Trick or Treat!

The first year that Ryan was serving as a children's pastor, we were working at a church that had a big fall festival. It was his responsibility to coordinate it, and so we had a no-brainer decision about what to do on Halloween each year.

Abby was 3 that first year, and from the very start, we enlisted Grammy to make costumes. It became tradition that she would make costumes each year. We usually settled on our costume idea several months before the festival. We have a variety of animals, fairy tale characters, and historical costumes hanging in our attic, all products of our Halloween efforts.

This went on for several years, until we came to our current church. Our church here does do an outreach at Halloween, but it is actually a haunted house alternative that is geared toward adults. It's a very effective ministry, but it left us without a plan for our children. We weren't sure what we should do. So, we've floundered for the last few years, trying a variety of church festivals.

Finally, last year we decided that we would just Trick-or Treat in our own little neighborhood. We felt really convicted that we needed to use every opportunity to build relationships with our neighbors. We knew that many of them would be participating in Trick-or Treat, and it would give us an opportunity to meet and greet some of them. It ended up being a great solution. We take a short walk around the neighborhood, get just enough candy to excite the children, and we get a chance to be friendly with our neighbors.

We did decide this year, that we would give Grammy a break. I knew she was short on time, and I knew that we could save both time and money by using what we had. So, I told the kids they could trick or treat, but that their costume had to come from what we already had. They had no trouble finding a costume and here is what they ended up with...

Abby went colonial, Lizzie went '50s, Isaac was a superhero, Lily was a brunette Alice in Wonderland, and Farmer Abe went along too!

The best part of the evening was definitely watching Abe. At the first house, he just sorta followed the kids up the sidewalk, having no idea why. But by house two, he had the concept of the game. He ran behind them calling for "canny" Needless to say, it was one tradition that was a hit with him!