Increasingly, one of the great things about going to youth days is meeting other Catholic parents. One lady we met has sent me a photo of an awesome christianified halloween pumpkin and some writing to go with it. Since I'm a nice guy, instead of telling her to start her own blog (she should) I am reproducing it here for you to enjoy.

Shedding some light on Halloween

We had great fun celebrating the Light side of Haloween.

Dressing up as a saint can be more exciting and just as colourful as the tacky, ghoulish stuff sold by even the better high street shops this year.

A 'know your saints' family dinner with a quiz element. Each person has an item by their plate, e.g. St Joseph a hammer, more difficult ones for the adults. Also, suggesting wearing something orange, or pumpkin-coloured, makes most people dig through their wardrobe.

Visiting trick or treaters tolerate a bit of catechesis on the real meaning of the word Haloween, especially if they receive the usual treat!

Combining Halloween with a Thanksgiving theme, you have an interesting meal using the flesh of the pumpkin.

Pumpkin soup is lovely if you get it right; last year I slipped with the chilli!

Pompoenpitten...Dutch for pumpkin seed, also the name of a lovely bread made with pumpkin seeds.

What do you do?

I'm interested in everybody's thoughts on the whole halloween thing. On the one hand, the whole "let's not encourage our kids to cavort with evil" thing makes a lot of sense. On the other hand... gargoyles. We Christians have a history of revelling in the grotesque.

Both/and?

Like the lady said... What do you do?

If you want to do something really scary this Halloween, you could apply for a job in the Middlesbrough Diocesan Youth Service...

Tomb it may concern...

Full-time Diocesan Youth Worker needed

The successful candidate will:

• be a committed and practising Catholic
• be experienced in Youth Ministry
• have excellent creative and communication skills.

Whilst the successful candidate will deliver the Youth Service programme in secondary schools throughout the whole Diocese, their main responsibility will be parish work in the southern half of the Diocese.

Salary in the range of £16,000-£19,000 pa to be confirmed in interview.

The post is for 11 months in the first instance.

Closing date for applications: 31st October 2008

[link]

31st of October: Halloween. Talk about a deadline...

Only ghouls need apply though, because there's no way they are going to employ a boy. Witches not fair.

I remember meeting the last Diocesan Youth Worker, when I first spider giving a talk. I thought - she spells trouble. It just ghost to show, though of corpse I had no idea how things would turn out.

These puns are terrible. It's a grave offence. I hope they are not too cryptic. I've got a bit of a cold so I can't stop coffin...

If anybody can demonstrate a good pun involving the word werewolf I will be very impressed. I just can't think howl get that in. I am at a dead loss.

Dead is a very easy Halloween pun to use. Which is dead handy.

What did the Vampire say about my puns? They suck!

Bats enough for now.

Update: We have a winner (one of the secret people who emails because of how friendly and open to criticism the Church in England and Wales is):

"The Middlesborough Diocese werewolfing down the secular trash about inclusiveness and so on."

Hurray!

It's Halloween on Friday... We're Catholic, so we get the best of it. None of that nervous evangelical "what if my kids end up becoming witches" stuff, none of that secular "we don't believe in God but we're slightly slightly superstitious - what if ghosts are real" stuff.

We get to enjoy all that sitting in the dark with spooky pumpkin lanterns, skeletons and monsters. We get to blur the line between this world and the next, reminding ourselves of our own mortality, all safe in the knowledge that Christ has pwned death.

Last year, I carved this awesome lion pumpkin in honour of it being Leona's first Halloween...

Ella carved this excellent witch pumpkin...

Which pumkin? This one... Witch?

I thought you might enjoy this magnificent collection of Pumkin links.. there's Star Wars Pumpkins, Animatronic Pumpkins, Extreme Pumpkins, Light Sensitive Pumpkins, Giant Misshapen Pumpkins, Ludicrously Detailed Pumpkins and The Awesome Pumpkins of Pumpkin Way.

Halloween is a time for amazing projects that you know you will never do (but can always dream)... I love this Roadkill Carpet and this Zombie Teddy is cute. Everybody should have some motorised rats. I'd love to go to an Iron Pour, put climbing skeletons on my house, make Bleeding Portraits, construct a bottomless pit, build a giant spider or an actual full size crush room dribbling with Fake Snot.

While none of those awesome projects are likely to happen this year, Ella has bought a pumpkin. I'm going to take this opportunity to make the following suggestions for Halloween fun...

Skull Sandwiches - the ones on that page are peanut butter and jam (for red eyes) but I reckon you could do sausage sandwiches with ketchup for the eyes and make it a proper skeletal meal.

Melon Brain - This is AWESOME. Keep your Halloween healthy with a hefty portion of Watermelon Brain.

Spider Cakes - No feast would be complete without some cakes. These cakes are very cool. Have them with a cup of tea (with red food colouring in it if course...)

I hope Ella will make note of those subtle hints and somehow get hold of a watermelon by Friday (are they even in season?). If she fails, no matter, I will always have this skull...

Technology... Is there anything it can't do?