Why We Don't Celebrate Halloween

I know it's a bit late to be posting this as Halloween has now come and gone, but I thought I might as well go ahead and post it since I may be asked for an explanation at some point.

An acquaintance of mine posted this article from K LOVE, and I think it about sums up our reasons (aside from the general morbidity of everything surrounding it!) for not celebrating Halloween. The article is a bit long, but definitely worth reading! The format is a bit off as I copied and pasted the article (to read it from the source, go here). Thanks for taking the time to read it!

Alright, enough from me. Here is the article:

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The History of Halloween

The atmosphere of Halloween celebrations is marked with fun, mischief and the evil forces of nature, but the origins of this celebration are quite solemn. Celebrated on October 31st, Halloween is one of the oldest holidays—having originated thousands of years ago! The belief system behind Halloween came from the druids, the priests of ancient Gaul and Britain. The druids believed that witches, demons, and spirits of the dead roamed the earth on the eve of November 1. Halloween originally was a Druid holy day called "The Vigil of Saman." In early Britain it was called the festival of Samhain, which is pronounced sow-en. This festival would last for 3 days and many people would parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of animals.

The spread of Christianity did not make people forget their early customs. When Roman Catholicism became a world political and religious power the pagan customs were still widely celebrated. On the eve of All Hallows, Oct. 31, people continued to celebrate the festivals of Samhain and Pomona Day. In 800 A.D. the Roman Catholic Church moved "All Saints' Day" from May to November 1st. All of the "saints" who did not have a special day to their honor on the Catholic calendar were to be honored on All Saints' Day—a time to pay respect to the dead by visiting their graves. The "new day" that was to replace the pagan vigil of the dead was called "All Hallows Day". It soon became the custom to call the evening before, "All Hallows Eve", which was soon shortened to Halloween. The Halloween we celebrate today includes all of these influences, Pomona Day's apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain's black cats, magic, evil spirits and death, and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from All Saints Day and All Soul's Day.

As Christians, what do we do?

Remember the name of the holiday is the only thing that has changed; Halloween still carries some of its pagan significance and there is no Christian significance to be found in Halloween. Jesus Christ is conspicuously absent! Wise parents are replacing Halloween with family night activities. Others are having “Hallelujah nights” or "Glory Gatherings" where all references to Halloween are removed and wholesome games are played, Christian songs are sung and Christian videos are shown. Others are using Halloween as a night to pass out Gospel literature.

Satan, the god of this evil world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe, so they are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News that is shining upon them. They don't understand the message we preach about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God. - 2 Cor. 4:4 (NLT)

Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them.
- Ephesians 5:11 (NLT)

We need to beware of its origins, its history and its dangers. From Romans 12:21 (NLT) we can be encouraged, Don't let evil get the best of you, but conquer evil by doing good.
Choose to use the good things like families getting together, enjoying one another to conquer the evil in this world. Consider also sponsoring a Harvest Festival Night which provides safe candy, games and an opportunity to meet Jesus through music, puppets and a gospel message. Many kids and even whole families can have the opportunity to make decisions for the Lord.

Relevant Scriptures

For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling or sorcery, or allow them to interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, [11] or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. - Deut. 18:10-11 (NLT)

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn't worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. [22] Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead. [23] And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people, or birds and animals and snakes.
- Romans 1:21-23 (NLT)

You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons, too. You cannot eat at the Lord's Table and at the table of demons, too.
- 1 Cor. 10:21 (NLT)

So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. [17] The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. [18] But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law. [19] When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, [20] idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, [21] envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
- Galatians 5:16-21 (NLT)

Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, rebuke and expose them. - Ephes. 5:11 (NLT)

For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.
- Ephes. 6:12 (NLT)

Keep away from every kind of evil.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:22 (NLT)

Be careful! Watch out for attacks from the Devil, your great enemy. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for some victim to devour.
- 1 Peter 5:8 (NLT)

Before & After

Here they are! Before and after pictures of my new haircut.

 Before #1

Before #2

(Please ignore the garbage can in the background!! Ha ha!)

Before #3

Peanut Butter Cup didn't recognize me at first (I had been hoping that wouldn't happen, but thought it might), and it took him a good ten minutes to start behaving normally around me after we got back home! :-( My poor little Munchkin looked SO confused!

After washing my hair (before cutting it) the hairstylist, Cat, lifted up the top layer of my hair and told me that I do not in fact have straight hair with a slight wave, but in fact have curly hair! She gave me a mirror and turned me around so I could see, and it really did look like I had a perm! Cat told me that because my hair is so heavy and I always have it pulled back, that probably caused it to be straighter on the top and front, but it may eventually curl as well after not pulling it back for awhile. The back is already curling more (my husband thought I had gotten a perm when he first saw it, ha ha). No wonder it's been so 'poofy' for forever! It's been frizzing because I brush it too much and because of the humidity of the places that I've lived. Now I have to learn how to leave it alone, not brush it, and to use mousse. I didn't even know what mousse was for until yesterday. Yep, yesterday was full of interesting discoveries where my hair was concerned!

And here it is--my 'new look', ha ha!! 

After #1

Peanut Butter Cup was still getting used to the new me in these pictures, which may explain why he looks somewhat quizzical. :-)

After #2

After #3

Anyhow, I think it makes me look more my age than my previous straight, poofy, long haircut did (I looked more like a teenager than a married woman with a baby!). My husband says he is starting to like it more and more . . . I'm just trying to get used to having hair so close to my eyes! :-)

The "Good News"

Sorry it's taken me awhile to get this posted! I've been very busy--and you are about to see why!

Though our hearts are still heavy from the loss of Quigley, we now have a new fur-baby. While he will not take Quigley's place (and to be honest, we wouldn't want him too!), and our goal was not to 'replace' Quigley, he is helping to fill the empty silence and stillness that pervaded the house in Quigley's absence.

We couldn't stand walking past Quigley's empty crate, or seeing an empty spot in the room where it had been. The timing may seem off to some, but we feel like everything fell into place at the time that it did for a reason. We had been hoping to eventually get a mastiff puppy and they are kind of unusual here (as are most large breed dogs here in Hawaii), I saw an ad on Craigslist and replied to it, and eventually discovered that the man that had the puppies was actually one of my husband's old buddies from here before (they had deployed together years ago). To make a long story short, we got a puppy from them.

He is an English/Italian (or Neapolitan technically) Mastiff mix, and is going to be quite a large fellow when he eventually finishes growing (his daddy weighs about 130 pounds, and we have our suspicions that our boy may surpass him--though he may not).

Anyhow, we brought him home last Tuesday and have decided to name him Copper. We are currently working on housebreaking and other basic obedience training (I'll be glad when we are past this stage!).

Without further ado, here he is:

I will add some more pictures of him later, but I just wanted to 'introduce' him to you! :-)

On a totally random side note--it's hard to believe that Peanut Butter Cup's due date was a year ago today! How time flies!!

I'll be getting a hair cut later today . . . I think I'm going to end up with a hairstyle that is completely different from what I am used to--I normally chicken out at the thought, but this time I'm going to go for it! I'll post before and after pictures soon!

Quigley

You may remember my post several months ago where I mentioned that we weren't going to keep Quigley due to a child-aggression issue. So you were probably confused when I told you later that we had decided to keep him and bring him with us to Hawaii. Please allow me to explain why we made that decision, before jumping to any conclusions. . . .

After we had initially decided that we couldn't keep him, Quigley started to listen to our commands better--and more often--so that gave us hope that we would be able to work with him through his issues. Then the day of my husband's graduation we had a lot of guests . . . a couple of them (one being a small child about the same age as our neighbors' son) decided to go out into our backyard (where Quigley was) to see the cows behind our house. We didn't know they were going out there, or we would have stopped them, but we didn't, so about a minute or two later when we realized they were out there to find Quigley. We were very surprised that he seemed to have kept his distance (despite the intrusion into his territory) and hadn't gone running up to them immediately (whether out of friendliness or aggression since he didn't know either one).

That incident made us think that maybe he would be okay with other kids (aside from our neighbors' child). Plus, I just felt terrible about my husband having to give up yet another one of his pets (he'd always had to do that when he was growing up with the exception of one cat, so I was trying hard to prevent it from happening again).

So, that is why we decided to keep Quigley, and see if we could make it work.

However, since he has been here in Hawaii, he has growled at at least five kids and snapped at one. Honestly though, the child that he snapped at deserved it (don't worry Quigley didn't actually bite him) and I hope he learned a valuable lesson from that incident. We were walking around our neighborhood and the boy--who was holding a really big stick--was running down the sidewalk toward us when he suddenly had the not-so-brilliant idea of trying to pet Quigley (ignoring the fact that my husband was saying "No, no, no, no, no!") as he was running by us. Obviously, Quigley had a good reason to feel threatened, though that still doesn't excuse his response; my husband jerked Quigley back when he leaped at the boy, and I could literally hear Quigley's jaws snap shut. That made the boy stop dead in his tracks a few feet away with a stunned expression and say "I'm sorry." We sincerely hope that he learned a lesson about trying to pet unknown dogs without asking first.

Anyhow, back to Quigley. . . .

We have eighteen children on our street alone, and our community is full of children. Our backyard isn't very secure, which is problematic with all of the kids running around all the time.

Another big issue Quigley has is that he is very picky about other dogs. Same as with children, it is a fear-based aggression. It started when we took him to a dog park one day and he was bullied by a couple of pitbulls the whole time they were there. Before then he had been fine with other dogs, but ever since then he has been very inconsistent. We know that he doesn't like small dogs or puppies at all, and he picks and chooses from adult dogs. Considering the fact that our community also has a very large number of dogs, that just compounds the situation even more.

After talking to the breeder, we had to make the very difficult decision to have Quigley put down. This is the last thing we ever wanted to have happen, but if we sent him back to our breeder (as per her contract with us) he would live out the rest of his life in a kennel (because she can't re-home a dog like him--and he wouldn't be able to be out and about because of the danger he would be to the other dogs and puppies). As of right now we are trying to make Quigley's last few days/week as happy as possible. Please be in prayer for us through these next few days if you think of us. It goes against everything in us to be putting down an animal that isn't sick/in pain/injured with no chance of recovery. We do have some suspicions that Quigley may be developing some health problems, but it still seems so wrong to put down a happy, visibly healthy two-year old dog.

Despite all of the sadness surrounding this whole situation, we do have some good news coming, but that is yet another post which will be coming soon.

We greatly appreciate your prayers for us in this time of sadness!

An Overdue Update!

This may be a rather *long* post, as quite a bit has happened since I posted last. I never intend to 'disappear' from the blogosphere for so long . . . I just get caught up in my daily life and run out of time during the day, then by the time night comes around I'm usually to tired to compose my thoughts into something readable. However, I really should post more often.

Now, on to the update. . . .

The first week of October was quite eventful for my little munchkin--first he learned to wave (he's still working on it, but he has the general idea!), then he learned to associate "SPLAT!" with when he smacks and splatters the food on his highchair tray. On October 3rd he stumbled and fell against a wooden toy box that we have in his play room (and consequently removed from the playroom soon thereafter!) -- that incident resulted in his very first bloody lip (poor Baby!) and a cut underneath his lip as well.  The next day (Oct. 4th) he clapped his own hands (he's been clapping MINE for quite a while, ha ha)! Then on the 6th I was blowing bubbles for him, and he came over to me and said "Buh-buh.' So I think his third word may have been 'bubble'. :-) On the 8th he made it almost all the way across his playroom walking on his own, and he tried walking down the hallway that night before his bath (and even turned a corner!). Now he can walk in circles and turn around! He still loses his balance and plops down, but he is improving every day. Oh, and we can't really put him in his walker much anymore because he can climb out and I'm afraid he's going to fall on his head (I've always gotten him out before he loses his balance, but it's only a matter of time if we keep putting him in there, so I'd rather not chance it). So, that is what Peanut Butter Cup has been up to lately!

Since he figured out the whole clapping thing, he absolutely loves to clap! Oh, and Karissa, you can tell Courtney that she doesn't need to worry too much about him having a lack of rhythm and timing--when he claps to a song he is almost always on beat. :-) He actually clapped while watching Wheel of Fortune October 7th (he saw the contestants clapping and he decided he was going to clap as well--it was too cute)!

This past weekend (along with the past few days) have been hard as we have had to make a difficult decision in regards to Quigley. I will post more about that later, as that is a post in and of itself. Please be in prayer for our family though through the rest of this week as it is going to be a difficult next few days.