My brother wanted to go trick-or-treating for the first time when I was sixteen years old and he was only six. I had avoided such events in the past since my parents always went a little over the top with every holiday except for Halloween. They always thought it was a dark holiday with witches, rituals, werewolves – everything the “church” says to be against. The more our parents were against Halloween, the more my brother and I loved it. We would often spend time at our friend’s house making costumes and cross our fingers that our parents wouldn’t come to school to check us out early. Seeing us in our costumes would be one of the most dire situations I can imagine. And now that my brother was actually in school and in a completely different school than me, it could be a potential problem.
I listened to every conversation I could in hopes I could know what their plans were for Halloween. Would they go to church? Would we be forced to tag along? Our costumes were almost finished so I didn’t want all our work to be for nothing. But if they found out about our Halloween plans, we would almost definitely be grounded for the rest of the year. Their Halloween condemnations increased along with my anxiety over being caught. The consequences of Halloween costumes would almost be as bad as if they found I have never believed in God.
Standing Room Only 