What Do You Tell Your Kids About Halloween? by Sean Fitzpatrick

By Sean Fitzpatrick, Crisis Magazine, Oct. 29, 2022

Sean Fitzpatrick is a senior contributor to Crisis and serves on the faculty of Gregory the Great Academy, a Catholic boarding school for boys in Pennsylvania.

There is a house down the street from us that becomes an object of annual interest to my children as the days grow short and the nights cold. When we go for evening walks, they pause before it with wide eyes. Skeletons carrying coffins march across the lawn. A spectral bride’s veil stirs in the breeze. Grinning zombies lurk in the bushes, prisoners gnash their teeth in crow cages, and monstrous spiders crawl up the porch rails. Tombstones, jack-o-lanterns, and skulls complete the macabre yet playful neighborhood spectacle that my kids behold in wonder every October. …