Navigating Halloween with kids through chocolate, conversation and Jesus

Halloween doesn’t have to be about fear or darkness, Lindsay Wright has found that chocolate slabs and Bible verses can spark meaningful chats with kids

Halloween has never really been a ‘thing’ in my life. We never made a fuss of it whilst I was growing up, the day generally just passed us by, except one particular year where my dad decided to hang apples off strings which we had to eat whilst blindfolded.

My church neither condoned it nor encouraged it - it was always just a nothing occasion, a day like any other. Thankfully the secular heat hadn’t truly risen then, unlike today where October hits and everywhere you go is filled with pumpkins, Halloween stock fills the shops and windows and random stall holders on the market are even asking you if you’re all ready for Halloween yet, as was our experience on the first weekend one October. My children, without any hesitation, simply replied ”We don’t celebrate Halloween”,

”Oh, fair enough,” replied the stall holder who promptly moved the conversation elsewhere.

When Halloween is all around us, when people are trying to spread fear in the name of fun, how can we bring that light and the love of Jesus into that situation?

We don’t celebrate Halloween not because as a household we’re strongly against it, we don’t celebrate it because ……