Growing up, we didn’t ever celebrate Halloween. My parents, as Christians, never wanted to participate in something that celebrates darkness and evil. So as a kid I never dressed up, never went trick-or-treating, and never went to Halloween parties. Instead we usually hung out at home watching movies or hung out with friends who didn’t celebrate either. The first time I actually dressed up for Halloween was a few years ago during college when my best friend and I put together Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes. Looking back I really don’t feel like I missed out on anything as a kid. As a Christian myself, I understand and agree with my parents’ decision to not get involved in Halloween because even though the holiday may not have started out as a celebration of darkness, over the years it has definitely morphed into exactly that for most of our culture. Alex and I talked a lot about it before Jameson was born to decide how we wanted to handle it and we ultimately agreed to “participate with caution.” Basically, we think dressing up is fine (and fun!) as long as it’s nothing too sinister and going to costume parties with friends is okay too. We’re going to make sure we have conversations with our kids about how Halloween actually began and steer them away from getting involved in the darker aspects of the day. As Christians we have the freedom in Christ to decide if and how we want to celebrate, keeping Him as our focus always. I don’t know if we’ll ever go trick-or-treating (maybe it’s how I was raised but something about going up to random people’s homes and asking for their desserts is weird to me haha) and I doubt we’ll ever decorate in celebration or anything like that. I don’t really see it ever becoming a major holiday that we celebrate, and that’s okay with me.
This year we decided to just dress Jameson up in something he already had (a “Wild Thing” outfit based on the book Where the Wild Things Are, from my best friend) and spent the day with family. My sister and her husband went with a Winnie the Pooh theme for my niece, which was sooo cute, and we hung out at the park for a little while to get some pictures. It was super low-key and we had lots of fun! Plus, babies in costumes are just the cutest. ❤
Milk with a Meal 