Take off the mask … Celebrate Life is a little booklet I created in 1990 when my first two children were young – 18 months and 3. (They are now 32 and 30).
Before having children, my husband and I had come to the understanding that Halloween was not a holiday for believers in Jesus and we could not take part. It was a difficult decision to make because many of our Christian friends did not have the same conviction (and many still do not today). There were beliefs that ranged from it’s a harmless holiday to remembering Jesus’ death on the cross was part of celebrating death. (Personally, we don’t celebrate Jesus’ death; we celebrate His resurrection!)
Many Christian friends felt that if we were going to make a stand at all, an ‘alternative’ was the way to go because we needed to be a light in the darkness. Honestly, that made no sense to us because celebrating darkness means you’re not being a light! Alternatives also seemed to be an easy way of ‘copping out’ to the wishes of children and not truly making a stand and teaching our children the difference between light and darkness. It became important for us that we didn’t confuse our children with ‘alternative’ parties that only served to keep them honoring something we didn’t want to honor. It was essential that our family celebrate LIFE rather than death. It was crucial that our LIFEstyle did not glorify Satan, witchcraft, death in any manner.
We also felt it was necessary for our children to understand the meaning behind all the decorations that were everywhere. As young children, some of the decorations at Target and the grocery store actually frightened them. Perhaps this is why we are to have faith as children – they have more discernment sometimes than their parents. They also had to understand why we did not carve pumpkins like all of their friends or let them dress up as Bible characters on a day that children are abducted or poisoned. They needed to see the difference between the symbols of death and darkness and the Light of LIFE that we had been given in Jesus. So, the birth of the little book, “Take off your mask … Celebrate Life!”
Click here for a smaller version Booklet (PDF) of Celebrate Life.