Halloween Origins and Customs

Halloween Origins and Customs

My husband and I were up late tonight, penning a letter to my son's teacher. We send him to a Christian school because 1. he is gifted and has ADHD and a smaller class size is best for him and 2. we do our best to infuse every aspect of his life with God's love and teachings.

We were quite surprised when he came home from school and asked if he could go trick-or-treating at his teacher's home with the rest of his class. (We have not taken him trick-or-treating nor have we ever celebrated Halloween; we don't even buy a pumpkin.)

It broke my heart to tell him no, and we spent several hours explaining why we don't celebrate Halloween and why it was wrong for his teacher to invite the class to participate in trick-or-treating. I turned to the Internet to pull up a concrete history of Halloween to help us explain. We found the Jeremiah Project website and it was perfect for explaining the awful roots and symbolism of Halloween and was replete with multiple Bible verses to support our decision to ignore Halloween.

The author did a wonderful job researching the historical facts and the Bible verses were appropriate and well organized. It was so good, in fact, that I printed out the text version and sent it along with our note to my son's teacher.

While some holiday traditions are harmless, this is one holiday that is overflowing with spiritual implications. I encourage all Christians to research the history of Halloween before deciding to take part in any form of Halloween celebration.

Many thanks to the author of the Jeremiah Project website for a job well done. We will be sending an email of thanks for arming us with the information we needed to educate our son about Halloween.