Halloween Lights

The decorations have sprouted across the neighborhoods in my community. Some are ghoulish and greusome, like the open coffin sporting flowers. Some are oversized fear, like the giant spider on the front door where the seasonal wreath should be. Some are lights, shades of orange and amber mimicing Christmas lights.

Halloween is now a "Holiday." It is an annual fall festival that excites people to decorate, party, and, play. The once child like fantasy of Halloween to dress up and imagine yourself bigger, stronger, more magical and larger than all the adults you know has now recaptured its morbid roots. The ancient festival of All Hallows Eve was the ward off the destructive spirits captured by the growing darkness and colder nights.

As children, and increasingly adults, 'celebrate' Halloween the feast of the next day returns to its own significance. The feast of All Saints is when Christians remember those whose lives show us a life in Christ that is bigger, stronger, more mysterious, and more inspiring than we can find any place else. All Saints Day is the day I buy my Advent candles. Perhaps it is also the day I should begin to decorate with lights that are shades of indigo and purple for the season of Advent.

If we decorate with Halloween lights a month before October 31 and we begin to decorate with Christmas lights a month before December 25, then All Saints Day could initiate our anticipation of the more Christ like life to which we are called to prepare in Advent.