Week 44; Halloween

During this week it's time to say goodbye to October and welcome November, which also means that it is time for Halloween. 

The concept of Halloween has been brought to Finland from the USA, and it has become quite common in the recent years that shops also in our country sell different kinds of scary costumes, jack-o'-lanterns and basically all types of Halloween knick-knacks in October. Not very long ago it was customary that around this time of year shops were filled with candles and different types of heathers to be taken to the graves of our departed loved ones, because that has been the Finnish way of spending our Pyhäinpäivä.

My son -turning nine next month- went to a birthday/ Halloween party of a friend last week. He was extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing, and dressing up in his scary costume was a huge deal for him. There were about a dozen other enthusiasts already at the party when we arrived, and I must say that the mother of the birthday boy had really made an effort! There were Halloween -decorations everywhere, and she had even (on top of everything else) baked and decorated a cake that looked like a cemetary! Later that evening I asked my son what the gravestones had tasted like, but he said that he hadn't tasted them; he'd been too busy with gummy worms and other icky stuff! The best things in the party according to him were of course friends and their horrid costumes, fake spiderwebbs and sticky fake slime!

I must admit that I've liked our Pyhäinpäivä and the idea of remembering the dead in a quiet and respectful way, and I've thought that Halloween doesn't suit our culture. Now that I've seen how much fun Halloween -parties can be like, I've started to think that maybe it's not such a bad idea after all: to have fun in a funny way in order to lift your spirits during the darkest autumn. So, who knows if I'll even arrange a Halloween party myself next year!