Costumes

We celebrate All Saint's Eve instead of Halloween. Our neighborhood has a huge block party and all the children dress as a Saint or Biblical character. They each get a chance to go up on a stage and announce in the microphone who they are. Many years, there are tons of the same Saints. We always try to do something a little bit different.

One year, Dane was Noah. We dressed him like Noah, then built an ark out of cardboard which hung off his shoulders with rope. Daelyn was dressed in a lion costume and was one of the animals from the ark (he was still a toddler) and Deanna was the rainbow, which was also made out of cardboard and hung off her with ropes and handles on the back. We decorated her face with cotton balls to look like a fluffy cloud above the rainbow. The whole costume looked great.

Another year, we went as the Pevensey children from the Chronicles of Narnia. Don was Peter the Great, Dane was Edmund, Deanna was Lucy, I was Susan and Daelyn was Aslan (there's that lion costume we bought from Land's End again). We had our gifts that Father Christmas gave us and lots of royal robes and jewels. I thought we did a wonderful job of looking the part.

I really like these family-themed ideas. One year, Daelyn went as Moses, Deanna was Miriam, and I think Dane was the burning bush. We dressed Dane in orange, red, and yellow and stuck twigs of green leaves in him. He really did look like a bush on fire. My mother made Ten Commandment tablets for Daelyn and they looked amazing. She used styrofoam and spray-painted them gray, then wrote what looks like Hebrew on them. The only problem was that it was a little much for Daelyn to carry - two tablets and his all-important staff.

So I've been trying to come up with an idea for this year. Back in September, my mother and I were at the dollar store looking for paper products for my father's 80th birthday party and they were just putting out soldier costumes. I pick out matching pieces for Daelyn, thinking to myself that he could go as Cornelius, the Roman soldier who converted to Christ. We were all satisfied with that idea, but didn't know what to do about Deanna or Dane. Then I had another idea. What if all the children went as non-Jews that believed. I just had to come up with a female and another male who would be interesting. I thought of Rahab, the Jericho woman who hid Joshua's spies. Deanna thought that would work quite well. What about Dane?

I asked Don a couple of nights ago what he thought.

"What about Paul," he asked. Paul? Paul, the Saduccee? There were few Jews in Israel who were more committed to the faith that Paul - he just had the wrong faith.

"Honey, Paul WAS a Jew," I responded.

"Oh, right. Well, how about Luke?"

Wow! What a great idea. Luke, the physician, the healer. He was devoted to Christ and a follower, and I don't think he was a Jew. I'll have to look it up to be sure, but we may have hit paydirt.

Here's hoping.