Does your country celebrate Halloween (or something like it)?

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Mine doesn't (outside of a few, tiny pockets that basically organize neighborhood kids to do trick-or-treating over a very small area).

The reasons are varied, but it's mostly a cultural thing.

Oh, we LOVE the relentless assault of scary movies, YouTube specials and TV episodes that emerges every October like clockwork and lets us binge on them scary, spooky pieces of entertainment, but that's about it.

What about you?

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Yes, although these days you barely see kids trick-or-treating around neighborhoods, they mostly go to events at shopping mall, or Halloween events at their school. But, the decorations and Halloween atmosphere is around.

Hell, when I was a kid, my catholic school was fine with Halloween events.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

We do celebrate Halloween on the 31st of October, then followed by All Saint’s Day on November 1 and lastly All Souls Day on November 2.

 

[RustySK]

We didn't use to - there used to be this regional christian holiday during the same time of year that people still used to celebrate when I was young, but that has for the most part slowly been phased out over the past 30 years or so.
Sadly that holiday had no spooky-scary element to it, btw. Kids did usually get either stickbread or sweets though, so there is that.

The country I live in has actually kind of slowly been colonized by the U.S. in that regard, I think nowadays more people around here celebrate Halloween than not.
Which is extra odd since at least politically the general sentiment toward the U.S. has actually soured significantly over those same 30 years. Cultural evolution is confusing.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

In my neck of the woods not only is it a holiday, but a friend's birthday

 

[X y b e r - S k u ll]

Technically we still do but we’ve never been as serious with it as America is. Occasionally you do still have little kids dressing up and going trick or treating, people decorating their houses or teens/young adults going to Halloween parties, but over the last decade or so it’s all been kinda falling out of favour. It’s mostly used as just a marketing thing so nowadays most people just use it as an excuse to watch horror movies etc.

 

[fake-kun]

I'd say there are actually more countries that don't celebrate Halloween than those that do.

 

[G.L.a.D.O.S.]

~OOC~
Absolutely, but not like it did when I was a kid. I haven't had a trick or treater since the last kid grew up here and moved off. I don't even bother with decorations anymore, it's pointless.
Most places kids go to be candy goblins are basically like trunk or treat now, and it is kind of falling out of favor anyway since parents don't want kids loading up on sugar from strangers, which I can't blame them for.

Mostly it's a bunch of teens and twenty somethings getting drunk in slutty costumes and partying all night, which I'm all for. Not the teens, mind you, but you can't really stop it. The last few Halloweens I have spent with a couple of friends *Gasp! yes, I know G.L.a.D.O.S. actually has friends* watching dumb horror movies and maybe partaking in a bit too much to drink ourselves

 

[nattybohman]

I'd say there are actually more countries that don't celebrate Halloween than those that do.

I'd say that's absolutely true.
However, I can almost guarantee the number of countries that do has grown greatly over the past couple of decades. Ireland and Japan for instance have started celebrating it more than they did when I started noticing years ago.

 

[qw90700]

We have nothing like Halloween, but instead in general what we have is when you do something bad or you are unlucky one of tons of monsters in our culture may attack you lol. However there is one thing that is not a national thing but there is a village here that is not Christian but they are descendants of people who lived with Christians back in the day so they are inspired by Halloween. They believe the day winter starts which for them the coldest night of winter an evil spirit comes so to scare of this evil spirit they became way more scary monster by using makeup and dresses and then they scare each other off lol.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Most places kids go to be candy goblins are basically like trunk or treat now, and it is kind of falling out of favor anyway since parents don't want kids loading up on sugar from strangers, which I can't blame them for.

Yeah, I'm afraid the so-called death of innocence has been the dagger to the heart of many of these social traditions -- I'd feel too worried about letting my kids interact with strangers throughout the night, even if I am nearby. Too many horror stories of the sort.

 

[G.L.a.D.O.S.]

Yeah, I'm afraid the so-called death of innocence has been the dagger to the heart of many of these social traditions -- I'd feel too worried about letting my kids interact with strangers throughout the night, even if I am nearby. Too many horror stories of the sort.

~OOC~
Agreed Waffles.
Even when I was a kid, it got to the point where you only took your kid to people you knew's houses for candy. People you knew weren't going to put poison in the candy. I know the story about razor blades in candy is a thing, but that's all they are stories, urban legends.

Yes, people have put things in candy, but it's super rare. It's more perpetuated by the media, which was and still is, and it got parents in an uproar about it, so it did its job. It scared people on Halloween.
Not saying people haven't done horrible things to kids' candy on Halloween, mind you.

 

[Grumpy_Old_Man]

Not massively, it coincides with a Christian holiday... Maybe a few kids early teens with sugar rushes.
There is also a common to various south American countries celebration/festival, with a somewhat similar theme the "Day of the dead" around the same time of the year.

 

[Isegrim]

We didn't always celebrate Halloween in my country. It was just an influence imported from america used as a marketing tool to sell certain Halloween themed products. And some small communites decided to do a very local kind of trick-or-treating in a closed neighborhood. Pretty soon, the malls got into it in a big way and made Halloween events where even poor children can wear costumes and go trick or treating at participating mall tenants/stores giving treats. We have a store in a mall and when this whole thing started out, my mom used to buy candies and gave it to these kids. Pretty soon, more kids came in with each year and the candies would be gone in an hour or less.

But generally speaking, our real "celebrations" before the whole Halloween started is All Saints Day (Nov 1) and All Souls Day (Nov 2). We would trek to the cementeries and pay our respects to our loved ones. Cementeries on All Saints Day and All Souls Day are full. As kids, when dusk came, we would tell horror stories about certain graves, I remember someone actually built a pyramid with a Sphinx as their actual masoleum not far from our grandparents' graves and we would speculate what horrors were inside so I guess it was kind of like Halloween even before we got Halloween.

The cementeries are like one big fiesta on All Saints day. I think the part I like best is, it's technically a family reunion day where we meet our more distant relations also paying their respects. And all the food stalls that set up shop in the cementery, including some kiosks from fast food franchises ensure there's a lot of good eating. It's not as grandiose as Mexico's Day of the Dead celebrations but it's what we've got.

 

[bjork]

It's always been a thing here, but I didn't really appreciate it when I was a kid. I knew candy was half-off the next day, I knew costume shopping was a hassle, and I knew I didn't want to go walk around after I'd already been to school all day and whatnot. Practical little dork.

 

[UnDubious]

As far as trick-or-treating, we used to. Seems like every kid would do it when I was that age. It seems pretty dead now. There are still people who decorate their houses, and I guess people who party probably still have Halloween parties. For me it's the month every year where I tell myself I'm going to play certain horror games and then I don't cause I'm always too tired. But maybe this year!

 

[Dany28]

It is not celebrated here in Germany and they say here that it is just pure money making nothing more. Unfortunately, the problem here is that many young people exaggerate a bit and do stupid things on this day. Last year I had a case where I had to make an emergency stop with a train because some teenagers were dancing down on the tracks. I am curious what awaits me this year It's really not a nice day this Halloween here!

 

[Tonberry]

Kind of yeah.
Kids going trick-or-treating have been common since about when I was a kid, and people decorate their homes with pumpkins and stuff. Most people have a positive attitude towards it which I like because I enjoy when people decorate their homes and the community organizes fun events for kids to on tours in the forest and whatever.

There’s also the regular Christian version of All Saint’s Day in which it’s common to visit a grave of a loved one and light a candle.
I’ve been kind of lucky to not need to celebrate that day yet I guess

 

[Mahan_Native]

no people here don't celebrate halloween or christmas

 

[Bakuma1997]

Here we don't have only Halloween, but also Dia De Muertos, basically Halloween a second time, but this one is more respectful with the titular Dead ones, here we put an altar for the departerd ones with lots of candles, a glass of water and booze, some salt and sugar and Marigold flowers while putting photos of deceased known people next to their favorite meals, it tends to look like this

We don't do Trick and Treat here, instead the candy asking is done in November 1 and here is called "Calaverita" (Little Skull) in honor to La Catrina, our version of the Grim Reaper, a kind skull woman