In the past Halloween seasons, our family sees to it that we spend time together doing activities that we can only do during vacations and holidays because my wife and I were then starting our respective careers in the industry. ‘Tis the time for movie/tv series marathons, beach frolics and park/mall hangouts. The most Halloween participation we had was to prepare goodies for neighbor trick-or-treaters.
Because of many invitations from their classmates this season, the whole family (except for the baby) got a taste of this popular western tradition. It’s our kids’ first time to have fun with scary creatures and another chance to confront issues about death and afterlife in not so serious way. My two eldest kids had known the concept of death when their puppy died in a road accident a few years ago, followed by the death of their grandmother about a month later.
For most of the younger trick-or-treaters, it was just a costume party involving many houses with scary decors, and then getting candies just for showing up. Sweating it out at the village’s playground with friends afterwards seemed to erase the creepiness of the whole ritual.
The movies my older kids watched in separate occasions had more impact than the scary decors they saw. My daughter and her friends specifically asked not to have a bad dream in their prayers before hitting the sack during their sleepover. My son was not satisfied with a prayer, and insisted on sleeping in our bed last night. Twice I attempted to transfer him to his room and twice he came back.
In my time, my family did not have this Halloween tradition and I grew up eventually liking horror flicks regardless of the season. What’s my take on this tradition? Making the idea of death fun might help children deal with it better when it occurs in the family. Uhmm…maybe. But at the very least, for me it’s a social event that promotes community spirit and interaction among neighbors and friends, which should be encouraged as many now prefers to spend more time online to the detriment of the good ‘ol days of good-neighborliness.
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I definitely love the kids costume, especially the pirate that kuya is wearing..congrats kids for a wonderful trick or treat party!
It was a hit for them. We spent minimal amount for their costumes... I'm glad you like the improvised pirate outfit. The kids and friends are already looking forward to the next Halloween!
Hello Fatherhood!
I don't know if this will be in a comment section or just an email response (i guess this is an email response...whatever... i'm new at this). Definitely critical is the good 'ol days you mentioned about life being lived in community, for today many are stuck with the virtual world of the web and the like (whether tex, facebook, chat, surf, games galor ad nauseaum). Experts say that homo sapiens is a creature designed for actual face to face community life, that we are wired for this. True enough, too much time spent in the virtual world is now identified as a psychological disease of some sort. Our kids are specially vulnerable to this. I always remind EJ that the things she wants to do in the internet (which she wants often!), at this stage in her life, is not a NEED, but simply a want (she is slowly getting the difference between need and want, but with resistance of course, she is quite strong willed, may pinagmanahan ). Parenting today is definitely far more challenging than the good 'ol days!
On halloween, though suspicious i'm also not paranoid about it. However, i do need to do more research on its background. But i definitely will not allow EJ to get involve with a halloween celebration that glories in the gory and the occult stuff. This is definitely not psychologically and spiritually healthy for our impressionable young ones. I trust the woodridge celebration did not cross the line, or that it was just more fun than scary. True, the movie (Villa Estrella?) they watched definitely did not have a good effect on EJ either (perhaps for a week she will be scared to be by herself in the room which is not her really) and i told her clearly that she is not to watch horror films. I grew up with helpers who told a lot of "true" horror stories and this definitely had a very unealthy effect on me growing up. But as you said, we can use this event and direct their thoughts to learn about life, and death (which is a real "horror" in life).
Kudos for a nice piece... may your breed of fathers increase he he he
very creative costumes
@Bogs- Thanks for you comment. We've been quite successful limiting internet use of our kids to bare minimum, mainly just to show them the possibilities. Even with the reasoning "everybody's doing it" (to let us know that many classmates/friends have their own computers and are allowed to use the internet), we just say that they shouldn't worry and it will be easy for them to catch up when they really NEED to. On Halloween tradition, yup we need to emphasize the lesson that death is a fact and part of life, and deemphasize the ghoulish part as I do not really subscribe to it.
@Karen- thanks for your comment. Hope you'd drop by often.