Re-purposing Halloween

I think Halloween can be a great Christian holiday. Not along the lines of Christmas or Easter, but Halloween has the potential to instill some great Christian virtues. Generosity and the importance of community being the main two. This evening a group of PTS students went trick-or-treating for canned goods to donate to the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton. We went to a local neighborhood, knocked on people's doors, and asked them for canned goods. There were a couple of groups. My group [pictured] included Tinkerbell, a hippie, Hancock, and Supergirl [me]. Along the way we also accumulated a small amount of candy. I got three fun-sized candy bars, a pixie stick, and a bag of cheez-its. Not as good as when I trick-or-treated as a child, but it's nice to know that I can still dress up in something geeky and be rewarded with sugar. As our group was traveling through the houses, we were talking about how much canned food we could collect if a whole youth group who went to several different neighborhoods.
It's something to think about, anyway. Halloween is really fun as kids, and tonight was really fun, too. We don't have to give up Halloween as adults. We can still trick-or-treat with children. I took my nephew trick-or-treating last year. [So much fun!] If we can help people while having fun, it's a wonderful thing.