When Halloween Becomes the New Christmas
Over the past few years, I’ve increasingly remarked to my wife that our city seems to be more passionate about decorating for Halloween than for Christmas. While a greater percentage of people likely participate in some variation of Christmas adornments rather than Halloween, the sheer scale and intensity of October holiday decorations far surpass their December counterparts. The blow-ups are bigger and the fright is more extreme than the merry.
One of our closest neighbors says that his elementary-aged daughter gets more excited about decorating for Halloween than any other holiday. So, their bushes are cloaked in fake cobwebs, there’s a motion-detected moaning skeleton, the lights that would typically shine a welcoming glow over their front doorstep are ominously orange and purple, and there are many other “spooky” items to scare away people approaching the front door. While they’ll put something up for Christmas, it won’t be of the same scale, and the neighbors down the street with a 20 foot high ghoul in their yard won’t have a similarly sized Santa in two months. Of course, there’s also the house we regularly pass on our way to school that has met its goal of being down-right horrifying.
Sadly, I’m quite confident that this phenomenon isn’t limited to our street alone. Our local Lowe’s has far more Halloween yard paraphernalia than what they’ll display for Christmas, and it seems like stores in general start pushing Halloween decor as soon as Pumpkin Spiced everything is available (which starts immediately after Labor Day). In a consumer-driven society, it’s fair to conclude that this trend isn’t forced by retailer agendas but by customer demand; it’s what society wants.
Transparently, I love Christmas and all that comes with it, so I take extra offense at the trend. We joyfully load the kids up in the car, grab peppermint shakes from Chick-fil-A and drive throughout town, seeking Christmas lights. My kids have so often heard me say, “those must be really fine and upstanding people” in response to those who have gone overboard to decorate for Christmas that I fear to have warped their definition of goodness. I fully recognize that many of the traditional, Christmas decorations (and people who display them) are no less secular than jack-o-lanterns and spiders. I also admit that some Halloween decorations aren’t scary at all; many are fun and even cute. My goal here isn’t to say that everything associated with Halloween is inherently evil and conversely that everything associated with Christmas is necessarily sacred. However, I do believe this phenomenon is one of many symptoms of what many now describe as a post-Christian culture. Unlike what some think, I wouldn’t say that this means we’re becoming more secular. I don’t think that has changed; we just express our “secularity” in a different way than we used to.
A teacher friend of mine, Larry Birchler, once created a marvelous, Superman-themed chapel series for students: the myriad ways he has been portrayed, the major themes of the Superman cannon of stories, and the fascinating similarities between his story and Jesus’s (that connection, alone, is fascinating to explore). Larry also talked about the vast differences between Superman and Batman and how we have received them in modern culture. This led to one of Larry’s points that still resonates: it’s not a coincidence that Hollywood has made far more movies and other representations of Batman than of Superman. Once again; it’s not because of what the “sellers” are selling but because of what we, the consumers, are buying. We identify with Batman: he’s dark, complex, and angry; his emotions are profound; he’s flawed. Superman, on the other hand, is uncompromisingly good. He tells the truth. His power doesn’t come from wealth or gadgets, but from who He is. We can’t identify with that, so we prefer Batman. This makes me think of John 3:19, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” It’s for this very same reason that our culture has traded Christmas for Halloween. From A holiday of life and light to death and darkness. From joy to mourning. From peace to fear. From giving to getting.
This celebratory trend adds to what I had already begun to notice among the high school students I taught. It seemed like they had become far more interested in watching horror movies than what I was used to - not only more than when I was a kid, but even the students I had taught a decade earlier. It was significant enough that I had to ask a group of students why they were so enamored with horror movies. Without hesitating, one of the girls looked at me and said, “I need something to thrill me.” I was dumbstruck. No words, but quite a bit of sadness.
What has happened to to our culture where a teenager has already become so numb to and bored with the world that she will look to anyone and anything for a spark - even to what is horrifying! It’s clearly a symptom of a far deeper problem. It certainly brings back many of Neil Postman’s prophetic perspectives in his fabulous book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman primarily focuses on television, but his underlying critique is of a culture that has turned to what’s spiritually killing us rather than to what gives life – all in a hope to find fulfillment. Our obsession with what we see on digital screens is a symptom of a deeper problem in the same way that my concern with the guts and gore in people’s yards reflects a far greater sickness.
Charles Taylor says that sin turns everything upside down, and this is exactly what’s seen in our bewitched obsessions. Several recent authors have helped to unpack Taylor’s ideas in The Secular Age. I’ve gotten used to reading Alan Noble and James K.A. Smith through a “Taylor lens”, but I wasn’t expecting such similar language in Postman’s 1985 work. Taylor writes at great length about our modern, secular world and the problem of disenchantment. It feels rather odd for Christians to talk about the world being “enchanted,” but Taylor insists that there has been a massive shift in our post-Enlightenment thinking. For the entirety of recorded, human history people believed the world was enchanted – up until our current, secular age. Yes, enchantment sounds a lot like “magic,” and maybe I don’t mind that because of my obsession with G.K. Chesterton. However, up until the Enlightenment, people generally assumed that there was always something supernatural “out there" … whether it was God, Thor, or fairies dancing on the grass. Of course, modern humanists insist that our disenchantment is a mark of progress. It’s the result of our evolution. Science tells us that we don’t need to have an enchanted view; we need to be reasonable. But, Taylor says that this disenchantment has created colossal ramifications.
Humans deeply need enchantment. We need magic - not in the sense of witches, wizards, cauldrons, and broomsticks, but wonder. Mystery. What can’t be explained. As my former student expressed, we need to be thrilled. We need to worship. We need what’s sacred. Postman says, “enchantment is the means through which we may gain access to sacredness. Entertainment is the means through which we distance ourselves from it.” My greatest concern with our Halloween fascination is that we’ve taken what shows our deep need for “the other” and trivialized it by making it entertaining. Death is serious. The spiritual and eternal worlds are real, and where someone is going to spend eternity is a really big deal. It should not be trifled with.
This begins to echo much of what it means to live as humans in recognition of the reality of a transcendent and immanent God. Throughout the Old Testament, God instructed His people to take His Name seriously; it’s one of the Ten Commandments. He instructed them of the dangers of taking what is holy and making it common … what is sacred and treating it like it’s not a big deal. It’s why the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God” (5:1). It’s fascinating that he says this, when for much of the book he finds the world meaningless. But, God is not.
While we’re guilty for the ways we’ve trivialized Christmas, it’s become even more abundantly clear from what Halloween has become. Postman also says, “I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.” We’ve made what is sacred funny. What is sobering (death) a “thrill.” What uniquely separates the dignity of people from the rest of the created order (the spiritual) and made it common.
And yet, this fascination with Halloween and the need to be thrilled also reminds us of what we most need to hear: this world can’t fully satisfy us. Outside of Scripture, maybe no one captures this reality more succinctly than C.S. Lewis when he says in Mere Christianity: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Deep down, we know that this world can’t provide enough to satisfy us; it’s why we look to anything and everything for answers. And, in the greatest signs of desperation, we’ll even look beyond this world to dark and sinister places. In my favorite book, The Ballad of the White Horse, G.K. Chesterton reflects that when cultures have become fully secular and disenchanted, people “hunger without hope - even for evil gods.” Doesn’t that sound exactly like what we’re currently witnessing! In a fully disenchanted world, we’ll run toward anything enchanting (even if it’s evil), because the hopelessness of a secular perspective can’t mask our deepest longings.
We do this, because we’re worshipers. All of us. Though not a Christian, renowned author David Foster Wallace’s famous 2005 commencement address says this in the most poignant of ways – that if we worship anything that isn’t higher than us, it will “eat you alive.” We were made for worship; we were made for the other. And, in the oddest of ways, our Halloween fascination reveals it. But, like Paul says in Romans 1, we’d rather trade “the truth of God for a lie” (v. 25).
All the more reason why we need to do everything we can to point others (especially children and teens) toward wonder and mystery. Do everything you can to nurture awe and amazement. Our students crave it … so much so, that they’ll run to upside-down places to get it. But, they’re ripe for having their worlds rocked by the thrill of the God who has enchanted this world. A world made by the intricate hand of our loving Father. Considering that, the grass we see outside isn’t just grass. It’s magical. There’s no such thing as a meaningless second; it’s turbo-charged with wonder because the One that is far more thrilling than any ghoul or broomstick ride is the One we were made for. I feel like this trend should be another line in U2’s song “I Still Haven’t Found what I’m Looking for” or in the description of all the places in which Francis Thompson looked for meaning in his poem, “The Hound of Heaven.” For, it’s just a further example of the great lengths people will go to find meaning. And yet, Jesus says, “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” And, that’s what we need above all else … rest.
As God’s people, let’s not become defeated by the fascination with Halloween. Rather, seize every opportunity to recapture the wonder of the world around us. Disney has made billions of dollars off of nurturing “magic” in their theme parks, and you can really feel it. And, Hallmark and countless stores can’t wait to tell us about the “magic” of Christmas to trick us into buying what they’re selling. Underneath it all, it reveals our deepest longings, and may God’s people harness these longings and direct them to the One whom Peter understood to be the answer to all of our deepest needs: “Lord, where else can we go? You alone have the words of life” (John 6:68).
