When I was growing up, there were certain standards for Halloween. We had cute decorations: a friendly paper skeleton on the door, a ceramic witch my mom had made, and an enormous plastic wall hanging in the shape of a pumpkin. Smiling cats, bats, and ghosts were the norm back then. Now the norm seems to be this…
…and worse. I took the children into a local store to look at party supplies for a math lesson and they are now terrified to go there. The Halloween section was overwhelming, in the least. Many of the items for sale looked like props from a horror movie. Some of them were so bad, I may have nightmares myself.
I can understand why many people believe that Christians shouldn’t celebrate Halloween. It has really become overrun with frightening elements: elaborate haunted houses, headstones in the front yard, and costumes covered in blood. For some reason, people seem to thrive on that pulse-quickening moment of fear.
I remember how the neighbor used to wear the same scary mask to answer the door. We knew the mask and to expect him to jump out at us; but we were still frightened every time. Now, we don’t know who or what is waiting for us as we walk to the next house.
What do you do when Halloween gets too scary?
We add to the scariness
I think it’s part of my childhood, at least. My parents used to bring my brother and I to the really scary haunted houses in the neighborhood areas… they laughed at our reactions. (But honestly, to this day I won’t go into a haunted house on Halloween and I can’t stand to watch scary movies). But… I will decorate the yard with a couple of scary things… I know, shame on me 
Did your lawn have skinless torsos? Because that’s what seemed over the top for me. Plus, I attended House of Shock years ago and that pretty much ended my love of haunted houses.
Ewww, skinless torsos… oh, umm, we do have some type of ugly, nasty looking thing that has smoke coming out of the mouth, but it’s only one thing and we put it in the garden away from the front door. We do play scary music and half the time, the kids are afraid to come to the door, while the parents are laughing.
We were always “afraid” to go to the neighbors.