Ghosts, Ghouls and the Traitors…navigating faith as a parent at Halloween

As Halloween grows ever more popular in the UK, writer Anna Hawken explores how parents of faith can navigate a season that celebrates darkness and deception. From spooky fun to shows like The Traitors, she asks how we can use this moment to talk about faith, truth and light with our children.

Every October, amidst the growing stock for Christmas, Halloween emerges as a major celebration in the UK, particularly among children and young people. Year on year, the celebration seems to be growing with more space in the supermarket aisles, more scary and spooky adverts and an increasing number of half term activities dominated by themes of darkness. This provokes questions for all Christians, and especially parents and carers, about how to navigate October 31.

The interest in‘darkness’ is at the forefront of our public attention, with The Traitors becoming one of the most popular BBC shows of our time. The game, pitting the ‘Traitors’ and the ‘Faithful’ against one another, is based on psychological manipulation, as players outwit, and outvote, and out-murder one another, until they are the last man, or woman, standing.