Halloween has become so commercialized that its true purpose is nearly forgotten. It is lost on so many that All Hallows Eve was once a ceremony to pray for a fruitful fall harvest before the harsh winters. Our ancestors had to work excruciatingly hard to ensure they had enough food for the cold months. Poor families would go to the richer homes to perform tricks in exchange for food. In the end, if one did not have enough food, they were likely to die before spring returned.
Today, Halloween is a much different and less wholesome tradition. Instead of dressing up to scare away evil spirits to protect our harvest, we now dress up as sexualized pop culture figures for attention. Instead of performing tricks for food to survive, we beg for candy pumped full of chemicals and sugar that makes us fat and unhealthy. It is a true shame how low society has come, but we still feed into it by purchasing cheap decorations and copious amounts of candy.
Now, my family still partakes in the dressing up and trick or treating. However, there are some things we do differently. I admit that the dressing up is fun, but we make a point to keep our costumes tasteful. We work hard to ensure our costumes are as authentic and as true to a theme as possible. We have fun but keep it appropriate. Some of our themes include creatures of the sea, 1950's throwback, and superheroes. We work as a family to come up with the yearly theme, and I then make our costumes. We do not substantiate the consumerism that is buying cheap costumes that do not even last the night. The costumes we use are made to last and be handed down. Our dressing up is a family tradition that can literally be passed down through the years.
We do decorate, but we make our own and use what we already have on hand. Our daughter even made the best little paper figures, like a skeleton and pumpkins, and I intend to keep them and use them every year. She had a blast making them, and they are truly fantastic.
We also love carving pumpkins, as it is a wonderful creative outlet. In addition, we feed the seeds and guts to the chickens rather than throwing it away. It is less wasteful and a great treat for our flock.
Regarding the trick or treating, it is fun to go around and see the decorations and other costumes. We truly appreciate the creative and well thought out ones. We take notice of those who put genuine effort into their appearances.
When it comes to the candy, we in fact do not keep nor eat anything that is not organic. We work hard to enstill in our children that conventional consumables are not good for you and generally have added chemicals to make them taste better longer. Though, these days we can taste those chemicals. Regardless of their haul, we go through it and toss out anything that is not organic. Most of the time all of it gets thrown away, outside of stickers or small toys. Many may think it is wasteful and suggest we donate it to someone else. However, if we would not eat the poison, why would we give it to someone else? The world would be healthier and better off if we consumed less garbage and more wholesome foods.
Our children have not only learned this value but appreciate the lessons we teach them about healthy and clean living. When we gather the conventional candies, they graciously volunteer to throw it away without complaint. They understand why and thus make the decision to do so on their own. Even more honorable, when they are gifted non organic candies, they accept it with a thank you and wait until we are home to let us know before throwing it away. They do not sneak tastes or try to hide the candy from us. It is a true testament to their comprehension of our lessons, and for that, we are truly thankful.
This year, we did two trunk or treats, and both times our children had fun and did not throw a single fit when it came time to toss the collected goods. Therefore, we did something extra special for them.
Halloween fell in the middle of the week, and we are too rural to do house to house trick or treating, so we did a seek and treat at home. My husband made a special trip to the store to get special chocolate bars and candies, which I then hid around the house. Our children then had to hunt for their treats. We even let them eat several pieces tonight, rather than their usual single piece after dinner. They had a blast and asked to do the same thing every year. To make things even better, they did not get sugar crazy and remained calm all the way to bed time. We could not be more proud of their behavior this year and look forward to treating them again next year.
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