Every year about this time I find myself getting giddy and excited about the ghost stories and costumes and all the fun stuff associated with Halloween, and every year about this time some fundamentalist protestant comes along and tries to rain on my parade.

Sigh.

I've had some serious arguments with people at work, family members, people I used to go to church with, etc, about Halloween. Maybe you've heard the rant, maybe you haven't. It might be a typically southern thing, or it might go on elsewhere, I don't know. Here's the way it works 'round these parts:

Right about the time the Halloween costumes and candy corn start showing up on the shelves at Wal-Mart, a select few of the normally rational and likable people I know start freaking out. They go into fits of convulsive exclamations, bringing down their own petty, personal versions of the wrath of God on those of us who're enjoying ourselves.

Halloween is of the DEVIL! It is EVIL! Halloween is evil and vile and satanic! No good Christian should allow their kids to participate! Candy corn is the Devil's communion! Dressing up like Frankenstein and werewolves and ghosts is a sure-fire and irreversible ROUTE TO HELLLLLL!!!!!!! Thou shall not partake of the heathen jack-o-lantern! Thou must rebuke Satan and his demonic night of popcorn-balls and Snickers!

And don't even get me started on R.L. Stein. Oh, and by the way, Harry Potter is EVIL, TOOOOOOO!!!

I hear that kind of talk every year, and I know it when I hear it. I also know it for what it is when I see it, and I'm accustomed to seeing it drawing flies in cow pastures.

When I was a kid, I loved dressing up as a monster. I've still got, somewhere, pictures of me dressed as the Devil, as Frankenstein, as a werewolf, as a green-faced ghoul ... all before the age of ten. Sometimes, not even on Halloween. Sometimes just out of boredom, out of the blue, right in the middle of summer. My favorite picture of myself along these lines is a pic of myself in a hand-made, generic "monster" costume. It involved an over-sized hand-me-down t-shirt, some plastic monster fangs, a tube of fake blood, and number of scars (I thought they looked like scars, anyway) made with my mom's eyebrow pencil.

I just liked monsters. I still like 'em. I think all boys go through their "scary" phase, when they're interested in horror movies, stories, etc. I never grew out of it.

I think the concern of a lot of parents... and it's a justifiable concern... is that an interest in scary stuff (Halloween included) will give way to an interest in the occult, which will lead to witchcraft, Satanism, etc. I suppose it does happen from time to time, if kids aren't getting the proper guidance and can't tell reality from fantasy. I maintain, though, that if parents have an active role in their kids lives, it'll make all the difference in the world. Our kids know that Halloween is for fun, it's not something serious, and it's a harmless good time. Our kids also know that when we go to church twice a week, it IS something serious, it is real and important to us, and it is what shapes us (I hope) into the people we are.

Church is real. Christ is real. Halloween? Halloween is play-acting, plastic masks and candy.

I have believed for some time that part of growing up, part of finding out who you really are, is experimenting with who you are not. Playing at being a "bad guy" or a "monster" is natural for kids, and they'll all do it. It's important, too, I think, in their development. Kids who aren't allowed to even play at being bad often end up really attracted to the bad side later in life.

We all know the cliché about "preacher's kids." I remember a few preacher's kids from high-school who were walking, talking, pot-smoking, hard-drinking, sexually active personifications of those clichés. Would it have helped if they'd been allowed to dress as the "Wicked Witch of the West" and collect candy with their classmates on the last day of October when they were nine years old? Maybe. Maybe not. It's irrelevant to them now.

I'm bracing myself for more of the same this year. There's one particular uncle of mine who really gets on the anti-Halloween kick every year. I haven't seen him much in the last two years, and I doubt if he's figured out that I've chosen not to see him because I'm sick of his soap-box sermons.

This same uncle, by the way, loves his Left Behind books and movies. I guess he thinks that his brand of scares and thrills is ok, as long as it's conjured up in the name of Jesus. I often wonder if he has any idea of what it really means to take the Lord's name in vain.

I also have a friend and co-worker, a Pentecostal, who goes utterly bat-crap every October about how evil Halloween is. He and I've come close to shouting matches over it. I really hope I don't run into that guy at all in the next month or so.

He's a good guy the rest of the year, though.

Sigh.

A couple of bloggers I read have some interesting posts along these lines right now. Pastor Scott at Burr in the Burgh is trying to find a compromise between himself and his son about the boy's costume this year. I think Pastor Scott is being a loving and responsible and reasonable parent with regard to this, let me make that clear.

Also, MCF seems to be fending off some kind of furry gremlin or another. I don't know if it's Halloween related, but it's eerie, nonetheless.

If you're interested, here's a link to my first post in this series, Eerie October, Part 1.