Halloween

Well yes, Halloween was over a week ago. I haven't quite fallen off the blogging waggon again, I was just very very busy. Dad took half term off work, because it was already sorted before the kids left school, this was hopefully the last time he'll do that, there's no point now he may as well leave that week for the other dads, but also we were trying to catch up with the children's schooled friends so were rushed off our feet trying to spend family time and friend time.

To cap it all, we had a non spooky halloween party to organise at church. Yes, non spooky. By that I mean - no witches, ghosts, skeletons or monsters. Halloween in the christian calendar means 'the eve of All Saint's day' - the reason it's now tradtionally the day evil spirits wander the earth is because it's held at the time of the original Pagan festival Samhain. I fail to see how Christians can therefore celebrate Samhain but call it Halloween and think it's ok - if you claim to believe that Jesus is Lord of heaven and earth - why are you dressing up as other spirits and calling it just a bit of fun? The school my children went to claimed to be Christian yet had a Halloween fun day every year where the goriest costumes won .... er, read your Bibles recently staff and governors?

Please note I don't judge anyone who doesn't claim to be a Christian - what you do is your business, your choice, I respect that. I may not share your beliefs and you may not share mine, but I have plenty of non Christian friends and we get along fine, we respect each other's views and live and let live. I'm aware I have several friends who may read this and won't share my beliefs. So if you're reading this and your kids dressed up please don't feel 'got at'!! Several friends of mine who have no beliefs allowed their children to be skeletons or witches or whatever and I listened politely and took an interest in what they were saying - there's no reason for them not to celebrate Samhain if they want to. They are tolerant with me they let me chat about Christian stuff I'm doing, I'm the same with them when they are doing different things. What I object to is people who claim to hold the same beliefs I do, which are extremely important to me, yet blatantly and publicly disrespect Jesus Christ by celebrating other spirits then having the cheek to call it 'Halloween' - ie part of the Christian calendar.

So anyway, getting back on track, my church party was non spooky! We had loads and loads of pumpkins, nothing a Christian needs to object to in a pumpkin they're squash created by God, and they also happen to be fab and gorgeous, why should the pagans have the monopoly on them?! We didn't carve angry faces on them we carved happy ones, and the middle one had four crosses so it cast out cross shaped lights when we lit the candle, it looked truly wonderful.

We also did the usual Halloween party stuff just without anything spooky - we fished in a slimy mix of cornflour and water for plastic tat (aka prizes!), we dangled party ring biscuits from the ceiling on strings and the children had to bite them off with their hands behind their backs (otherwise known as 'doughnut dangling' but we had to get creative as we had a milk allergy child coming) and of course the obligatory apple bobbing. The room was decorated in orange and black streamers, very autumnal colours, plus oodles of pumpkin cutouts and orange, red and yellow balloons. We had a party tea, all milk free of course, plus real coffee for the adults, S's flapjack (the best in the world), and plenty of sweets, if you could find them hidden in flour! church was a bit of a mess after but hey ho ... none of it was permanent, it hoovered up :-) so altogether worth the work - the party was great. Same again next year!

Pics above, just of my children of course (apart from some unidentifiable back of heads), there were several others there but I haven't got permission to splash their faces across the web ;-) Oh yeah, and we celebrated Rosie's second birthday with a cake, her actualy birthday was two days before and organising one party a week is enough for me!