On Halloween, I went with A's kindergarten class on a field trip to Minter's Farm, where we went to Inman Farm Heritage Days back in September (see "Down on the farm" - 17 September). It was a beautiful fall day and all five kindergarten classes from the elementary school were very excited to be out of the classroom.
There were five parents total from A's class, so with the teacher and the para professional, we had seven adults for the 16 students in Mrs. G's class. All in all, they were fairly well-behaved; they were just energetic and keeping them in line was akin to herding cats. Giggling, talking, squirming cats.
We went inside a log cabin , known as Miss Quinnie's cabin, which is an original 1870s log home. Mr. Minter told the students how two sisters lived in that tiny cabin (maybe 12' x 12' total?) their entire lives, cooked their meals using the fireplace and had no indoor plumbing or electricity. Then the children made a simple corn husk doll, picked cotton, ground corn with a hand-cranked grist mill to feed the chickens, cows and donkeys, went on a hayride, picked out a small pumpkin to take home, and helped to make, as a class, a hand-twisted rope to take back to the classroom. Then we unpacked our bag lunches and ate outdoors. One of the moms had made Halloween cupcakes, which we enjoyed.
Once all five classes had finished all the activities, they loaded back onto the buses and drove back to school. I drove home and put up my feet when I got in the house! It was great fun, but four hours of farm fun with five and six year olds had me a bit tired, but also appreciating my indoor plumbing and electricity.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
The "H" word
On Saturday evening, we went to the Fall Festival held at the big honkin' church down the street. Trust me, this church is really big, so big that I use it as a landmark when giving people directions to our house - "our subdivision is .7 miles on the left after the big honkin' church".
Fall festivals are very popular with protestant churches here in Georgia and are usually held the weekend before Halloween, or sometimes even on Halloween night. Children are encouraged to wear costumes and candy is distributed, but the word "Halloween" is never mentioned. I think that if I yelled "Halloween", a hush would fall over the crowd and all would look at the vile person who said the dreaded "H" word.
When did Halloween become such an awful event to a certain segment of the US population? When I was a child in the '60s and '70s, a person could be religious and a regular churchgoer, and still openly celebrate Halloween. I can even remember my parents attending a Halloween party at our church; they were dressed as Raggedy Ann and Andy (if I ever get my hands on a photo of them, I will gleefully post it). Now it seems as though Halloween is something to be preached against and certainly not acknowledged by so-called decent, moral people.
Puh-leeze. Halloween does have its roots in pagan traditions but it also has a healthy dose of Christian tradition mixed in. Yes, many of the images associated with Halloween are witches, devils, vampires and other scary beings. But sometimes a witch is just a little child in a costume and not an evil, spell-issuing crone. And if we are really going to nitpick and over-analyze every holiday, how many of "Christian" Easter and Christmas traditions started with the pagans?
So while we enjoyed the cool weather, the free food and the carnival games that yielded A a good supply of candy and cheap plastic toys, it still grates on us that Halloween has become in some circles a obscene word and that some people are trying to ruin the innocent fun for everyone. Sheesh.
Fall festivals are very popular with protestant churches here in Georgia and are usually held the weekend before Halloween, or sometimes even on Halloween night. Children are encouraged to wear costumes and candy is distributed, but the word "Halloween" is never mentioned. I think that if I yelled "Halloween", a hush would fall over the crowd and all would look at the vile person who said the dreaded "H" word.
When did Halloween become such an awful event to a certain segment of the US population? When I was a child in the '60s and '70s, a person could be religious and a regular churchgoer, and still openly celebrate Halloween. I can even remember my parents attending a Halloween party at our church; they were dressed as Raggedy Ann and Andy (if I ever get my hands on a photo of them, I will gleefully post it). Now it seems as though Halloween is something to be preached against and certainly not acknowledged by so-called decent, moral people.
Puh-leeze. Halloween does have its roots in pagan traditions but it also has a healthy dose of Christian tradition mixed in. Yes, many of the images associated with Halloween are witches, devils, vampires and other scary beings. But sometimes a witch is just a little child in a costume and not an evil, spell-issuing crone. And if we are really going to nitpick and over-analyze every holiday, how many of "Christian" Easter and Christmas traditions started with the pagans?
So while we enjoyed the cool weather, the free food and the carnival games that yielded A a good supply of candy and cheap plastic toys, it still grates on us that Halloween has become in some circles a obscene word and that some people are trying to ruin the innocent fun for everyone. Sheesh.
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