I normally detest Halloween. Not for any high-falootin', pietist, "That's the Devil's holiday!" reason or anything though. I just can't stand the greedy little brats coming to my door demanding candy.
I'm not talking about cute little Suzy the fairy princess or Billy the cowboy. I'm talking about the punks who are old enough to get a job or at least earn an allowance or babysit and go buy their own darn candy, or demand that mommy and daddy do it for them instead of ringing my doorbell as though I should just give them candy for standing there. When my brother and I were kids, we were not allowed to trick-or-treat after age 12. While I hated it at the time, I really began to get annoyed at the bigger and bigger kids who showed up at the door when it was my turn to hand out the candy.
With a child of my own, I avoided this celebration for two years, and then Isaac got old enough to notice - especially with a pre-Halloween costume parade at his preschool. So a couple of weeks ago I had to explain about Halloween to him, 3 yr old style. I told him that it was a day to dress up and pretend to be someone else, like an animal or a cartoon person or a hero. He thought that was a pretty cool idea. I asked him what he thought he wanted to dress up like, thinking it'd be Diego or a policeman (they just had one visit his school).
What was I thinking? MY little man did his mommy proud and told me he wanted to be a PASTOR. And there was NO talking him out of it, no amount of other suggestions would deter him. (although, for a day he thought he might want to be a kitty-pastor, until I told him he couldn't trick or treat on all fours.) He told me that pastors wear black shirts with a white "neck", black pants, black shoes and a cross necklace. So that's what we did.
I give you (for the first time), "Pastor" Isaac.
