Dolly Mama Strikes Again!

100% Devil-Free:
a boring little ramble about what I did for Halloween

As those of you who have been faithful readers of Dolly Mama may remember, my child was recently told by her Wednesday night church teacher that when you go Trick-or-Treating you are "opening yourself up to the devil." Well, I was so irked by this cheap attempt to manipulate my kid with mindless legalism, that I decided we were going Trick-or-Treating this year for the first time ever.

In years past we have mainly attended church parties on Halloween since we have never lived in an area where there are other people Trick-or-Treating. This year our town decided to have ToT night on Saturday (I guess it would be too offensive to God to have it on Sunday--I live in a very small, conservative town), and we had a church party on Sunday night. So, voila! An opportunity was born. Two Halloween festivities for the price of one!

My husband and I took all 6 of our children plus two friends out to Trick-or-Treat and we had a lot of fun. We started out when it was still light, and it was so fun to see so many people from the community out with their little kids all dressed up, excited, and having fun. Very cute stuff for the most part, and confirmed for me that Halloween is basically about family fun and the things kids love: dressing up and getting candy.

The kids were even more thrilled once it got dark, since of course we don't normally go running around in the night. The weather was warm and windy, so that really added to the fun of the whole thing.

On the way home I asked the kids if they felt they had done anything that could have possibly opened themselves up to the devil, and of course they all said no. It was good to have an opportunity to address the kind of stuff that the teacher said by letting the kids see first-hand what ToTing was all about. Hopefully this will help them be critical thinkers in the future.

The most evil thing about Halloween in our neck of the woods is the candy. Definitely. I think church people would be better off condeming sugar than Halloween.....