The Americans today are celebrating Halloween, a bizarre festival involving costumes, egged & soaped windows, trick-or-treating, a profusion of B-horror films and, as with any holiday, lots of junk food.
In Poland and Hungary the holiday is still just the religious observance for the dead it was originally meant to be. At dusk, everyone will grab small white funeral candles and head for the cemetery where either your family's deceased are buried or to national cemeteries for soldiers, etc., and put the candles on the graves. It's actually quite nice to see the cemeteries all lit up with candles after dark. Although there are some minor superstitions about leaving any graves without a candle - even if you don't know them - it's really just a sign of respect to do so. Very solemn, and the families just stick around for a few moments to talk about their memories and stories of the deceased.
This is clearly a holiday/observance that is universal to the (formerly) Christian world and equally as clearly comes from pre-Christian European roots. The official church observance is two nights long, "All Souls' Day" and "All Saints' Day".
I'm just curious how everyone else "celebrates" the day, or whether some cultures skip it altogether? Another side of this is that American commercialism has been spreading the "Halloween" concept all over to the point I've seen American-style Halloween decorations in Krakow. I've heard they're available in France and Britain too.
:vampire:
In Poland and Hungary the holiday is still just the religious observance for the dead it was originally meant to be. At dusk, everyone will grab small white funeral candles and head for the cemetery where either your family's deceased are buried or to national cemeteries for soldiers, etc., and put the candles on the graves. It's actually quite nice to see the cemeteries all lit up with candles after dark. Although there are some minor superstitions about leaving any graves without a candle - even if you don't know them - it's really just a sign of respect to do so. Very solemn, and the families just stick around for a few moments to talk about their memories and stories of the deceased.
This is clearly a holiday/observance that is universal to the (formerly) Christian world and equally as clearly comes from pre-Christian European roots. The official church observance is two nights long, "All Souls' Day" and "All Saints' Day".
I'm just curious how everyone else "celebrates" the day, or whether some cultures skip it altogether? Another side of this is that American commercialism has been spreading the "Halloween" concept all over to the point I've seen American-style Halloween decorations in Krakow. I've heard they're available in France and Britain too.
:vampire:
