This time of year makes me cringe.

The effort that goes into decorating yards and houses is almost more than Christmas! Heads on stakes as moonlights around front yards, vampires hanging in trees with glowing lights for eyes, huge blow-up cauldrons, seeing who can be more gory, more frightening, more morbid.

My kids are extremely sensitive to scary things, to the point that we have to deal with nightmares and obsessions with ghosts in bedrooms repeatedly. Seeing all these designed-to-terrify in the name of fun displays far too often trigger the fear again after months of working hard to calm them down so we can get some sleep.

Year after year, I get pressured by peers who think I’m destroying my kids by not giving in and letting them have fun. It’s not the “fun” part that I struggle with – kids love costumes any time of the year, and candy is ALWAYS special. It’s the horror part I hate. It’s the celebration of dark and evil and fear that I don’t feel right participating in. We’re Christians and this is definitely not a celebration of The Light.

So we don’t celebrate. Hallowe’en is just another day for us.

Does this mean my kids are ruined forever? No. I didn’t celebrate hallowe’en growing up. I survived and didn’t really feel all that deprived. It actually gave me strength to stand up for something I believed in – a skill that’s been important for my whole life.

We don’t skip out on the things we are comfortable with though – we’ve been known to pick out pumpkins and carving out fun faces then roasting seeds. We take advantage of day-after sales – buying bagloads of half-priced candy so my kids can join in the sugar rush. Although realistically, the candy is mostly for hubby and me!

So, if the house lights are off and the door is closed, it doesn’t mean we are trying to create a scary ambiance – it means we’ve pulled the door bell and our kids are going to bed.

We don’t celebrate Hallowe’en.