Bah! Humbug

Walking through the store the other day... hit the Halloween aisle and thought, here we go again. Every year, it saturates everything.

Except I don't observe Halloween.

It's not that I'm anti-social, mind you. I had a roommate a long time ago who was an actual, real-live, honest-to-who-knows-what-she-would-have-called-it Witch. A pagan. She would do stuff like put a bowl of wine out on the porch once a month as an offering to the fertility goddess. And for her, Halloween was a high holy day.

So I took a stand. I didn't want my God to misunderstand and think that by giving Halloween any attention on my part, it meant I was someone paying homage to someone else's gods or goddesses. Or whatever. So I don't hand out candy, I don't dress up, and I don't intend to allow my kid to go trick-or-treating. Besides, my husband would say, what kind of sense is that - every other day of the year, you keep telling the little ones not to take candy for strangers. But then this ONE day, it's OK. Encouraged, even.

At least, that's the theory.

The reality is I have a toddler now. Am I going to be ostracized by friends and families as a Scrooge?

I'm not opposed, honestly, to letting the little guy dress up for a church "fall festival." Does that make me a hypocrite? Does keeping him away from anything resembling Halloween, even the church deal, make me a meanie?

Why can't standing by your convictions be a little more clear-cut?