Happy Reformation Day!

One of the interesting things about the first year of homeschooling is you start re-evaluating why and how you do things as a family.  For us, life has slowed down and as Halloween approached, my heart and spirit started prompting me to re-think how we handle this holiday.  It has never been my favorite holiday, unlike many of my friends.  I don't like celebrating all the scary stuff...not because it scares me, but it's so un-Christ-like, celebrating death instead of life, skeletons and zombies instead of anything that resembles the joy that Christ brings. I do love fall, though!  I love leaves and pumpkins, crisp air and campfires with s'mores!  I love hay rides and apple orchards, cider and pumpkin spice lattes!

 

But back to my point...I started re-thinking celebrating Halloween.  Instead of having been swept up in the busy-ness of school events and just rolling with Halloween like always, we had all this time to look up the roots of how Halloween got started.  I could look up Reformation Day and All Saints Day, and talk to the kids about the differences.  Once we started talking about it, the kids realized we couldn't un-know that Halloween has roots in worshipping Satan, demons, and witchcraft.  Even if others are not celebrating those specifically, we felt personally convicted that we could not participate in something that represented that.  Of course, then our debate became, if we don't dress up for Halloween and go trick or treating, what DO we do? 

 

We looked up Reformation parties!  We spent September learning about the hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" by Martin Luther.  We learned about Martin Luther, and memorized the first verse, so the kids were already familiar with who Martin Luther was.  We made our first "Diet of Worms" snack.  We had to wait for EK to wake up to do our Bible smuggling relay. (Ideas from: Sojourn Kids)



 

 

 

We are going to a church event associated with their old school tonight, during the normal trick or treating hours.  We all still feel conflicted about giving up this very American celebration, but I think we've all learned a lot about history as a result.  As we continue to develop how we want to make new traditions, my hope is that October 31st becomes just another day we find a way to worship the one true God instead of celebrate a bunch of scary stuff that doesn't honor Him at all.