Why We Don’t Celebrate Halloween

We don’t celebrate Halloween as a family for many reasons. But, let’s start at the beginning, we have to go back to when I was in high school. Somewhere around my junior and senior year, I became interested in things such as ghosts and other “scary” things. I reveled in watching the newest horror movies and read all sort of scary books about ghosts, demons, vampires, etc. I was the first in line at the haunted houses. I loved frightening myself. I was the kind of kid, that when I was allowed to stay at home by myself at night…I’d watch a horror movie to scare myself. I also enjoyed scaring other people…which at Halloween time, I was able to do and I would do it often. I was slowly becoming obsessed with the darker side of the world. This started becoming a real problem when this obsession started bleeding over into the activities that I would do after hours with my church youth group. The Halloween when I was a senior is a prime example. After youth group meeting, we would usually all go and eat at McDonald’s or something, I often drove a lot of the younger kids so they could go…often having a car full of them. That Halloween, I thought it would be fun to scare them and I often did that by telling them local ghost stories and driving them around spooky places. Also during this time, I got really interested in the history of a local graveyard, which had all sorts of spooky rumors about it, as well as about a rumored witch’s coven that was supposedly in the area. Not realizing what I thought was harmless fun, was actually Satan working in my life to spread his lies. To make a long story short, my actions that year gave the youth director ammunition against me and armed with that and a number of falsehoods, he was able to turn most of the parents of my friends against me and I suddenly found myself an outcast. No one ever even came to me and asked if the rumors were true…they automatically accepted them as truth, because the lies were mixed in with enough truth to make it believable. I left the church and very nearly gave up my faith at that point…but I DIDN’T give up my love for Halloween. I was so hurt by the lies, but it took me a LONG time to come to terms with my part in the whole incident. By my actions, I gave the youth director the extra ammunition to make his lies believable. But, for many years after that, I still celebrated Halloween. When Marty and I got married and bought our first house, I reveled in decorating it for Halloween…the spookier the better! By the time Colt was born, I had started growing out of my obsession with Halloween. We still would let Colt dress up and trick-or-treat. We’d carve a jack-o-lantern and things like that. We never let Colt dress up as anything really evil or scary. Also, by this point, I couldn’t watch those horror movies any longer…they just would tear at my soul. We would pretty much just trick-or-treat or take Colt to a church Halloween party. But it wasn’t until after Riley was born that we totally gave up all celebrations of Halloween. We decided to stop celebrating for several reasons. While the Halloween of my childhood seemed innocent enough, modern Halloween has become an evil day. It’s all about blood and gore, Satanism and just plain old evil. I cannot believe the evil portrayed in some of the costumes that parents let their children wear. Why would any parent in their right mind let their child dress as the currently popular movie serial killer is beyond me. Halloween has become a day to honor murder, mayhem and evil.’ Even pretend evil is evil. Satan revels in it. He loves that what we think is good innocent fun is actually promotion of him and his. This goes for movies, TV, books and Halloween. He uses these things for his glory. I honestly think that books such as the Twilight series and TV series such as The Vampire Diaries are not just good innocent fun…they promote evil and make it seem more mainstream…but it’s still dealing with evil, witches and Satanism. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” –Galatians 5:19-21 This scripture simply shows that witchcraft is evil, along with all these other things. If you participate in any of these things, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. I believe that when you read and watch these types of media that is the same thing as promoting evil. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;” –I Timothy 4:1 The types of evil that Halloween promotes have gotten more and more mainstream in our world. I do believe that these things are seducing our children and teaching them things that are far from Godly. “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” –Philippians 4:8 Everything we read, watch, and participate in should be measured by this rule. If it doesn’t fit this standard, then the Christian should not participate in it. Halloween encourages inappropriate dress. While I am always shocked by the blood and gore that comes with Halloween now days, you can’t over look the costumes of little girls that reveals much more skin than is appropriate. Or the kids dressed up as such heroes at “Bratz”, “Britney Spears” or her equivalent. There are entirely too many “sexy” costumes for young children. Even some of the “Disney” princesses have bared bellies. We spend all year telling our kids not to talk to strangers, but forget that on Halloween. This one really gets me! Everyday, we tell our kids not to talk to strangers, yet on Halloween, we send them out, in costumes none the less, and tell them to knock on stranger’s doors and take candy from them. With all the child abuse, murders kidnappings, etc in the news this is FAR from wise. While many parents escort their children from door to door, many do not. They just send their kids out on their own with no supervision. This is a danger I’d just assume avoid. Do your kids REALLY need all that sugar?? I know mine don’t! I would just assume that the candy stay out of my house and I certainly don’t need to send my kids to the neighbor’s house just so they can get a sugar rush. Not to mention that all this candy is highly unhealthy for your children. So how do we celebrate Halloween? We simply don’t. Halloween is considered just like any other day for our family. Even with it being shoved down our throats at every turn. You can’t go into any store without seeing some sort of Halloween themed ad….it’s everywhere. To our kids, we acknowledge that the majority of our nation celebrates this holiday, but because of the reasons above, we feel that this is not “God’s Best” for our family and we simply don’t celebrate or acknowledge it.

Beef ‘n’ Cabbage

Last night we had one of our family favorites for dinner–Beef ‘n’ Cabbage. This has always been really popular with my fellas, but in recent months, has kind of disappeared from our weekly menus. It was way past time to bring it back! One of the greatest things about this recipe–besides it’s wonderful taste–is that it’s so simple and inexpensive. This year one of the things I’m doing for Colt’s homeschool life skills class, is teaching him to cook. Most likely, he will be living on his own and be single for a time and knowing how to cook will be a must. So, I’ve been going through my recipes and selecting simple, but hearty recipes to teach him so he won’t starve on his own bachelor cooking. This is one of those recipes. Last night, Colt had the honor (or drudgery…depends on who you ask), of fixing the family’s dinner. It was a big hit and we all throughly enjoyed it (along with the brownies I baked afterwards…lol!). Here’s the simple recipe:

Beef ‘n’ Cabbage

1 head cabbage, chopped
2 lb. ground beef or ground cabbage
1 tbsp. chopped garlic (or 1/2 tbsp. garlic powder)
1/2 onion, chopped (or 1/2 tbsp. onion powder)
1 stick butter

In a sklilet, brown the ground beef along with the garlic and onion. Once meat is brown, add the butter and the cabbage. Stir fry unitl cabbage is softened, but still a bit crunchy. Serve as is or over brown rice.

This is an easy recipe to modify. We have also used this basic recipe as a basis for variations for other meals. Here are a few easy variations:

Taco Beef ‘n’ Cabbage
Add to the basic ingredients 1 can tomato sauce and 2 tbsp. taco seasoning, leave out the butter. This is tastes like cabbage rolls without the hassle of rolling the meat mixture up in the cabbage leaves.

Spicy Beef ‘n’ Cabbage with Tomatoes
Add to the basic ingredients 1 can rotel tomatoes, leave out the butter.

Asian Style Beef ‘n’ Cabbage
Add to the basic ingredients 1/4 cup Worchestershire sauce and 1/4 cup soy sauce, leave out the butter. This is good with a bit of celery and thinly cut carrots added to the cabbage.

Menu Plan Monday – 10/19/09

I haven’t participated in Menu Plan Monday in a while, so I thought I’d play along this week. Here are our lunch and dinner menus for the week (in no particular order):

Lunches:
–

Chicken Soup
– Sandwiches & raw veggies
– Sandwiches & raw veggies
– Spaghetti with marinara sauce
– Tuna Noodles
– Lentil Beanie Weanies

Dinners:
– Chicken ‘n’ Dumplings with coleslaw
– Beans & Frugal Cornbread
– Mexican Hamburger Rice Bake
– BBQ Chicken legs, baked potatoes and corn
– Tacos or Taco Salad
– Beef ‘n’ Cabbage

The Magic & Madness of Our Weekly Grocery Budget

I’m always trying to save money when grocery shopping. I don’t use a lot of coupons for a couple of reasons. One, many of the items we purchase don’t usually have coupons for them. We purchase a lot of dry foods, such as fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, beans, lentils, brown rice and whole wheat pasta. I will occasionally find coupons for these items, but not often, especially not for the fresh fruit/vegetables, beans, lentils and only rarely for the brown rice and whole wheat pasta. The second reason is that none of the store around here offer double or triple coupons on a regular basis, so I can usually purchase the store brand or generic cheaper at their regular price, than I can purchase a name brand with a coupon. So, I have to search and find out ways other than coupons to save money. We budget $100 per week for groceries, and I consistently only spend between $50 to $75 per week. So I nearly always have $25 to $50 left each week of our grocery budget. I know, many people would say, “well lower your budget, it’s obvious you can get buy on the lesser amount.” , but this is part of the magic of our “madness”. The money left over each week, is placed in an envelope and we use it to purchase sales items in bulk. Recently, I found boxes of “Sun Crystals” brand stevia/pure cane sugar blend packets (50 ct per box) on clearance at our local mom-pop store. They were marked down to $1.50 each. I purchased all 19 of them, spent $28.50 out of our left-over food budget and saved over $47 off the regular retail price. This is easily a 6 month supply for us. I was also able to buy over 11 pounds of chicken legs/thighs for less than $9. I have found that this system works really well for us, because we’re automatically working in a weekly dollar amount to be used for stocking up on items priced cheaply. Also, we have found that by purchasing dry items like beans and rice in bulk (25 pound bags for example), we can lower our grocery bills even more, as purchasing in bulk in cheaper and I always have these items on hand, so I don’t have to buy them each week. Here’s what I purchased this week at the store (including the stocking up stuff):

19 pkg Sun Crystals (50 ct per box) 11 lbs. chicken legs and thighs 1 box saltine crackers 4 bunches celery 2 boxes whole wheat angel hair pasta 1 lb. whole carrots 1 box whole wheat elbow macaroni 3 loaves of whole wheat bread 1 pkg flour tortillas 5 lb. bag potatoes 3 lb. bag yellow onions 4.5 lb cabbage 5 lb. whole wheat flour 5 lb. cornmeal 1 bottle mustard 2 bottles BBQ sauce

4 cans chicken broth 2 cans tuna 1 can cream of mushroom soup 2 cans beef broth 2 cans corn 1 bottle coleslaw dressing 1 bottle ranch dressing 1 container baking powder 2 bags grated cheddar cheese 1 box butter quarters 2 packages lunch meat 4 tubes refrigerator biscuits 1 dozen eggs 1 pkg. hot dogs 4 lbs ground turkey

Total on stocking up items: $37.50 Total on groceries: $68.17 Total all together: $105.67 The $68.17 came out of our weekly food budget and the remainder came out of our food budget excess. At any time, we have $0 – $100 (sometimes more) floating around in the excess food budget. This makes it really nice when we find good deals to stock up on and by planning to have an excess each week, actually planning it into our budget, it gives us the freedom to stock up when we can. Anyway, this works well for us and I love the way it’s working for us. If you would like to see the menu we’re planning on using these groceries up on, check back on Monday, I’ll post our menu for the week then for the “Menu Plan Monday” meme. BTW, I’m still kinda of on hiatus (LOL), but will post when feel inspired to do so and when I have something to say =)

One Crockpot, Two Meals!

I’m still officially on Hiatus still, but I posted on Facebook about the Chicken Soup/Chicken ‘n’ Dumplings that I was making today and had a lot of requests for the recipe. So, to make things simple, I’m going to go ahead and post it here on my blog. It’s a really simple recipe that my family REALLY enjoys and is reasonably healthy, even with the few short cuts I use to make it. So here’s the basic directions:

You will need the following ingredients:
4 lb. chicken (I use chicken legs)
1 bunch celery
1 onion
1 tbsp. garlic powder
1 tbsp. onion powder
1-2 tsp. whole black pepper
4 carrots

3 cans cream of chicken soup
1 tube refrigerated biscuits

Right after lunch, place the chicken, 1/2 a bunch celery broken into pieces, 1 onion, chopped, garlic powder, onion powder and whole black pepper corns in the crockpot (mine is a 5 qt I think–it’s big) and cover with water. Let it cook on high all the rest of the day. Just before bedtime, drain off the broth, reserving it in a bowl. Remove the chicken and place in another bowl. Remove the veggies, they go in the compost or fed to animals. Refrigerate the chicken until morning. Pour the chicken broth back into the crockpot. Add to the broth, the remaining half of the celery, chopped into chunks and 4-5 carrots, chopped into chunks. Turn the crockpot on low and cook over night. In the morning remove the meat from the bones, removing bones, cartlidge and skin. Shred the meat and place it in the crockpot along with the broth. Cook until lunch time on low. Add water or extra chicken broth if needed to keep the crockpot full. Serve as soup for lunch, along with bread.

Now to use up the leftovers….I usually have about 1/2 a crockpot full of soup left after lunch. It’s time to make the Chicken ‘n’ Dumplings. To the soup in the crockpot, I add

3 cans cream of chicken soup. Stir well to make sure the cream soup in mixed in well (this thickens the gravy well). Take the tube of refrigerated biscuits and cut each one into quarters. Roll each quarter into a ball and drop into the crockpot. Cook on low until dinner time. If you’d like it thicker, you can take out some of the gravy and thicken it with flour.

You can make this healthier, if you thicken your broth/gravy with whole wheat flour and use homemade whole wheat biscuit dough for the dumplings. You could also substitute organic cream of chicken soup to thicken the broth/gravy.

That’s it! Enjoy…it really is good! (Now back to being on hiatus!)