I was complaining at work Monday night that everyone has forgotten the true meaning of Halloween, and it's all become commercialized. Nowadays the Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin patch and starts doing endorsements for one brand name after another.
Aside from that, it's just a fun and harmless children's holiday. When it ceases to be fun because of vandalism or recklessness, it needs to be reined in, but I really don't worry that my daughter is going to run off and join a coven because we made paper jack-o'-lanterns yesterday for homeschool crafts.
I did explain to her the history of jack-o'-lanterns, and told her that people used them before they knew about Jesus to keep themselves safe from scary things. (Evangeline has an active imagination, so I didn't see a need to start filling her idea with notions about ghosts, goblins and demons in the hours just before bedtime.) I told her that now that we know about Jesus and don't need to be afraid of those things, we make jack-o'-lanterns because they're fun to make and because they also can remind us that Christ is the one who frees us from fear and from our sin.
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