The Devils' Holiday

I don't really have too many memories of Halloween growing up. One of the earliest is that we had a party at my house, including some of the traditional (?) Halloween games like bobbing for apples. The coolest thing about this particular party was that my mom used this old beater camera to take some photos. She gathered all of us kids (I think I was in 2nd or 3rd grade) and took one picture with our masks on and the next one with our masks off. The masks were those cheap plastic kinds with the low grade rubber band that pops off withing seconds of donning the mask. What ends up happening is that you keep re-tying the rubber band until it's so tight your eyelids are poking out the eye slits. But I digress... The point of this story is that the two pictures my mom took with the old camera superimposed on each other. The effect was startling - you could see through the masks! It was a little creepy. The other semi-vivid memory I have of Halloween is being home by myself as a young teenager, maybe 13 or 14. I turned off all the lights, locked the door, and watched Halloween (the original movie). It was pretty scary. When trick or treaters knocked, I simply ignored them. I think that my humbug mentality was already setting in.
At some point along the way, I decided that Halloween was an evil holiday. I decided not to participate at all. I was even perturbed by churches having their little psuedo-halloween parties, sometimes called "Hallelujah Parties" or "Fall Festivals". Even after I got married and had kids, we didn't celebrate Halloween. As my kids began to get older, it became harder and harder to remember, let alone explain to them, why I stopped celebrating "The Devil's Holiday". Last year, we got together with some friends and took the kids trick or treating. It was a good time. This year, fat and sassy with success from last year's candy haul, we decided to take the kids out in our new neigborhood (we bought a house in near downtown Amarillo in July). It was awesome. Tracy and I, accompanied by a lady bug, Shirley Temple, two zombies, a princess, and "the chicken" attacked the neighborhood zealously in a two hour marathon candy orgy. We had a great family time, thoroughly enjoying the company of our kids and their two friends. There were people out everywhere. We stopped and chatted with many, bumped into a few neighbors and friends. It was a great time. At some point, I wondered why I ever decided to stop celebrating Halloween. The cynic in me, ever present, is quick to point out that even in a "crappy" economy, the candy shelves at Wal-Mart were empty, a testament to the blatant commercialism of late October. Even so, my family and I enjoyed getting out in the 'hood, having some laughs, and being together.
As a follower of Jesus, it is sometimes difficult to determine which parts of culture are worthy of embracing. In my opinion, Halloween has passed the test for this family.