Costume Parties and Pumpkins

Something that i've learnt from my Dad's side of the family in the last couple of years is not to take things so seriously, to have fun with what you're given. Something else that i learnt from them in the years of growing up was to use your imagination which, i'll admit has not always been helpful at times.

They brought me up on movies like the Dark Crystal and the Neverending Story, with people like Dorothy and the characters from Oz, including the Nome King that didn't like chickens and, more relevant to this blog, ha, Jack Pumpkinhead. There was Star Trek and Ewoks. Fantasy was their mainstream imagination.

I'm not usually one to join in with these sort of debates because i most usually just can't be bothered. But something i've noticed on Twitter a lot lately is the Halloween abuse. Of course it mostly stems from Christians and that's fair enough, it's not exactly a Christian holiday. But i've seen it more from Australians than Americans.

Again, fair enough, Halloween is not a traditional Australian Holiday either, it's mostly an American fuss that the few Australians enjoy as well, so i can understand the proud fascist Australians who might hold this in disregard and each to their own i guess. I think Australians forget that Americans have grown up with this holiday and so their understanding and their culture of Halloween is different to our concept of what it is.

But whilst i understand that the origins of Halloween are not in fact Christian, i never realised people also don't approve of dressing up, throwing a party in costume and even making a day of pumpkin carving.

Pumpkin carving is strangely fascinating. It's something i've become acquainted with recently just for the sheer reason that i wanted to participate in it once in my life. The lengths that some people go to carving their pumpkins is AMAZING (check out the extremes here) but i think mine will just be a simple jack-o-lantern similar to the ones on this website.

Now again, people will criticise me for including pumpkin carving in this blog because a pumpkin was originally set out to ward off evil spirits. I recently went to a page where a family had made a day out of carving their pumpkins. There wasn't anything evil about it, they were just an ordinary family spending some quality time together, getting their hands messy with pumpkin guts, ready to carve pumpkins. You can scroll down to their pictures here.

I'm not saying that it's all goodness. Yes, it does open the door to evil and yes it is a day when pagan activities are indulged in just like any other sinful behaviour that happens around the world 24/7, sin is sin.

What I'm saying is that for the majority of us (or Americans i should say) is that it's just a day of fun, imagination and creativity, mostly for the little kids. We live in a sinful world. But ignoring Halloween or getting rid of Halloween or even criticising and judging it, is not going to make this world any less sinful.

I think i would rather choose to actively make the world i live in a positive one, to make do with what i've got and maybe, just maybe in the process of doing that, i might have the awesome opportunity to share Jesus with someone.