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Halloween is a bold festival in the UK and America, where children and adults dress up, go Trick-or-Treating, carve pumpkins, and have a party. But this version of Halloween isn't the standard worldwide, with other traditions and celebrations happening instead. To help you get a better understanding of different Halloween celebrations, we've put together this quick guide.
Probably the most famous alternative celebration to Halloween, Dia de Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is commonly celebrated in Mexico. It's usually celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November and aims to honour and remember the dead. Despite being often linked to Halloween, the two events are vastly different in tone: whilst Halloween focuses on the dark and horror, the Day of the Dead prioritises joy, colour, and life.
The celebration sees people creating altars in homes and cemeteries filled with offerings to help welcome spirits back to the living. Offerings can include food and water, photographs, candles, and more. The altar is decorated with flowers, especially marigolds. The most common symbols used during the celebration are the calaca and the calavera - skeletons and skulls. People will wear skull masks, paint their faces, and eat sugar sweets shaped like skulls.
This is a pagan Gaelic festival to welcome the harvest and celebrate the darker half of the year. Celebrated between October 31st and November 1st, many celebrants of Samhain believe this time of year is when the boundaries between the living world and Otherworld are easily crossed, allowing spirits and fairies into our world. To please these passing spirits, it's not uncommon for traditional offerings of food and drink to be left outside for them.
Often observed in areas of the Philippines, Pangangaluluwa, which means 'souling', is a folk tradition where children will cover themselves in a white sheet or blanket and visit houses on the night of October 31st to sing songs about All Saints' Day in exchange for gifts and prayers. The children represent the lost souls in Purgatory, and the gifts and blessings are thought to help move the spirits to Heaven or the world of the dead. On November 1st, people will go to the cemetery to spend time with their deceased friends and family, often staying there for the whole day and into November 2nd.
The Italian version of All Saint's Day sees people going home to spend time with their families, paying their respects to the dead, and celebrating the Saints. November 2nd is the celebration of All Souls' Day - the time between these two dates is when the world of the living reunites with the dead. Every region has different customs and traditions to celebrate: in Sicily, they believe the dead come to give gifts to well-behaved children. In Rome, people would eat near the grave of a loved one to keep them company, and in Tuscany, children wear necklaces of roast chestnuts and apples.
Like Christmas and Easter, Polish people celebrate Zaduski by travelling to visit family. People visit the graves of loved ones, tidy them, and decorate them with flowers and lit candles. Similar to other traditions worldwide, this commemorative celebration sees the belief of spirits coming to earth. To welcome spirits, some people may open windows and doors to allow the ghosts in and leave a bench near the fire with water and a comb so the spirits might clean themselves and brush their hair.
For this holiday, bread is baked and given to the poor, to children, and is left on graves, which is thought to bring prosperity.
For more Halloween inspiration, you can read the articles below or browse our scarily good Halloween collection.
