On Halloween: Sorry Kids, Lights ON.

Posted on October 31, 2008
Filed Under Family, Little Sabreen | 1 Comment

When I was 9 years old I was “Macho Man” Randy Savage for Halloween.
If you don’t know who that is, stop reading this entry and NEVER return to my site.
Okay, don’t leave just yet. Let me first explain.

“Macho Man” was was one of the great wrestlers in the WWF in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a two-time WWF Champion, an Intercontinental Champion and the winner of the 1987 King of the Ring tournament. Savage reached the pinnacle of his career at WrestleMania IV in 1988 (I was five) after defeating Butch Reed, Greg Valentime, and One Man Gang on the same day in the finals of a 14 man tournament for the WWF Championship. Not only did he knock out those big men but ON THE SAME DAY he pinned “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase! Do you people know what that means?!?
Now granted, he had a little help from the Hulkster but the Macho Man, with his husky voice and colorful spandex outfits, was the one of many steroid-pumping, speedo-wearing, chest-thumping heros I had as a child.

For halloween, my parents bought me a Macho Man costume; I was thrilled although I had kind of hoped I was going to be the “Ultimate Warrior” that year. Nonetheless, around 6 p.m., as all my little dork friends were putting on their angel wings and practicing turning their younger siblings into flowers with their fairy wands, I was snapping on my neon-colored striped unitard with a man’s chest sketched in on the front. I had a plastic mask and mastered Savage’s catch phrase, “Ohh Yeahh.” (Ever seen an old Slim Jim commercial?)
Not many people in my neighborhood new who I was, or that I was a girl, but that didn’t matter to me. Even as I started to sweat behind that cheap plastic mask, I knew I was a champion among commoners.

The next year, something devastating happened. It was Fall and my sister Uzma and I were in Sunday School. Every teacher who saw a student handed them a green flyer and it was our duty to deliver it to our parents. If I had the presence of mind then I would have read it myself and thrown it away rather than blindly trusting a religion teacher and stuffing it in my backpack.
And so we got home, gave the fliers to our parents, ate dinner and went to bed. The next night we were called down for a “family meeting.”
My dad starts with his usual intro: “So we’re here for our family meeting. As you can see the whole family is together. Me, your mom, and both of you two girls.”
There are only four of us but thanks, dad for the clarification. We could all have been REALLY confused.
“Now, yesterday the administration at Sunday School gave out these flyers. Do you remember bringing them home?”
I glanced up at my dad waving the paper. I remember thinking ‘why are we here’ when all of a sudden I saw the words, “Halloween”, “pagan” and then the worst part – “don’t let your kids…”
My dad turned the paper back toward himself so he could read it aloud.
No, No! Wait! I thought. I was screaming inside! What does that paper say? Quick, send Uzma my telepathic thoughts: leap out of your seat, grab the paper and RUN! Start lying! Say you wrote up the fliers as a bad joke but you’d never do it again.

According to the powers that be at Sunday School, Halloween originated as a Pagan holiday and since Islam was not a religion that celebrated the devil or his creepy little followers, our parents made the executive decision (without our consent) that our trick-or-treating days were over. My dad, with his fatherly gavel, sealed our fate and an appeal was unlikely.

I was pretty bitter about continuing my weekly education at Sunday School after that. I looked at everyone differently. Who could I trust? Why did these people want to ruin the one day I could stay out with my friends, collect candy without having done something good and then beat Uzma with my five-pound pillow sack when I got home?
This sucked Big Time. October came and went and needless to say Uz and I didn’t go candy hunting that year.

A few weeks later we were on a weekly family outing when my dad stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy a lottery ticket. (Dad, this really is an integral part of my story) And I didn’t think it was a big deal. He bought a few tickets a month to see if we could hit the jackpot. It wasn’t routine but it also wasn’t the first time I had seen my dad take a stab at his luck. He got back in the car, took a coin from the console and scratched at each box with the precision of a surgeon.
He won $18.
We got ice cream later that day.

A few weeks later, in a place that rarely brought me joy, something wonderful happened. We were at Sunday School when I heard the words that I remember to this very day.
Standing in front of the class our teacher announced that playing the lottery was like gambling; both were against the tenents of Islam. “Some of your parents play the scratch-and-win games from the lottery,” she said. “ You have to encourage them not to do that because that’s just like gambling, which is not allowed in Islam.”

Yes! Forget the Mega Million, THIS was the REAL JACKPOT!
I watched every second the clock moved that day. I couldn’t wait to be picked up so I could break the news to my parents. I almost wanted it to sting about as much as they had hurt me with Halloween. I sprinted to the car and before we could all exchange our “salaams” I blurted out, “Dad, you can’t play the lottery because it’s against our religion so since you play the lottery we should be able to go trick-or-treating since if one is against our religion and you can do it then we should be able to do something that’s against our religion too because it’s not about the devil it’s just a day when we can get candy and Sandy’s parents let her go!”

Okay, slow down. Breathe. I think you made your point. Good job. You presented your case now let’s see what he says.
My dad looked at me through the rear-view mirror and then turned around.
“You’re right,” he said.
I’m right? What? Way to go. Go me, oh yeah, go me!
“Wrong is wrong. And if that’s what you learned in Sunday School then from today on, I will never buy a lottery ticket again.”
I think my mouth hung open for the duration of the ride home. I couldn’t believe this. No Halloween? No occasional lottery tickets? What was next? No hanging upside down on the monkey bars?
Life sure is tough when you’re 10.

When Uzma and I stopped going trick-or-treating, our family still handed candy out to the neighborhood children. It was nice to see their little faces light up when we dropped a handful of assorted mini-chcolates in their plastic pumpkins. As time went on we started to feel that maybe participating in a tradition that we didn’t partake in was one in the same and so for a few years we went out on Halloween to avoid the children. One year we gave our candy to the neighbor and asked them to give it out, another year we simply turned out our lights. But we were the only Muslim family in the neighborhood and my mom decided that rather than making this so hard and alienating ourselves in a neighborhood we grew up in, we were going to make clear our reasons for not participating in this national tradition. Thankfully, people understood. In fact, one of our Christian neighbors said they didn’t let their kids go trick-or-treating either and instead the family went out for pizza, ice cream and other junk food every Halloween.

I don’t know if I really believe in my heart that Halloween is wrong but I understand the principle behind why many Muslim parents (and parents of other faiths) don’t want their kids to participate in this tradition. This is the first Halloween that The Boss and I will spend together and we’re expecting lots of trick-or-treaters. We’ll leave our light on but instead of handing out candy we’ve decided to tape a note to a chair and leave it outside.

“In accordance with our religious beliefs we do not celebrate Halloween but we hope you have a safe night. Stay with your parents and make sure to have them check your candy when you get home.”

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