Be True to the Meaning

Why do we celebrate holidays? I have been thinking about this recently because Halloween is on Monday. Halloween has always been the one holiday that I feel uncomfortable about celebrating. Normally I am overflowing with "holiday spirit," and drive everyone around me crazy. But what exactly is it that bothers me about Halloween? Is it the pagan roots? Many of the other holidays we celebrate have incorporated pagan traditions.

It isn't the traditions or the actual rituals we go through on the holiday that are important, it is the foundation of the day, the origins. Why do we mark these days? We celebrate a holiday to honor someone or some event, and we set the day aside as a holy day. Christmas is to honor Christ's birth, Thanksgiving to honor God's safe deliverance of the Pilgrims to the New World, Easter is to celebrate Christ's rising from the dead. On all of these holidays I embrace the "true meaning" of the day, rather than the modern day celebration that it has become. I want someday to tell my children that Christmas is not about Santa and presents, but about Jesus Christ. So wouldn't it be a double standard to celebrate Halloween for what it is today and not for its "true meaning?" I shouldn't be setting aside as special a day that grew from ancient Celtic traditions involving spirits of the dead and pagan rituals. I love the holidays that point to the hope and salvation that Christ brings, not the day that points back to the bondage of fear and evil that held these ancient pagan people.