Halloween?

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kamikat

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I know it's early to be bringing this topic up, but the kids are already talking about it. We have always been THAT house on the block, totally decorated and so scary that some of the little ones won't come up the driveway. My kids love it and so do most of the neighbor kids. Is there a consensus on Halloween in the Orthodox Church?

kamikat
 

Asinner

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Halloween used to be our favorite holiday . . . Now I tell the children, "We can eat candy and dress up anytime."
ghost.gif


God Bless :)
 
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Peter

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Hallow-een: The Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve). RC date/celebration.

We ignore it. If the older ones want to go to parties and such (we're talking teens here) we rarely say no. We just ask the usual stuff parents ask regarding parties.

When we were Protesting Catholics we would have a Reformation Party and play "Pin the Thesis on The Door."
(No, really)

Peter
 
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Momzilla

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Before I became Orthodox, I started hosting an annual "pumpkin painting party" the Saturday before Halloween. I still host it, because it's so much fun.

My kids go trick-or-treating along with everyone else.

When it gets right down to it, Halloween bothers me much, much less than the westernized version of the Nativity. I would far rather do away with Santa than Halloween in my household.

YMMV. Bear in mind that I am in the South, were Halloween is pretty sanitized.
 
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OnTheWay

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Some people use the calendar to denote the day when fall starts, as for me I consider it fall when friends from high school send me the latest "proof" that Halloween is the devil's holiday. While I can't find the e-mail from last year, I asked Fr. Matusiak from OCA.org, and he said there was nothing wrong with it. Obviously you can't take part in pagan worship nor should you play with Ouija boards. However, there's nothing wrong with trick or treating, bobbing for apples, and the vast majority of other Halloween traditions.
Honestly, I think this is one of the most hypocritical aspects of the fundie/evang protestant world. Christmas is, of course, not a question for all by the extremist types. However, it (just like Halloween) is a replacement for a pagan holiday (Yule). No one choses to focus on the pagan origins of Christmas trees, Yule logs, and Mistletoe. Yet for some reason the double standard for Halloween, in which everything is measured by it's "pagan" origins. Halloween customs of today are as much, if not more so, divorced from their pagan origins as any Christmas tradition. It's just a remaining Puritian influence, of course they hated Christmas as well for being both a celebration and a Catholic holiday. If it wasn't for the "satanic scare" of the 80's we wouldn't have all this left over anti-Halloween rhetoric. The fundie/evang protestant America become absolutely convinced (and obessed) of the idea thousands of practicing satanists were living among them killing goats and virgins to honor their dark lord. No evidence of this was actually produced, and yet here we are some 20 years later with the "devil's birthday" crowd still going on and on about it.
 
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ModernDaySpyridon

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When we were Protesting Catholics we would have a Reformation Party and play "Pin the Thesis on The Door."
(No, really)

Peter

Lord have mercy.:sick:

I totally understand. When I was growing up in a town with a population of 1000 that had a bible college and a missions organization with in city limits, many of my friends had missionary parents, and they would pull them out of school during the Halloween parties so that they wouldn't...I don't know...bob for apples?:scratch:

Not that we shouldn't be safe, or teach our kids to be discerning, but hystronics are rarely the solution.
 
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Akathist

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This subject comes up every year in our adult education.

Our Priest advises us to follow our own conscience. If the traditional way of celebrating Halloween makes us uncomfortable then we are not obligated to celebrate it. However, he also strongly encouraged us not to be judgemental of those people who like to decorate and have the kids dress up and go out. As long as the families understand that this is meant to be "good clean fun" and not an opportunity to do things we should not do, then it is fine, in his opinion.

I consider much of what is "Halloween" to be about things that are "fiction". The costumns are often about fictional characters. The "traditional" way "witches" and so forth are shown are more fiction than fact. (Ask any wiccan and they will tell you the same thing I suspect.) Since fiction is allowed as far as I am concerned, I think that Halloween is fine for people with kids who want to have fun with it. (Of course, I would never endorce pranks!)

However, to be honest, I do not like the focus on such dark subjects and it breaks my heart to see the stories of kids and others being harmed on this day. I do not have live kids (only angel babies) so I have not honored Halloween for years. In the past I would buy candy and put in a large bowl but I did not decorate beyond a jackalantern and lighting lots of candles near the door.

Now I don't decorate and I don't give out candy. I either go to a movie or if I am broke, I spend the evening on the internet or playing Sims in a darkened home to discourage trick or treaters.
 
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Ilian

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Our kids dress up and go trick-or-treating. We don't do much beyond that except watch the Great Pumpkin a few times. I think the worst aspects of Halloween (the violent movies and so on) are something we will always discourage and work against in general. Halloween or not.

It's nice I think to find some way to incorporate the church if you can. I used to enjoy the All Hallow's Eve mass. Maybe you can talk about the saints of the day. One thing that is good if you're on the New Calendar is you can talk about the two Prosforniki saints who are commemorated on the 31st.
 
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OnTheWay

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I like Halloween, it's a fun holiday. I don't buy candy anymore, but not for any sort of philosophical reasons. The past couple of years I've bought candy and had like two trick or treaters all night. I'm not a big candy eater so most of it just went to waste. I honestly think this is one of those areas where "safety watch dog" groups have ruined a perfectly good holiday. Maybe it's different in other parts of the country, but up here it seems like this "go trick or treating at the mall in broad daylight" garbage has won out.
 
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Orthocat

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ok...we are the family that freaks everyone out on Halloween. One of my teens had a party and we did the whole haunted house thing.
Fog, strobe lights...I did costume changes throughout the night - kind of a hannibal lector meets freddy krueger type thing. The teens had to walk through a foggy strobe lit basement with...uhm...me somewhere in it.
Forgive me...but it was fun!!!
They have already started asking if we will have another.

oh, and here's a recipe...
Get one new potty chair (we had a new baby)
(Let me reemphasize "new" for the chair)
Clean the "tray".
Fill the tray with lemon jello - as it starts to thicken add fun size baby ruth candy bars.
Once jelled, return the tray to the chair.
Set the chair with the other snacks, open the lid and viola!!!
(I think you get the picture....)

Also...
Put the blue toilet bowl cleaners in the toilets in your home.
Make ice cubes using water with blue food color.
When they ask why the blue cubes tell them the water in the kitchen quit working so you had to improvise with "other" water...
After one trip to the restroom.....


yes, I'm twisted I know...but you can have fun parties...
 
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Happy Orthodox

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ok...we are the family that freaks everyone out on Halloween. One of my teens had a party and we did the whole haunted house thing.
Fog, strobe lights...I did costume changes throughout the night - kind of a hannibal lector meets freddy krueger type thing. The teens had to walk through a foggy strobe lit basement with...uhm...me somewhere in it.
Forgive me...but it was fun!!!
They have already started asking if we will have another.

oh, and here's a recipe...
Get one new potty chair (we had a new baby)
(Let me reemphasize "new" for the chair)
Clean the "tray".
Fill the tray with lemon jello - as it starts to thicken add fun size baby ruth candy bars.
Once jelled, return the tray to the chair.
Set the chair with the other snacks, open the lid and viola!!!
(I think you get the picture....)

Also...
Put the blue toilet bowl cleaners in the toilets in your home.
Make ice cubes using water with blue food color.
When they ask why the blue cubes tell them the water in the kitchen quit working so you had to improvise with "other" water...
After one trip to the restroom.....


yes, I'm twisted I know...but you can have fun parties...

I know I'm not going to Orthocat's house for a Halloween party... I hate surprises like that, believe it or not. I'm no fun :( :scratch:

We don't have halloween in Russia, and our parish is not very excited about Halloween either... And we don't have any small kids. So, no Halloween. Candles sound great, though :thumbsup:
 
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Akathist

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oh, and here's a recipe...
Get one new potty chair (we had a new baby)
(Let me reemphasize "new" for the chair)
Clean the "tray".
Fill the tray with lemon jello - as it starts to thicken add fun size baby ruth candy bars.
Once jelled, return the tray to the chair.
Set the chair with the other snacks, open the lid and viola!!!
(I think you get the picture....)

Also...
Put the blue toilet bowl cleaners in the toilets in your home.
Make ice cubes using water with blue food color.
When they ask why the blue cubes tell them the water in the kitchen quit working so you had to improvise with "other" water...
After one trip to the restroom.....


yes, I'm twisted I know...but you can have fun parties...

:D :D :D

Thank You. I really really needed that belly laugh!
 
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Oblio

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Noone thinks Halloween is bad in here do they?

Holloween is a secular holiday to dress up and act silly. It's not even the right day to try to attach any spiritual significance to it. IMO, the whole Western fundamentalist paranoia is simply tilting at windmills, energy that could (along with Potternoia, evolutionoia et. al.) be better spent feeding the poor.
 
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Holloween is a secular holiday to dress up and act silly. It's not even the right day to try to attach any spiritual significance to it. IMO, the whole Western fundamentalist paranoia is simply tilting at windmills, energy that could (along with Potternoia, evolutionoia et. al.) be better spent feeding the poor.
Yeah its for the children though

for the children man

lol :)
 
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