It’s pretty apparent that Jinger Duggar and Jeremy Vuolo hide their worst thoughts from the public.
Even so, they make no secret of their strict religious beliefs. Jinger’s family, however, was much stricter.
In the Duggar household, many things are forbidden — from dressing normally to freedom of thought.
Meanwhile, Jinger and Jeremy went out to celebrate Halloween, for real, flauting Duggar rules in fun, full costumes.
Jinger, Jeremy, Felicity, and Evangeline Jo enjoyed themselves this Halloween.
Before we get into how profoundly unusual that is for the Duggar clan, let’s talk about the photo.
Why? Because it’s impossibly adorable.
Jeremy is dressed as Winnie the Pooh, a beloved children’s character.
Jinger is dressed as Tigger, the bouncing tiger from the same story.
Felicity is dressed as Piglet, with Evangeline dressed as little jar of “hunny.”
“Hunny,” of course, is the Winnie the Pooh spelling of honey.
To clarify, their children’s faces were at least partially visible in real life while in costume.
Instead, they used simple digital “stickers” to hide their kids’ faces while out and about.
What caught the attention of fans and followers is that this is unusual for the Duggars.
And by “unusual” we mean “essentially forbidden” for many of Jinger’s siblings.
This is simply not done in the Duggar household.
A full decade ago, in a now-deleted blog post for TLC, Michelle Duggar explained her family’s habits.
“While we do go to pumpkin patches and corn mazes, we don’t do the Halloween thing,” she wrote at the time.
“From the beginning of our marriage, we just kind of felt like we didn’t want to celebrate that holiday,” Michelle stated.
“But we enjoy the harvest celebration,” Michelle said, before sharing how their church and cult were involved.
“Our church fellowship has had different celebrations through the years that we’ve been a part of,” she revealed.
Michelle said that these were “ones where the children can play games and receive candy and toys and do all kinds of fun things, like a cake walk.”
Michelle explained that they spend time in their church to avoid “things that go on during Halloween.”
It’s not just that they dislike pranks or scares. They also don’t look kindly upon trick-or-treating.
The closest that they have ever come to trick-or-treating was campaigning door-to-door for Jim Bob’s political aspirations.
A huge part of the Duggar family’s brand is putting a smiling, sanitized face on their extreme lifestyle and fringe beliefs.
Given their ideology, it seems likely that Michelle and Jim Bob view Halloween as not merely distasteful, but somehow sinister.
In their belief systems, festivities outside of their specific religious traditions are viewed with suspicion or even hostility.
Maybe Michelle and Jim Bob are leery of Halloween’s origins.
At its core, Halloween stems from a harvest festival called Samhain, which is celebrated even now by practitioners of various pre-Christian religious traditions.
More extreme Christian views see Halloween, not as just a holiday by a rival religion, but as a celebration of their religion’s devil.
But part of Jim Bob and Michelle’s core dishonesty is that they try to make themselves as palatable as possible in public.
So Michelle offers watered-down, seemingly inoffensive presentations of their family’s beliefs … but the subtext is apparent.
Halloween is other to them and likely seen as intrinsically evil.
For Jinger and Jeremy to participate is a big step away from Jinger’s upbringing.
But these two are known for taking superficial steps to seem more normal and mainstream while still harboring bigoted beliefs.
From unhinged conspiracy theories to anti-abortion rallies to disparaging all other faiths, they’re not that different. They just dress better.
Meanwhile, some fans are concerned about Jinger’s well-being, noting that she seems thin and tired.
It could be anything from disordered eating to the natural side effects of having two young children.
Whatever we think of Jinger and Jeremy’s beliefs, we hope that they are well and that their kids had a lovely Halloween.