"Pumpkins scream in the dead of night! This is Halloween everybody make a scene, Trick or Treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright!"
Oh how I LOVE The Nightmare Before Christmas. One of the greatest movies of all time.
Halloween is on its way and I find myself not really caring. Halloween was cool when I was a kid and went trick or treating. Now it just doesn't fit with my lifestyle. Trick or treating in cute costumes has been replaced by bouncing to bars asking for alcohol in the sluttiest outfits possible. Not my scene. Haunted houses terrify me and I hate scary movies. The only thing I really like about Halloween is dressing in costumes, which can be done any time of the year. Costume parties are not limited to Halloween.
Halloween is a weird holiday in general. It was yet another pagan holiday that the Christians adopted and turned into a religious holiday (All Saints Day Eve so to speak). All Saints Day is when the Christians honor the saints and martyrs of the past. It's a nice idea but its still based off a pagan holiday...then again so are a lot of Christmas and Easter practices (dying eggs and decorating trees has nothing to do with Christianity). I think this was done to make the pagans feel more at home in their new religion but its still weird to me. Its like by giving it a Christian connotation you can make pagan things ok. Yet I will admit, I like dying eggs and decorating trees.
For Halloween I will most likely be doing nothing. Unless of course all my friends are bored and we want to play the Wii.
If you do go out, be safe.
Salaam.
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I love love love that movie!!! I am now sitting in my chair at work, quietly humming that song to myself. My day has just become a little better. Thanks :)
ReplyDeleteHeh. That is a great movie.
ReplyDeleteWell, I love Halloween. Just love it! Even when we're 'too old' to dress up and go trick or treating, it's still great fun to have the kids come to the house in their little costumes!
Of course, I used to *be* a pagan, so I'm kind of missing the rituals and get togethers that preceded Halloween for me for years...
They certainly are interesting rituals. I read about them a long time ago, fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThe kids don't come by my home. I live in an apartment building :(
I was thinking on the issue of Halloween the other day... I dont know where I actually stand on this one considering it is in fact also used as a satanic day of worship... I know this as I have read Anton La Vey's Satanic Bible. I personally dont think we as muslims/religious, God believing people should in any way celebrate Halloween... How are we bringing up children in this way?
ReplyDeleteI dont know people... what do you think?
Elizabeth, I have been trying to make a comment to your blog post on Halloween. Do you think you could turn on the Name/URL option so I can give that identity? None of the other options fit my situation... Anyway, here's what I was going to post, since it seems to be on topic here too:
ReplyDeleteWhat really bothers me about Halloween is that it is celebrated not just by pagans, but by Satanists as a perversion of a (supposedly) Christian holiday (which is actually probably based on Samhain, now that I think about it). So I haven't celebrated it in years. Thank God I live in an area where it is not commonly celebrated. Indeed, when I first moved here, people had no more idea what Halloween was than they did what Valentine's Day was.
Bottom line: I completely support you in not celebrating Halloween, ESPECIALLY if you ever had any interest in Satanism. In such circumstances, it can only be a snare to your feet.
Elizabeth - I do not know how teens got so slutty but someone has to do something. These costumes are horrible!
ReplyDeleteKids is where I will one day be confused. Insha'Allah I have one someday. How do you tell your 5 year old he can't dress up with the rest of the class? I don't think I could. I would probably let my child dress up in class till he was old enough to understand. They usually stop wearing costumes to school by junior high anyway and by then kids can be responsible and understand.
Why would it be a problem to tell your kid they can't dress up or go trick-or-treating? Sure, I made a fuss when someone told me that as a kid - for safety reasons - but my response was, 'Well, why not go in the daytime then, like right now, if it's unsafe at night?' They didn't have a good answer, so I threw a tantrum. But if you have a good answer, I would think it would go better.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think the time to start would be the minute the Halloween displays start to appear in the shops. Which is usually well in advance of the fact, thank God (in this case), so that there is plenty of time to get the child used to different reactions to the idea of not celebrating Halloween.
I think probably if you find the kid is interested in costumes, pumpkin carving, candy and the like, it might be difficult to completely remove those elements from your lives. But I can see carving pumpkins for Thanksgiving, since pumpkin is a traditional part of the dinner anyway.
I can also see costume parties - with appropriate discussion in advance of what constitutes an appropriate costume - at some other time than Halloween, even several times a year. Perhaps even something like a periodical family theater night.
There might need to be a discussion in advance with teachers at school to try to ensure that children won't be required to engage in customs which are contrary to their family's beliefs.
Candy... well, that is debatable because it's not great health-wise. That would be the most difficult problem to solve, I would think. Probably you have to become famous for making fantastic desserts that also happen to be healthy, and make sure they are on the menu consistently.
BTW, you have no doubt noticed I am a newcomer to your blog. I am enchanted by your reading list. Actually own a pretty large fraction of the items myself, or am about to (i.e. waiting for E-bay orders to arrive in my mailbox :) ). Great fan in particular of Thich Nhat Hanh, LOVED Persepolis. Also have several items each by Karen Armstrong, Bruce Feiler and Shan Sa. Have you read Mao's Last Dancer?
Well my uni Islamic Society is having a Halaloween party! (quite clever huh?)
ReplyDeleteNot sure if it will involve carved pumpkins though... ;)
Haha Sarah that is cute! Halaloween.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the advice Caraboska. I have a long time till children but it is a concern of mine. Especially since schools have halloween parties and such. Having random costume parties is a great idea! So is carving a pumpkin for thanksgiving.
I have not read Mao's Last Dancer but I might need to check it out.
LK, I'm not the expert on kids - am 45 and never married (no kids). I'm just remembering what I was like as a kid and what I would have understood or accepted or liked, if my parents didn't want me to celebrate Halloween.
ReplyDeleteThankfully we did not have Halloween or other holiday parties at school. Perhaps a Christmas assembly where classes would put on skits or sing carols in French or something. I lived in a heavily Quaker area, so that might have had something to do with it. Just little details like not saying the pledge of allegiance or singing patriotic songs, and no rifles in the bandfront at football games. And maybe this as well.
PS I just recently acquired 'Mao's Last Dancer' on E-bay at the recommendation of Ange over at 'Mama... I married a Masri'. I began reading it the minute I held it in my hands, and finished 4.5 hours later (at about 3:30 AM). Spellbinding.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I've wanted to check out Mao's Last Dancer for a while...good to know it's worthwhile ^.^
ReplyDeleteI'm with Amber, I *love* Halloween! (^_^)
I think it's evolved into it's own new thing. Even though it's just as commercialized as Christmas (for a comparison), people still know what the origins of Christmas are and it seems to me that people still talk about/teach that in their home (and church) despite what's seen in the malls. Most people don't even know where Halloween comes from or have significant misconceptions.
The problem (imho) with not allowing children to participate in Halloween parties, etc, at school when they're little is that it will ostracize them, and I've only seen negative repercussions. My mom (a teacher) would always be the teacher in charge of watching the kids whose parents said they couldn't participate in Halloween festivities and the kids *always* ended up feeling very sad and lonely and would tell her that they wished they could have fun with their friends. The other kids couldn't understand why they couldn't join them and sometimes teasing would occur. It's important to stand up for your beliefs, I agree, but imho kids shouldn't have that expectation until they're old enough to really understand what's going on. I think you're right though, LK, once the kid can understand better, the schools pretty much stop with the parties and whatknot.
...
Wow, definitely more long-winded than I thought. Sorry!
I've enjoyed reading everybody's perspective. There are some really good ideas! ^_^
Sophie - yeah this is my thought if I had a child "My kid is already muslim, already not the norm, why it make worse for him?" It isn't worth it.
ReplyDeleteYou are right most people do not know where Halloween comes from. Its just a holiday about candy and costumes for most. I remember My Love telling me how when they were little his parents had no idea what Halloween really was b/c they don't have Halloween in Pakistan. They dressed up, they went trick or treating. It took till he was about 11 for them to figure it out after attending a lecture which discussed why muslims shouldn't celebrate Halloween. The disconnection from its origins is so great that someone had to be flat out told it was unholy for them to figure it out. If an adult can't realize it without being told, a child surely will not.
Can anyone explain the argument against celebrating the holidays of other belief systems? I don't fully understand.
ReplyDeleteIf it is not going to involve you worshipping something you shouldn't worship, is there some mystical significance to the fact that false beliefs underlie the origins? Isn't that like a superstition?
Or is it just that imitating pagan rituals is a repulsive idea?
Throughout history Christianity has "sanctified" a lot of unholy things, for example festivals that became Christmas and Easter, and secular music styles that became used in sacred compositions. It seems that imitating the unholy has been considered OK if done with the right frame of mind. Halloween has not been Christianised, but it has been secularised for the most part - is that good enough?
I'm not sure about in Islam. I know the idols were cleared out of the Kaaba, but the story goes that that just restored it to its original holy purpose.
I can't make my mind up whether it's OK or not. I really don't feel like any harm came to me for dressing up at halloween as a kid. But then, when I stop and think about its origins, it does sound kind of bad.
Its the origins in particular, that they are related to demons and such. The pagan origins of the Christmas tree or the colored eggs never had anything to do with "evil" things which is probably why there isn't such a big fuss over them.
ReplyDeleteBut if people don't see it as being about that...? Just about dressing up and scaring people and having fun?
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Halloween in particular is that it could have associations of pagan worship. For that matter, in some measure - 'Christianization' operations notwithstanding - Christmas and Easter could as well. It bothers me enough that I don't personally celebrate either holiday - indeed, I don't personally celebrate any at all, except maybe Thanksgiving if I'm with family, because I believe that every day is holy. My beloved's family have different convictions, and they invite me to spend the holidays with them, which is nice because then I don't feel lonely. But they know not to expect me to participate in any pagan customs while I am there. We just have a meal together, fellowship time, maybe some singing which will include both items related to the event celebrated on the given day, and general worship songs.
ReplyDelete