SCL

I am going as Larry the Cable Guy: http://twitpic.com/noolo

Every year a group of us from our university goes "trick-or-treating" for non-perhishable food items for the emergency food aid that we have at our school. It's fun getting to dress up, (I'm going as a video game character), and to walk around in the cold, before dropping off all of the goods and then just hanging out drinking hot chocolate. Oh, and we get to eat candy, too. ; )

Taking our little 18 month old dressed up as Yoda to the neighbours house who insists on giving him a bunch of candy, and by extension, us… and then visiting the grandparents house for the same purpose, also clverly avoiding all the ot her kids in our neighbourhood for a couple hours.

Bringing my six month old dressed as the Death Star to our church's Reformation/Harvest Party. His Dad is the youth Pastor dressed as a monk but probably acting like a Jedi.

passing out a crap-ton of candy and surprising all the kids from school when they find out where Miss C. actually lives!

We did trunk’r'treat hallelujah party last night. Shot blocked the evil holiday without missing out on celebrating it by doing it early?! As the kids left our car, I wondered if I was supposed to yell out “hallelujah” instead of Happy Halloween!

does the phrase "trunk or treat" freak anyone else out? i mean, the whole concept is a little icky. "let's fill our trunks with candy and then lure little children to lean over into the trunks of our cars." this is like asking someone to shove your child in their trunk and drive away. creeps me out.

we had our office party yesterday. i went dressed in potato sacks and had a hat made out of a bowl with an antenna on it. i was "spud-nik". hardly anyone at my office got it. i think i was just too clever for them. *sigh*

We are shot blocking our churches attempts to get us to see the 'evil' in our kid dressing us as Yoda to collect some loot for mommy and daddy.

Just because something started out evil, such as the winter solstice or the vernal equinox, doesnt mean it has to still be evil.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox. Happy Halloween.

I'm going Trick or Treating for canned goods with my campus church group. The week before Halloween we pass out flyers in the local neighborhoods so everyone knows we are coming, and then 7-9 on Halloween we pick stuff up. Tomorrow we'll deliver everything to our mother church.

(This also works well for the people who aren't giving out candy, as they can leave us a bag with our bright orange flyer attached and it's still pretty easy to find in the dark.)

I welcome any and all outlooks on this (non)holiday. My husband and I have 2 kids (3 and 6mo)and I am still trying to find my way. As a kid, my parents were baby Christians and totally denouced ignored halloween. We ended up being that weird family who's lights were out and no candy was given. As we got older, our church did start offering alternatives.

Now that my parents are more mature Christians, they offer different advice to us. They encourage us to hand out candy to our neighbors. Jesus wants us to be a light unto the world. We want our neighbors to see something differet in us. How are we showing the love of Christ if we are shutting out the world all together? Continued…

Continued from above: I am so torn…one the one hand, I want to show love to my neighbors, but on the other hand, I don't want my 3 yo (who is dealing with a spirit of fear anyway) to witness awful costumes right at our door? Also, how do we respond when neighbors lean down and ask my 3yo what he is dressing up as for Halloween? My son doesn't even know that word, Halloween. I then find myself stumbling about to find the words. I often feel as my words sound judgemental when I say, "we don't do halloween." I have been saying "he is dressing up as a fireman for the our church's festival and we are going to church Sat night " (to avoid the holiday.)

I am trying to find my way in a world that LOVES this crazy holiday.

Sorry to dump all that here…my husband and close friends go round and round with this every year. How do you handle the world's questions and not sound judgemental, but loving? I welcome any sound advice.

I'll take the Mary Jane thingys over here. Best part of Halloween is my kids throw those out and I get 'em.

we are handing out whole candy bars…. trying to over compensate for mean church people who use Jesus as an excuse to not be nice to the neighborhood children on halloween…. what would Jesus do?

Passing out candy to tricker treaters. My husband is dressed up as…something…

We will be turning all outside lights off and watching Michigan State and Minnesota play football. We just ignore Halloween. We usually donate to the alternative they have at church for kids, but don't participate in any way ourselves.

I'm handing out candy and hopefully cheering the Gators to victory

Going to two parties as the tooth fairy

Wow! You have no idea how excited I am that you thought my picture was funny. I saw your tweet when I was out with friends today and we all had a little geeking-out moment. Thanks!

Next time you go back to Massachusetts, stop in Providence on the way, and we'll French press you some micro-roasted single origin coffee.

We're helping some kids who come to our church go trick-or-treating for the first time. This is either their first or second Halloween in the U.S. I know some Christians have issues with Halloween, but it sure was fun to drag out the old dress up clothes from the basement & help 10 little kids find costumes and see them head out into our neighborhood. We have several princesses, a wood elf, a cat, a monster or two, oh, and a duck – a long way from the camps on the border of Myanmar and Thailand.

We had a children's ministry event at our church – trunk or treating, hay ride, cake walk, free food, etc. I wore ninja swords along with flip-flops, plaid shorts, a t-shirt, a ninja bandana, and a camera hanging from my neck. I was 'a ninja who is on vacation'.

I totally posted about this topic. We just got back from trick or treating. I was a hippie, my offspring were: Sniper, Princess & Football player. No cohesion except in that we were all costumed (word?). I forgot how much work trick or treating is. We–I mean they came away with a pretty good haul.

I'm handing out bullion cubes and Halls cough drops to all the kids while Dan yells, "Get off my lawn!" from a front porch rocker. Fun.

I was torn for a long time about how to handle Halloween. My friends who do celebrate and my friends who don't all have good reasons for what they do. I was tending toward the "don't" camp, because I think our culture gets pretty gross about Halloween. What clinched it for me was this verse in 2 Timothy:

"No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer."

Halloween seems like a civilian affair to me. And since my goal is pleasing my commanding officer, I don't get involved in it. I don't celebrate, but I also won't criticize the choices others make for this holiday.

I do think it's a little difficult for the kids, but we talk about it all, and they mostly understand. I realized a while back that I'm raising them to be dorks anyway, so missing one little holiday in the year is no big deal!

I don't like Halloween. Partly because it's just gotten so steeped in the trappings of evil over the years, and partly because the pressure to get the right costume is so awful. I have spent hours and hours of my life searching eBay and trying to figure out what we could afford.

This year, though, it all got easy. My kids came up with their own costumes for school on Friday. (My daughter wore a Snuggie and carried a remote control and a bag of popcorn — she was a couch potato. And my son wore a shirt that said "Bless you" and a pair of sunglasses — he was a blessing in disguise.)

My daughter went to a school Halloween dance last night. My son met some friends from church for the Halloween Haunt at Universal Studios — something I would never want to go to.

Tonight, my daughter is very upset that she can't go trick-or-treating — She's now in middle school, and that's a bit old for trick-or-treating. We told her she could go if she found some friends who were going, but so far, nothing. Right now she is trying to talk my husband into taking her out trick-or-treating — it's just sunset here…. I think he's going to say yes….

We stay home with our kids and have fun passing out candy and checking out all the costumes we see
Our kids are little and are a bit afraid to be out in the dark, so we've opted this route for now.
Grilled cheese sandwiches dipped in tomato sauce w/ a movie

last night, I was dressed as Mormon Missionary and bartended a huge party at a house. It was near a Christian college, but I am no way implying that most of the attendees were students from there.

I hosted a "Scary Party" for my nephews & nieces and siblings, because they have multiple food allergies and can't even eat most of the candy that they would get trick-or-treating. They all got dressed up and played games, ate allergy-friendly snacks, and went home with a treat bag. It was a lot of fun!

We don't live in a subdivision, and the folks whose neighborhood we were GOING to go trick or treating in got sick at the last minute (or maybe it was just us, and they didn't want to say..). So, we loaded up the boy and went to the swanky, country-club area of a big subdivision down the road. Boy was dressed as a two-headed ogre (cool mask, btw), and I have a feeling he will WEAR this costume out. Because practically every candy-giver said "Two heads? Cooool! Here, you can have a piece of candy for EACH HEAD!" Yeah, the kid is now seeing double.. and loving it.

We celebrate Reformation Day in our house. Because there are no specific guidelines for how to celebrate RD, we still dress up, but we don't do the whole let's get as much candy for our house as possible thing. She got a Shrek Pez dispenser for her Reformation Day "gift" (her choice), we went to the park (her favorite activity), and we went out for dinner.

Next year, we plan to participate in our church's Trunk or Treat by turning the back of one of our SUV's into a replica of the door of All Saint's Church in Wittenberg, Germany. We'll post a copy of Luther's 95 Theses against indulgences on the door and hand out reasonable amounts of candy to the kids along with a tract explaining the importance of the Protestant Reformation (because apparently Baptists in our part of Texas seem to think that the Baptists have been around since the days of Jesus and are completely ignorant about actual Church history…). Yes, I realize we'll be the ones everybody makes fun of, but I'm used to that. I've always been the weird one who doesn't fit in…

It's halloween! Should Christians participate at all in a holiday with ties to the occult? I don't think so.

hmmm… i see I am too late to comment. O well. I put on a pirate hair and beard, and a toque and gave 3 kids candy as they came to the door. Hooray for the country, eh?

Our church does the Harvest Party anti-Halloween thing (a little of a misleading euphemism, cause in Canada the harvest is almost a month past).

Although I was raised as a dork, we went out trick ‘r treatin’ when we was younguns.

I co-hosted a party in our dorm on Friday night and went to a concert at a bar called Church on Halloween, both times as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a good time. I'm all for a holiday that involves me getting free Reeses peanut butter cups.

Halloween has changed since I was a kid. When I was a kid, a question like this on a Christian forum would have resulted in numerous people proudly proclaiming that they didn't celebrate Halloween. I for one went to a party dressed as Marie Antoinette and then went to work on Saturday as a Newsie. It's still a little bit of a shock, since we never celebrated Halloween as a kid, to see so many church folks taking their kids trick or treating. I for one love dressing up!

I had to work but came in costume: full Elizabeth Bennet* period regalia (gown, gloves, etc.) and zombie makeup. Sadly, no-one recognized me (You'd expect the library crowd to be more… literate) but I got to hold out my lacy white gloved hands and intone: Braaaaaaaaaiinnnzzzz…. Or library books. It's all good! which seemed to amuse people. (*Actually, it was my Charlotte Lucas costume, but I didn't expect anyone to get that…)

The mighty Mite came as a bat–I built her wings out of this soft fur-fabric and lined the interior with a duct-tape+dowel rod skelton so she could really flap. Made a hood of the same fabric with ears, soft fleece body and fur gloves…Everyone thought she was a cat.

Le Sigh.

I had to work but came in costume: full Elizabeth Bennet* period regalia (gown, gloves, etc.) and zombie makeup. Sadly, no-one recognized me (You'd expect the library crowd to be more… literate) but I got to hold out my lacy white gloved hands and intone: Braaaaaaaaaiinnnzzzz…. Or library books. It's all good! which seemed to amuse people. (*Actually, it was my Charlotte Lucas costume, but I didn't expect anyone to get that…)

The mighty Mite came as a bat–I built her wings out of this soft fur-fabric and lined the interior with a duct-tape+dowel rod skelton so she could really flap. Made a hood of the same fabric with ears, soft fleece body and fur gloves…Everyone thought she was a cat.

Le Sigh.

my friends and i went "reverse trick or treating" last night. we dressed up like old people, pushed a door on wheels around the neighborhood (with a sign on it that said please knock), rang doorbells, and hid behind the door. when the people opened their door they saw our door, came and knocked, we answered and fawned over their costumes, handed them some candy, and closed the door. it was awesome. we are in our 20s.

It's a little after the fact now, but we passed out candy and tracts, and carved pumpkins with a friend. It's amazing how controversial Halloween can be. I posted links to several different articles last week.

Best friends costume party. I'm going as Starlett O'Hara from The Carol Burnett Show. Green Velvet hat with tassles and curtain rod….It's awesome!

After handing out candy to the kiddos in my neigborhood, I was a 3 hole punch version of myself, copied from Jim in the 1st season of The Office. Just 3 black circles of paper, and you have a costume. It was awesome. And I was the designated driver, so I drove my friends all over town. It was pretty entertaining, actually. And I felt good about keeping them safe.

For the first time in YEARS we did not have a trunk or treat, or a "harvest festival" so I actually got to pass out candy to kids at our house that we have only lived in for less than 2 years. We had TONS of kids! Man I kept missing their bags cause Ive never passed out candy like that before! lol. Anyway. I put together these fliers the week before inviting kids and their parent to come to our Church because we have a brand new Childrens facility we will be revealing really soon.
Oh! and I Dressed my dog up like a squirrel.

taking our youngest out trick or treating after church service only had 2 kids plus 1 of my own for 6:30 class

I'm 25 and this was my first time to ever celebrate Halloween. My family didn't do the whole halloween thing. I have super conservative parents who don't believe in what halloween stands for. We were those people who turned out all the lights and watched TV in the back of the house. We also didn't watch movies with "magical" characters in them as children…no Aladin or Casper for me. I respect that and probably will raise my children in a similar way, but this year it was fun to let loose with some friends and dress up. I was a very cool pirate.

I’m commenting a bit late but I haven’t been able to read for the last several days. We have young ones (16 mo and almost 3) so we all dressed up and went trick-or-treating early with some friends then came home and had the kiddos help hand out candy. I agree with the comments about being a light to the world. We also used it as a lesson for our older kid (cuz the younger can’t quite understand yet) about loving our neighbors and sharing. We had probably close to 500 kids come by so we did a lot of loving and sharing!!! We also have a rule about nothing scary (no ghosts, witches, monsters, etc. )at Halloween mainly because of the age of our kiddos so we only decorated with pumpkins and dressed in very cute, non-provocative, non- scary costumes, which are unfortunately a little to hard to find, even for little bitties!!

I know that this comment is really, really late but it is SO worth it. A few months ago for halloween, about 12 of us (all good friends because we're at the same university) went trick-or-treating in a neighborhood near campus… as Christmas Carolers. We wore christmas sweaters, hats, scarves, santa hats, etc; rang doorbells, and then sang a carol to whoever answered. On top of that, we had instant mashed potato flakes that we threw in the air that looked like snow!

Best halloween EVER!!!!