All Saints' Day / Halloween

In Sweden, All Saints' Day (Allhelgonadagen) is a holiday (red day in the calendar) always falling on a Saturday - preceded by All Saints' Eve (Allhelgonaafton) on the Friday, and followed by All Souls' Day (Alla själars dag) on the Sunday.  

Traditionally, our All Saints' weekend is a more solemn affair than the American Halloween, and mostly to do with visiting and decorating the graves of our ancestors and loved ones. In later decades we have imported some of the Halloween traditions as well, though (pumpkins, ghosts, costumes, trick-or-treating etc) - which makes the whole "celebration" a lot more confused nowadays. (At least for us old enough to be aware of the change...)

Opinions also still differ about which day to best fit in the Halloween stuff. Some people argue that it should be Friday (All Saints' Eve); others that it should be 31st October, no matter what day of the week - which this year would coincide All Saints' Day. 

So far this weekend, I haven't seen any Halloween-dressed kids around, though. But then I I don't think I can recall ever having seen any typical "trick-or-treating" practiced in my immediate neighbourhood. (Quite a few of my neighbours are also of Muslim background, so I suppose even less likely to be picking up that tradition.) 

Yesterday (Friday/All Saints' Eve) I woke up to a cloudy and foggy morning. But neither rainy nor windy - which seemed to make a good setting for an "early" (as in before lunch) walk to the nearby cemetery, to light a candle on my great-grandparents' grave there. Back in my childhood we always went after dark - but personally I never really liked that. And these days I prefer even more to be able to see where I put my feet...

Judging by the amount of cars driving into the cemetery already around noon, I wasn't the only one who preferred going in the daytime.

 

 

 

At home, I've never done a whole lot of decorating  for Halloween. I have had some orange (fake) gladioli in the vase on the chest in my living room all autumn, though - and for this weekend (and probably through November) also added my Owls. The candles behind them are the dark green LED ones (with timer) that I recently bought. I feel safer with that kind now, and only sometimes light real candles when sitting still for a while.

 

And of course Barbie and Skipper wanted to dress up a bit. Skipper complained about not having anything orange in her wardrobe; but she got to borrow a skirt from Barbie. They also asked for pumpkins - but I said they had to make to with some brown horse chestnuts, and a separate LED candle...

"Happy Halloween" to all who celebrate!