How are superheroes a Halloween theme?
Well, SPIDER-man, BATman, and of course, Jesus, our real superman!
I was inspired after my son wanted to be Batman this year as superheroes are his new fascination. Swooshing around the house with his arms out like he’s flying telling me he’s on a mission to rescue was the sweetest thing. I didn’t have the heart to tell him Batman doesn’t fly, but drives a nifty vehicle like the go-go-gadget car. And I didn’t have the heart to wait until Halloween to let him wear his beloved costume. That costume was worn almost everyday in October and when the actual day to wear it came around it was tattered, but he still loved it just as much. But at one point he said “I don’t want to be batman. I just want to be a boy.” Being a superhero is tough work! Good thing we have our personal Justice League: God, Jesus, Angels, and the Holy Spirit to help us fight our battles when we realize our bodies alone are too weak. We need to trust and rely on God and his team of superheroes looking out for us.
And that’s when the inspirational bible verses for this Halloween came to me like a superpower.
Our outward appearances and “costumes” don’t fool God. We try to put on that cape and act like we are superheroes of our own lives and other peoples’ lives, but without Jesus as our true savior, we are nothing. The bible says in Job 8: 12-14 “While it is still green and not cut down, it withers before any other plant. So are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of man without God is destroyed. What he trusts in is easy to break, like a SPIDER’S WEB.”
And that spider-web holds a big spider called the devil. He strategically makes his web of deception in many various shapes, designs, and sneaky forms and waits for us to fall into his trap and eat us. So “be sober. be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8.
If you are going to get caught in any web, get caught loving Jesus!
Here’s how we were caught loving Jesus this super Halloween…
It starts with pumpkins. My son was excited about pumpkins and carving until he realized we had to gut them out. Just like last year he wanted nothing to do with that part. But he did want his tiny pumpkin he got from the pumpkin patch to be carved. It’s the cutest little thing and had the cutest little seeds to take out. Looks like the Kool-aid dude. We attempted superhero pumpkins: batman pumpkin, superman pumpkin with a Jesus spin, and captain hook pumpkin (as requested by a little guy that is into pirates as well).
Decorations: I made all of my decoration with just a few dollars spent at Dollar Tree, my silhouette machine, and Joann Fabrics. I made a spider decoration at my office so all the college students and faculty can be somewhat exposed and a reminder for me based on my favorite Bible verse Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the patterns of this world.” For home, I made a rubber spider decoration with burlap and framed it, a spider web cut-out, a first-thing-that-you-see-when-you-open-our-door spider web with party streamers for a focal point for our trick-or-treaters (ended up twisting the pieces and adding stringy web stuff and plastic spider rings for a more 3D look), and a spider necklace made from plastic spider rings, hot glue, and a necklace chain. Lastly, our family superhero costumes. This whole Halloween was based off of a random trip to Walmart where my son saw Batman costume. I bought. Boom his costume done more than a month before Halloween. Of course, I wanted to make something special, so I made my husbands superman logo out of red and yellow felt that I hot glued lightly to his blue shirt (so we could take it off afterwards since he liked his shirt). For mine, I bought 3 different doilies for super cheap on sale! I lightly hand-sewed them on a shirt and hot glued some spiders to them. Doilies make the cutest spiderwebs ever. And now I officially have a spider-woman costume! There were so many bat and spider Halloween ideas on Pinterest that I just couldn’t do them all. But I hope you have time to pick out a few favorites.
Our town does trick or treating the day before Halloween and the day of Halloween. Since the day before fell on a Sunday I invited some family over for a little superhero Halloween party. We dressed up in our costumes, had bat and spider inspired food, had a spiderweb silly string fight, passed out candy, and did a little of our own trick-or-treating.
Superhero Halloween food included bats and spiders. Stuck some candy eyes on cookies to make them look like spiders. I was going to add some chocolate legs, but decided to take it easy, I’m only human during the days after-all 😉 I decided to do a taco bar for dinner. Easy and I could make a cute spiderweb out of sour cream on top of our guacamole. My hubby attempted a bat symbol fruit plate and powdered sugar bat brownies (salted caramel bat brownies at that). I cut out a few bats out of scrapbook paper and stuck them in the forks for added pizzazz, made a spiderweb with Elmer’s glue and glitter as a drink placemat and froze some plastic spider rings (ring part cut off) in ice cube trays for our lemonade drinks. That’s it for food. Simple is better sometimes. Especially when you are a superhero at night 😉
Party fun started with our spiderweb silly string fight. I bought these at dollar tree and Walmart combined. They ran out quickly, but nonetheless we felt like Spider-man shooting webs at each other. My three year old could not push his down when we started the fight and he got clobbered. He was devastated as pictured. I captioned that: “Spider-man beats Batman” and laughed for a long time. But we helped him out so he could shoot us back and he sure loved that. I was attempting to get a picture of him in his Spider-man glory when a bunch sprayed in my mouth and hair in little pieces. Needless to say we had good laughs.
Next we waited for it to get dark and we passed out candy. Batman sat on our porch patiently lurking for children and when he saw the trick-or-treaters turn on our street would shout “They’re coming!” like the poltergeist movie “They’re Here.” Then he’d jump up and hide behind our little wall by the door until they reached the steps and then pop out saying “surprise” or “boogedy boogedy boo!” Who knows where he got that idea from, silly Batman. The candy we passed out was CRUSH sodas, MAGIC fun dips, BAT peanut butter cups, and sNICKers…I tried to make them superhero themed candy…kinda. A bit of a stretch. But hey all of this was same price as a boring, pre-packaged bag of Halloween candy. Our kids left gleaming and came back the next night (shyly) to ask for more. Of course! Come back whenever young ones. I love to show joy and love especially on a supposedly dark day!
Lastly, after an hour or so of passing out candy, we turned off our lights and did some trick or treating of our own. He did so great that he didn’t even want our help anymore he said “I wanna go by myself.” Slow down on growing up, sweet one. After our collectings, we came back home, looked through our treats, and passed out…for even superheros get tired sometimes. 🙂
Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!
Check out my other Halloween Posts!
That Faith-filled Breath 