Someone asked me today (in reference, I'm sure, to my Friday meander), "What do you say to someone about Hallowe'en?" Other than what I have previously said, these are the only other thoughts I really have on the matter:
According to the National Retail Foundation (in 2017): "More than 171 million Americans plan to celebrate Hallowe'en this year, spending an average $82.93, up from last year's $74.34. Total spending is expected to reach $8.4 billion, an all-time high in the history of NRF's annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights." Close to $2.7 billion of that will be spent on home decor.
To put that in perspective, the NRF's "Winter Holiday" prediction for 2016 was between $678.75 billion and $682 billion. To further put that into real-world perspective, the GNP of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2016 was 57.83 billion. If Congo is a little too Third-World for you to think that is a significant statistic, the 2016 GNP for Greece was 289.1 billion.
I am not saying people don't have a right to
...right BEHIND Myanmar, Indonesia, Kenya, and New Zealand. (Yeah, you heard me right.)
So, aside from the fact that celebrating a "holiday" that clearly has pagan roots and makes no effort to disguise that fact, aside from the fact that we could clearly be doing a better job of helping our neighbor (or to quote Jesus/Yeshua, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’)...what's my point, you ask?
No point, just making a statement of fact. Draw your own conclusions.
Love you!
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