How We Celebrate All Saints' Day Without Costumes

 

"Basillica of the Immaculate Conception" by Fred Dunn is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

We celebrate Halloween like most American families: assembling costumes and walking around a neighborhood asking strangers for candy. By the time we're done, we're all tired, sweaty, and our feet are usually sore (I never seem to realize that comfort over costume should dictate foot wear). 

This year, somewhere between all the face paint and the sugar and the spooky decorations, I had an epiphany. 

I should preface it by saying I'm really not a fan of dressing up as a saint for an All Saints' Day party. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with doing it. It just doesn't fit with how my family celebrates Hallowtide. What we've started doing instead is using Halloween candy to decorate gingerbread men to look like saints. 

I initially started using the candy as a way to cut through the impressive sugar glut (we ended up with two full gallon pickle jars last night). This year, it dawned on me that having the kids use the candy they worked for to decorate "saints in heaven" actually has some theological allegorical significance. 

I've explained to the kids that, in our family, Halloween is about death and Hell. Everyone has to die sooner or later, and Hell is a reality. It's a good thing to remember, and the spookiness of Halloween helps us do just that. We shouldn't live our lives in abject fear of Hell, but we ought to remember it's there and be a little scared of it (and laugh a little at it too, after all, Christ conquered it!). 

Today, All Saints' Day, is about Heaven. We celebrate and rejoice with the saints, and hope to go there. 

I realized that the candy my children worked for adorns the "saints" they make. And they work for that candy on a day we remember death, thus, through death they enter into a remembrance of Heaven and get an illustration of how their lives and work, the things they do out of love on Earth, influence their reality in Heaven. There's been numerous spiritual writers who talk about the sufferings and choices we offer and make for love adorning us in Heaven; it seems a pretty smooth tie in. 

Is it a stretch? Absolutely. Like I said, the whole connection just occurred to me last night. But I like that it ties Halloween and All Saints' Day together, while letting both days be their own thing.