Halloween in Sweden

Halloween is a young tradition in Sweden. It wasn't around until maybe ten years ago, sometime in the early or mid 90's. It's sometimes said that it was imported by Swedish salesmen who wanted to make more money by selling Halloween stuff. It's not a big holiday in Sweden yet but it's growing for every year. Trick or Treaters are rare still but they do show up at times. Halloween parties are somewhat common among the young though. Personally I had never seen a jack'o'lantern in person until 1997, when I found a plastic one in a store and bought it (it was pretty expensive as well but I really wanted it). I also bought my first real pumpkin that year and have done so ever since (see my Jack'o'lantern page for my carvings, I'm still a rookie!). But these days you can find Halloween stuff such as decorations and costumes in many stores in both bigger and smaller towns, and they're alot cheaper than they were at first. And real pumpkins are sold at most grocery stores starting a couple weeks before Halloween. All people however don't celebrate Halloween in Sweden, it seems as mostly younger people do, many of the older people don't really like the tradition and some of them even believe it's evil and against the churches teachings, some even think it's about satanism when they see all horror masks.

An old Swedish tradition however is All Saints Day, which is a Christian holiday, devoted to remembering the dead. Families bring flowers and candles to the graves of loved ones to pay respect. Observance is on November 1, the day after Halloween. In Sweden the All Saints official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November. However some people get this confused with Halloween and think they are related, which they aren't since Halloween is a originally a pagan holiday and All Saints Day is not, they just happened to occur around the same time of the year. Personally I believe it's okay to celebrate them both, they don't really interfere with each other. Halloween is a way to have fun during the dark fall and All Saints Day is a nice way to pay respect to the dead.