Missed Holidays and Missed Hearts

I(Theresa) have never been a fan of Halloween. I love fall and all of the pumpkin goodies, but it’s never seemed like a “real” holiday to me. When we lived in the US, we would take our girls to Trunk or Treat events and have them dress up and enjoy the candy. We lived on a busy highway, so we easily got away with not taking the girls out trick or treating  and we never had trick or treaters to our house because of where we lived. To the girls, they knew it was a time to get dressed up and get candy, but never realized they didn’t actually do that on October 31, just whenever the Trunk or Treating day was that we happened to take them to. However, that didn’t matter, they knew their candy buckets would get filled.

Halloween isn’t hugely celebrated here. I was actually shocked to see pumpkin and ghost decorations at a shopping mall during October. There was an acknowledgement of the holiday (why?? Why has that been something developing countries think they need to acknowledge??), but there is no trick or treating, etc. Ellie and Audrey’s school did have a “Harvest Carnival” complete with camel and horse rides, henna tattoos, games and pumpkin painting. The kids were able to dress up in costumes and in my mind, check!, we did something to acknowledge fall/ Halloween! 

On October 31, Ellie and Audrey were watching a show while I was cooking dinner. Ellie ran into the kitchen and loudly asked, “Wait?! Momma, is today Halloween???”. I told her that it was but explained that Halloween isn’t really celebrated in Kenya. In my mind, this was a perfectly reasonable explanation. We live somewhere that doesn’t acknowledge this holiday, so we don’t have to abide by it either. The answer might have seemed sufficient to me, but it definitely wasn’t to Ellie. She was crushed. I realized later, she felt completely missed at my lack of attention to something that felt grounding to her. Holidays are grounding. We expect them and can anticipate them year after year. In the midst of a gigantic life change of moving internationally, things feel very unstable right now and holidays are stabilizing. 

After I saw how disappointed Ellie was, I got defensive in my heart. I thought, I don’t want Halloween to be something our family carries with us into a move. It doesn’t feel worth celebrating to me. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized, Ellie simply wants her “candy cup” to be filled. She doesn’t care if it is trick or treating or trunk or treating. She just wants to feel like she’s not missing something that marks time on the calendar… and she just wants candy ;). More than that, she wants to be seen. She needs to know I’m not going to simply ignore something that she is used to doing simply because we live in a place that doesn’t do that thing.

I took time to apologize to her for ignoring the holiday and repented to the Lord for my defensiveness. I feel stretched in every way here right now and I allowed myself to slip into thoughts of “aren’t I doing enough! Why on earth would I need to add anything else to my plate right now” ie: self pity. 

I am so thankful that we have a God who not only gently corrects us, but also walks alongside us when we feel stuck. I went to bed that night thinking “well, I missed it! I missed Ellie’s heart and failed the first “holiday” here! Then I woke up at 3 in the morning and had an idea suddenly pop in my head. I’ve learned over the years this is the kindness of the Lord when this happens- when I feel completely at a loss and then BOOM! Something creative comes to mind that I know the didn’t come from myself. The image in the middle of the night was of the girls trick or treating at the doors of our upstairs bedrooms. 

When Ellie got home from school on Nov 1, I told her, Audrey and Tallie to get in costumes, grab a bag and knock on the first closed door upstairs. I handed out candy then they went to the next door bedroom and got candy from Will, then I would run to the third door and we cycled through that until all the candy was gone. The girls had a blast. As they sat and enjoyed their candy, Ellie said “Thank you Mom, this was so much fun and I didn’t expect it!”. All I could do was praise the Lord. I went from completely missing her heart to maybe starting a new tradition (though I’m sure next year we won’t get away with missing the actual day again ;)). 

I’m holding this story close to my heart right now because it has been reminding me that in this season where I feel like I’m constantly missing the mark- in parenting, team leading, as a wife, etc. I don’t have to let the misses be the end of the story. When I choose to pause and reset, I can ask the Lord to intervene and inject new wisdom and ideas into what seems to be failed attempts at the moment. He is faithful to respond to my heart cries of “shoot, I missed it again, please help!” He can show me how candy love cups can still get filled and opportunities for forgiveness can still take place. I am grateful for redemption and a faithful God who cares about little hearts in the midst of big moves.