Halloween- A Reason to Take Your Clothes Off?

Wow. Hilar conversation with my youngest just now. I wanted to show her a video on YouTube that Jefferson Bethke was asked to make addressing how girls dress on Halloween (or don't dress, that is). I'd thought about writing a blog and including the video in it.

I was telling her how he got bashed in the Facebook comments by so many Christians who don't believe in celebrating Halloween. I mean bashed. Bashed for even associating himself with the holiday. Though we don't celebrate it either, it made me a little scared to blog on the subject at all!

I asked her if she remembered why we've not celebrated Halloween, all the spooky stuff and trick or treating. (It's been a looong time since I think we've even talked about it...I've learned to never assume).

So we talked about it again, highlighting a few reasons.

Mainly because it seems everything about it celebrates fear and death-like things. I can't seem to find a redeeming factor in it. I know that most don't agree with us on this. I'm okay with that.

In the midst of writing this, I had to go to Walgreens and buy notecards for homework purposes. So I made it into a little field trip! I went down the Halloween aisle to see what I could see. Once I pushed back the 30 foot inflatable cat, I squeezed down the aisle to find this.

creeeeepy

Now when my girls were little, we did dress them up sometimes and take them to an alternative "Harvest" party at church for fun, games and candy. In the back of my mind I still always wondered why we even had to have an alternative if it's a holiday I don't care for. Nevertheless, as a lover of fall and all things autumn, we still did it, and have lots of cute pics to this day.

(However, today my daughter acted surprised at this knowledge, like she didn't remember the church dress up events. I'm looking at her like she's absolutely crazy and she says, "Mom! I was in a costume every day of my life! I'm not sure I knew the difference!" True.)

We didn't buy them costumes. Instead, they had to use their imagination and come up with their own, using what we already owned. Only one time do I remember buying a swath of orange fabric so my oldest could be a gypsy.

gypsy

Memories are becoming foggy, but one year my middle was either a "Lost Bride" or a "Runaway Bride" because the only play wedding veil we had was torn. We do remember that in character, she had been lost, running through the woods and tore her veil on a tree. Now that's awesome use of ready made materials.

runaway bride

Today my daughter stated, "My friends all seems to think my life was empty without Halloween and Santa Claus, but really I'm quite content". (Her verbage is my daily delight). BTW, the no Santa Claus thing- we are not anti Santa Claus by any means, we just never acted like Santa was real. We sat on his lap, had his pictures on wrapping paper, but didn't act like he was real. There was no huge philosophy behind it. I guess we just didn't want to lie. (No one appears scarred.)

Another reason it's not been a big deal to not celebrate Halloween... it's my birthday! Therefore we've always called it Hollyween at our house and celebrated my birthday instead.

Back to why I started this post, I wanted to post this video by Jefferson Bethke, but I didn't want to get bashed like he did. When I said that out loud to my daughter today, she said that my job as a blogger is to stir things up (said in some better wording I've forgotten).

I said "I don't want to get bashed on my birthday!" She looked at me with that challenging look in her eye, almost implying my wimpiness, sooooo.....in honor of her, I am posting this. In honor of me and my birthday, will you please not bash me? I never mind if you share differing opinions, as long as it's done respectfully. Thanks. Totes appreciate it. Not that any of you would.

Actually I'm SO grateful I've never been bashed with mean comments on this blog, EVER, so thank you that I've never had to deal with that. I read other blogs where people take a stand or just simply say their opinion, and the comments that shoot back make me want to shut down my entire internet!! Whew.

So let's just say, whether you celebrate Halloween or not is not the issue. I said that I don't, just because I have a blog and am writing about this, but I'm not trying to coerce you into my view.

My only point, that it's taken THIS LONG to get to, LOL, is this: Moms of girls AND boys, are you aware of how some girls dress at Halloween parties these days???

I've seen many pictures on Facebook of girls literally in lingerie, walking around a party like it was nothing. I've heard moms arguing with daughters over "you are NOT wearing that out of this house".

It's become so common that girls use Halloween as an excuse to not wear much. And it's also sad to me how many costumes are sexualized, and for very young girls. Sad face.

When I saw Jefferson's video, he addresses this topic. It was interesting to hear from a guy's perspective.

He talks of before he was a Christian and how he looked forward to Halloween because he knew the girls would be dressed in next to nothing...so he saw it as a huge opportunity for him to basically freely lust after girls. (He now feels completely different and calls that attitude he had "wicked"). He talks to girls about dressing to please the Lord and not man.

I haven't been able to appropriately ponder all that he says in this video yet, but it has some good thoughts. Just wanted you to be able to see it too. Click on the link below to watch it.

How to Address Modesty on Halloween

Feel free to share differing opinions and thoughts as usual, just please in a respectful way.
...and Happy Hollyween!!