Halloween Fun 2010: Painting Pumpkins

Let the fun continue! We're in the heart of it now, with more preparations and activities than we ever see for Christmas, all crammed into a much smaller time frame, but without any of the stress, guilt, and pressure. Maybe that's why kids and adults seem to be crazier about Halloween than when I was a child (all supported, of course, by a variety of industries eager to encourage our holiday spending)--it's pretty much fun, pure and simple.

And there's more candy and costumes.

This week, the fun into flowed into the schools, where Halloween is generally verboten, because, you know, it's Satanic. Don't get me started on how silly that is. Strictly speaking, this was a pumpkin/harvest-type thing, free from all the usual devil-worshiping and witchcraft-laden activities of the traditional, Charlie Brown-type Halloween. I guess it's not Satanic if the pumpkins don't have eyes or a mouth. Sigh. Anyway, the kids painted pumpkins on t-shirts in school, with parents helping out with the stencils and outlining. No mouths or eyes, of course. I was in charge of the curling green vines. For both classes. I'm now a vine-curling expert! It was fun to watch the kids paint the shirts, even more fun to see them wear them tomorrow.

You know, for that generic, non-Halloween, pumpkin celebration that always coincidentally occurs at the end of October.

Do we really think we're fooling the evangelical Christians with that? Is their faith that susceptible? Or their reasoning that shallow?

Isn't it even more pagan to idolize a squash?