October 31 at our house....

Many years ago, October 31 was a great holiday. It seemed like it was made just for us kids! After all, when else could we dress up however we wanted (as long as the materials were in the scrap bag - nobody bought a costume!), go out after dark without adult supervision (just the big brothers), and ask for candy from strangers (yes, in the days before "stranger danger")?

Later, it became a holiday to relive our good memories through our children's fun...but something was different. This time around, 20-some years later, Halloween was a bit darker. The masks were scarier. The trick-or-treaters were older. The strangers were dangerous. We found ourselves at the mall one year in a slowly moving line of hot, tired little kids dressed up as who knows what, shuffeling our children from store to store to get their candy. All this for candy?

And then the Holy Spirit slowly started to turn our hearts toward Him on this issue. I started noticing one, maybe two families in the neighborhood that kept their porch lights off on October 31. I knew that they were being different...not disliked, just different. I started asking myself why, what was it that made them just quietly stay in their houses and not participate in the neighborhood party. I started seeing the activities we were participating in through God's eyes. I started seeing that God was calling our family to be different....different enough to quietly make our own little stand against the celebration of evil.

The next year we kept our porch light off, invited some friends over, and started a tradition of having a "Harvest Party" on October 31 - a time to make decorations for autumn, to decorate the house, and begin a month long celebration of Thanksgiving. If we were going to lose a holiday in the busyness of the last three months of the year, we were going to choose which one, and it wasn't going to be Thanksgiving! Other years we've studied Pilgrims, made pumpkin pie from the pumpkin up (I'll stick to canned, thank you!), and read "Of Plymouth Plantation" by William Bradford.

As time has gone on, our children have outgrown our Harvest Parties, but not the enjoyment of November as the season of thanks. We look forward to good fall meals of homemade soups, breads, and apple crisps. Cosy evenings sitting around the table talking together long after the meal is over with the curtains closed against the dark night outside. The gathering up and storing of our own family harvest...the memories that will last long after these children have moved into homes of their own and the table is filled completely only on occasion....and looking forward to the final harvest home, our final sabbath rest. This is our season of Thanksgiving.