HALAL-OWEEN
Muslim children like to play dress up too, so why not participate in Halloween festivities?
The first (and last) time I went trick-or-treating, I was 5 years old. The week leading up to Halloween, I watched my best friend Alana’s mother turn yards of pink tulle and glitter into a Glinda the Good Witch dress. There was a sparkly silver wand and she was even allowed to wear frosted pink lipstick.
My mother had no intention of letting me trick-or-treat. She thought begging candy from strangers was odd.
Worse — it seemed ill-mannered, and for my Hyderabadi mother, there is nothing worse than being rude. So she told me Muslims don’t celebrate Halloween, and left it at that.
But mom had a soft spot for my BFF’s mother, who had gifted her with a killer walnut brownie recipe. So on Halloween, when Alana showed up resplendent in her Glinda the Good Witch outfit (and frosty pink lipstick), I begged my mom to let me go.
There was just one problem. I didn’t have an outfit. The two moms cast about and settled on a classic solution.
For my first and only Halloween, I dressed up as a floral-bed-sheet ghost, with hastily cut-out eye holes. Underneath my ugly costume, I was grinning.
Flash forward several decades. My eldest son is 4. On Halloween, he goes to school dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.
He tells me about the costume parade afterward — a popular tradition where the younger grades show off their outfits to the older kids.
“How come I didn’t dress up?” he asked.
“Muslims don’t celebrate Halloween,” I tell him.
Then I pause. That answer is reflexive. But is it even really true?
“It’s not part of our family tradition,” I try again. My son looks a bit confused.
“We can buy some chocolate tomorrow if you want,” I say, a little desperately. “It all goes on sale Nov. 1 anyway.”
The following Halloween, the same thing happens. They have questions and I don’t have any great answers. Because here’s the thing: my kids love to dress up.
By the time he was 6 years old, my older son had not one, but three Batman costumes. He also had a doctor’s coat, a Viking helmet and various foam swords and shields. My mother sewed them both Harry Potter cloaks with iron-on Gryffindor badges when they went through their Hogwarts phase. My younger son has a Luke Skywalker costume, to match his older brother’s Darth Maul getup.
So is Halloween really such a big deal for us?
The Supreme Court of Canada says that a religious belief is one that is sincerely held. Many religious and secular traditions avoid Halloween for lots of reasons. But I didn’t know how I felt about it anymore.
I asked my husband what he thought about trick-or-treating.
“Why start now?” he argued. “They’ve stayed away all these years. Playing dress up and knocking on people’s doors are two different things.”
“Didn’t you go trick-or-treating until you were 12?” “Fourteen. That’s not the point.” I polled my friends. Some let their kids dress up for school, but skipped the evening candy collection. Some kept their kids home from school. Still others took their kids to events at the mosque dubbed “Halaloween.” The mosque version includes dinner, loot bags and games. Some mosques hold a movie night.
Last year, my kids came right out and asked if they could go trick-ortreating. I decided to go with my gut.
“OK. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.”
We walked around the neighbourhood after dinner. It was drizzling slightly and cold. The kids were dressed up, but you could barely tell under their jackets.
They rang the doorbells of brightly lit houses while I hung back, ready to tell them to run if a weirdo opened the door.
No weirdos, mostly just smiling grandparents. It was quiet, and a little bit dull.
They want to go again this year. My younger son has a new Storm Trooper costume and my older son wants to be Darth Vader. We might even check out the mosque Halaloween party afterward, to further develop our community participation (and candy collection).