Tuesday, October 04, 2011

I call it "Classy Spooky"



I've been trying to incorporate this phrase into many a conversation lately, and Kevin's been cracking up at me. Isn't the word "classy" a funny word? It reminds me of the 80's, for some reason. For those of you who were born in the 80's, well you won't get it.


The deal is that my husband is not a fan of Halloween. I decorated a bit the other day, and I saw him do a couple deep breaths. I get that. Halloween is an opportunity for a lot of dark, scary things to be honored in our culture, neighborhoods, and homes. (Have you been in any craft or home store lately? Look at what they're marketing to us mommies!) So what is my compromising solution? Classy Spooky.



It's decorating festively with no hint towards the creepy, dark elements that can be a part of Halloween. It's protecting my children from the aforementioned store displays for the next month. It's limiting their choice of costumes to those which are actually childlike and fun. It's activities like making my special pumpkin chocolate chip cookies together and coloring vintage-style pictures. It's displaying their precious school crafts from past years.





I choose to celebrate the traditions that I remember as a kid. Trick-or-treating, dressing up in something silly or heroic, and carving pumpkins.



I actually really love those traditions, and even though the holiday has its roots in pagan practices, so do Easter egg hunts and Christmas trees. I'm not about to throw all those things out when they don't mean those things to us. The darkness and religious practices outside of the worship of the one true God do not come near our home.

We celebrate family, memory making, and Jesus over all and in all. My kids know nothing other than a Christ-centered home, and as long as we continue to worship Him, I think it's okay to carry on certain traditions related to certain holidays. If you feel convicted along different lines, I totally and completely respect that. I know God can convict different people of different things, and He requires we live by faith and obedience to His living Spirit at work in our hearts. For me, at this point, this is where I stand. (And I'm not guaranteeing that won't someday change).

I encourage you this season to be intentional about what you allow regarding Halloween. I think it's all too easy to look at what's popular in our culture and forget that evil is real. Satan is real, alive and well here. I get a sick feeling in my stomach ever year when I see small, innocent children dressed up as him trick-or-treating. As if he is a fictional character like Darth Vader.

I'm keeping my spiritual eyes open, and being reminded, myself, of this verse:

The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves.
Romans 14:22

I love this verse. It feels freeing. It tells me that I don't have to follow culture or a person's opinion or a church's platform. I follow God. He directs me in the way I should go, and He will correct me if I get off track.



And I'm pretty sure He invented candy corn. Just kidding. Sort of.

How do you handle the issues surrounding Halloween in your home?

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23 comments:

  1. this is lovely!
    you words and convictions and your display....you are gettin' good girl!

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  2. that is a great verse.

    we respond to halloween the same way your family does.

    all the things i enjoyed about halloween as a child create community; dressing up, trick or treating, parties.

    not participating in halloween (for me) would come out of self-righteousness, judgment, the pharisee in me. participating reminds me to put on Christ, be light in a dark world.

    happy candy corn eating.

    your decor looks great. i especially love the colored pics. a sweet touch.

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  3. I am on the same page as you here... and our hubbies too - I got the sigh as well. :)

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  4. it looks so good, leslie!!!

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  5. Oh I love the colored pages, so cute. We are thoughtful about the costumes we select, and it's just a very "light" day for us. We do a tiny bit of trick or treating early in the evening and then we spend time with my brother's family. Nothing creepy here, except of course my nephew's costumes, which are always disgusting! I guess you can't win them all ;)

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  6. i'm pretty much exactly the same in my celebration of the "pagan" holidays. it's more of a tradition, and my motivation is not to dishonor God in any way, so i don't feel convicted not to participate. i don't like the spooky, gory decor though. i'm more of a "fall" decorator, not so much a "halloween" decorator. romans 14 is one of my toughest passages. it relates to a lot of areas for me and sometimes i feel condemned by it and sometimes i feel freed by it!?! crazy huh? that's just me, a little crazy.

    anyway, i like how you wrote about this. very thoughtful.

    and also, i cannot stand candy corn. i know, i'm like the only one in the world. candy corn and dogs. can we still be friends? ;)

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  7. What a beautiful wreath!!

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  8. Oh boy I knew Id be the odd man out here. but thats OK. Like you said, these things are personal convictions. Mine is to abstain alltogether.
    I do however, love your "classy" decorating. And love that Shauna always refers to you as a "classy lady." Cuz shes right. Even if I was born in 1980 and dont know what you're referring to, haha:)
    xo

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  9. Such cute decorations! You have such a great eye for putting color together!

    I was born in the 70's, but I get "classy." It's a good word. :) I miss words like classy and pretty and cute. I think they got squashed by "hot."

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  10. i l-o-v-e your style...i think you could decorate my home quite nicely, leslie!

    i agree with linda about the word classy. i was born in the 80's, but was too young to be "in" on the lingo. i grew up in the age of, "kickin", "stellar", "legit", and "the bomb". words my boys will surely laugh at in a few years.

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  11. my girls want to spooky the house out. skeletons, creepy bats, etc. i had to say no. no can do. our version of creepy is a crow on my wreath. i am definitely more of a harvest girl. trick or treating is a must though. i need to get candy somehow! :)

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  12. its beautiful Leslie! and the words in this post are what my heart feels. and I agree that verse does feel freeing.

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  13. it's perfect. we moved in april and i can't even find my classy spookies. sad. and i love that verse.

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  14. Okay, first off I love that wreath and second: yes, God must have come up with candy corn-it's just too good. And mostly, I totally agree with you. I am more on your husband's side, and have just recently learned to control my eye twitching that comes with Halloween. I am totally against the scary things, but I'm not against the fun that can come along with this time of year. I think it's all about a balance and doing what's right for your family. And I'm also okay that my kids think Halloween decorating is all about pumpkins, nothing else!

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  15. Oy.
    It has been a struggle in my heart this year (you're writing this post for ME, right?). I LOVE This time of year and enjoy the "idea" of Halloween. We have always celebrated, decked out the house, put out an entire DICKENS Halloween village etc.
    This year, however, (and for no apparent reason) I have felt weird about celebrating. I remember last year, watching Kensington walk around our neighborhood, with her little bumblebee costume on, and being confronted with kids and bloody "scream" masks on and devils everywhere. Ghosts, skeletons and the like.
    I guess I just realized that even though we keep Halloween pure and "for fun", I can't control how others celebrate and I want to expose her to as little as possible.
    She didn't understand the costumes, didn't understand why people are scaring one another and didn't get why little girls were dressed so scandalous. She looked confused and scared 75% of the time we were trick-or-treating.
    I looked at Sean and said, "We aren't doing this next year".
    I can't protect her from everything, but this particular holiday is starting to scare ME.

    All that being said, I'm so conflicted still. I feel like the families that don't celebrate at all and just carve pumpkins in their downstairs room are kinda still celebrating, so what's the point?
    I don't know.
    I just don't know.

    And I guess that's ok, right?

    But, yes to candy corn.
    And Milky Ways.

    (great post, BTW).

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  16. I'm so loving this post! I feel the exact same way about Halloween. For all my life, it has been one of my fav holidays. But I am not fond of the majorly creepy stuff. I love your Spooky Classy idea... I wish that the whole world would embrace that happy medium so people like us, who want our kids to enjoy the fun holiday, would be able to just let loose and have fun without worrying about our kiddos being scared pantsless while they're out trick-or treating.

    Why do I always seem to ramble when I'm commenting?

    On another note, I made "hugs" for the kids and my husband forgot to give them to the kiddos while I was gone! lol

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  17. You're not alone, Handbags*N*Pigtails. We may be in the minority, but we are not alone. LOL!

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  18. I love your decorations, super sweet! And lovely post!

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  19. LOVE the decoratoins... gorgeous!!
    New follower from follower's fest!!!

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  20. Agh! Leslie I love this post and your decorations and your stance on Halloween. Always well said...and I want your owls(all of them ;)

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  21. I LOVE your decorations! So cute! New follower from Follower Fest!

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  22. love this post.love your style.LOVE this blog. So grateful for the FF and coming across yours. So nice to meet you. Feel free to stop by anytime here http://nataliensor.blogspot.com/

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  23. i absolutely adore all of these!! stopping by from follow fest...and i love your blog! new follower:)

    can't wait to read more:)

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