All Saints 2007

My kid goes to Catholic school. Every year his school forgoes the annual Halloween party in favor of a celebration of All Saints Day. So this year, there was no rushing around to find the perfect Halloween costume for school. No worries about elaborate multi-piece outfits or how to explain (again) that carrying guns, swords, or other assorted weapons, does not sit well with his father and me. I didn’t have to stay up late worrying about how to turn a pair of fleece pajamas into the ideal dinosaur or where I was going to find the pattern for a cowboy’s vest. There wasn’t a thought given to which shoes would look OK with that Indian get-up.

Nope.


My challenge this year was how to turn my son into the world’s smallest Franciscan monk.

The choice to portray St. Francis was long thought out. He began by wanting to be St. Michael (his middle name), but balked at the idea of dressing as an archangel. St. George seemed to be a great option (“He slays dragons!!”), but not so much after we nixed the carrying of a dragon-slaying sword. He settled on St. Francis because, “He loved the animals.”

He doesn’t have me fooled. Being St. Francis means that he gets to choose his very favorite stuffed animal to take with him to Mass tomorrow as part of his costume. Which begs the question…

Did St. Francis love the dinosaurs too?