year old mother doing the time warp.
November 1st, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the most fun thing about Halloween yet… carving pumpkins! Of course, the first step is going out to a local farm to pick out your pumpkin. That alone is a lot of fun, especially if the farm also sells homemade apple cider and doughnuts. Then you take your pumpkins home and cut them open, make an absolute mess scraping out all of the seeds, and take lots of pictures of the little ones covered in goop and the baby trying to eat raw pumpkin pieces. Boil the seeds in some salt water then roast them, of course, for a nice Halloween treat. Then carve them in whatever fun way you want. We did a Shrek pumpkin and a ghost pumpkin this year.
Making creepy food is always fun, too. I got a lot of ideas this year from one of the blogs on my blogroll: Our Best Bites. If you follow her Halloween treats link, it’ll take you to complete pictorials and recipes for a dozen or more creepy edibles. My favorite was the worm sandwich: quartered hot dogs boiled and then rolled in bbq sauce… looks so gross!
Halloween is such a fun time for kids. I’m very glad your little heathen daughter will get to experience it!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:51 am
We’re Catholic (since you are a former Baptist, you probably know that means we’re heathens.
and we LOVE Halloween. My kids are planning their costumes in August! We also have a Halloween party at our house on Halloween night. We invite everybody we know, plus our entire street. Any guests who have kids come before the party starts so their kids can go trick or treating with our kids. My husband and the other parents take the kids out and I stay at the house doing the last minute touch ups for the party.
For decorating, I just pick up anything I like at Party City or Dollar Tree and over the years I’ve acquired a pretty good collection of decorations. Regular lightbulbs get replaced with purple or orange bulbs.
Of course, carving pumpkins is always a necessary part of Halloween! About a week before Halloween, I take the kids to a pumpkin farm and we pick out pumpkins, go on a hayride, etc. This is always a part of our tradition of getting ready for Halloween and our party. We carve the pumpkins 1 or 2 days before Halloween.
One of our traditional Halloween foods are pumpkin seeds – we save the seeds after carving, rinse & dry them, toss with oil and seasoned salt, and bake at 400F degree oven until crisp. We always have hot apple cider on Halloween. Sometimes of the traditional foods we have on Halloween is just regular food that has been renamed – chicken wings become bat wings, meatballs become eyeballs, etc.
Check out familyfun.com. They always have great ideas for Halloween!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:57 am
haha! Yes, you heathen in the world’s biggest cult!
That sounds wonderful! Can I come to your house?
Okay, seriously, I tried the pumpkin seed thing, but I failed miserably! I left out the oil, I see! Also, though, how do you get the shell off? (Wow, I feel like a total incompetent idiot! I’ve had pumpkin seeds, they were just storebought!)
November 7th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Yes, you have to toss them with oil!
Here’s the way we do the seeds. When you carve a pumpkin, spread out a lot of newspapers because it will be messy! First cut off the top part with the stem. Then use a metal spoon to scrape all the insides out (“guts” as my kids call it) and set aside on the newspapers until the inside of the pumpkin is scraped clean.
Then just start pulling the seeds from the pumpkin flesh and place them in a collander or strainer. It’s messy and takes a while but doing it with your kids makes it go by faster and creates some good memories.
After you’ve got all the seeds pulled out and in the collander, rinse for a few minutes under running water. Then spread out on paper towels and pat dry. After they’re dry you can then put them in a bowl, toss with some oil (a tablespoon or so) and seasonings, then spread out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and bake at 400F. Good luck!
November 7th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
ah! That’s what I did wrong! I didn’t dry them, either. Haha, I am such a moron! Thanks for the advice! That’s what I’ll do next time. (You should have seen these pumpkin seeds–dried, shriveled, and not too tasty!)
February 24th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
I’ve had a lot of Halloweens, and to be honest, I think the only tradition is that we never do it the same way two years in a row. Sometimes I go out trick-or-treating with my little brother (it’s amazing that they’ll give out candy to twenty-year-olds in costume!), if I’m lucky I get to go to a party with some extended family members, and often I just stay home and use my computer all evening (like every day).
There are only two constants: You MUST truss up your house in colored lights and spooky decorations, and you MUST wear a costume. No matter how old you are, the costume is important. No, you can’t wear the same costume every year, unless you do something really awesome with it. (I know of a guy who would dress in a wizard’s robe and let kids come into his backyard and look at the planets through his telescope. How awesome is that?)
You could also do a little “stealth indoctrination”, if you want. See if you can get ahold of some mini science kits or maybe some booklets on stargazing – I’m not sure what’s available in that regard – and hand it out along with generous offerings of candy to the tots that show up at your door.
And when you take your little one out trick-or-treating, it’s much more fun to do it in a group. You might see if there are any moms with little kids who are willing to put together a proper trick-or-treating party and pillage the neighborhood using droves of small children. Much more fun than going out on your own.