Halloween v. Día de Los Santos

On 1 November, Spain celebrates Día de Todos los Santos, or as we know it in English, All Saints’ Day. This is the day after Halloween (which, as you already know, I’m sure, comes from All Hallows’ Eve). Here it is one of several holy days that is celebrated throughout the country as a national holiday. That means no work.

But they don’t have Halloween… yet.

My job here is part English teacher, part cultural ambassador. So naturally I got to teach the kids something about Halloween. Despite my grand plans to teach them the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, all we really ended up doing was passing out some coloring pages and making a witch from a Coke can. Still, it was fun. The kids really enjoyed it, and I got to tell them a little bit about how everyone gets dressed up and either goes trick-or-treating or to a party. Also, that there’s lots of candy involved. Elementary school kids love that part.

Even though they don’t really have Halloween here yet, it’s starting to make inroads into Spanish culture. Mostly, it seems to be the toy stores that are pushing the holiday. The windows are full of costumes and decorations, and one of the bigger ones in Martos even came by our school to pass out fliers. In the bigger towns you can also find Halloween parties at the clubs and bars. They’ll give you a discount or free drink if you dress up – just like in the US. So some of the kids – actually most of the kids – had at least heard about Halloween. We even saw a few of them dressed up and out on Halloween itself, but it’s really not a big thing. Virginia, one of the English teachers I work with, was telling me that she used to live in a different pueblo, a really small one, and one Halloween some trick-or-treaters showed up at her door. Naturally, she didn’t have any candy, so she made them a jamón bocadillo. Apparently that made them pretty happy.

I’m not entirely certain how I feel about Halloween taking over the rest of the world. I mean, it’s a great holiday, and I love it, but they have their own customs. It would be a shame for them to die out. Even worse, since they’re getting it second-hand, only the lowest part of it seems to filter in. For example, everyone seems to be surprised to learn that you can dress up as whatever you want and not just a vampire, witch, devil, or something evil. And sure, it’s about the candy, but you get to do the jack o’lantern carving with your family too – they seem to be missing that one.

Trust me. They are definitely missing out on the jack o’lanterns. I carved two out of the only pumpkins I could find. They were small, tough, milky orange things a couple inches thick. It was the most difficult pumpkin carving I’ve ever done, and there was really limited space. I wish I could show you a picture, but they also rotted pretty quickly. I carved them on a Saturday and left the one for our apartment outside and lit every night for a week. When it was actually Halloween, the thing was full of fruit flies and the fangs had curled up inside of it. It was pretty sad.

So if there was no Halloween to speak of, how did we celebrate? Movies. Lots of movies. We went to the library and checked out five movies, four of which were horror films, and watched them. So the five of us just kind of hung out, ate candy, and saw some of the classics: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, etc. Good times.

Oh! Did I mention I made a pie? Two of them, actually. I made pumpkin pie from scratch. Literally. I had to bake a pumpkin and scoop out the insides and everything. I even had to crush the cloves myself… for some reason they don’t seem to come pre-ground. They were delicious, too. I’m pretty proud of myself.

Monday was a day off for the actual celebration of Día de los Santos, so we decided to take a trip to the cemetery and see what we could see. For Spaniards it’s a big family day. They get together and have a lot of food (so far nothing unusual), and then they go to the cemetery, clean up the graves, and leave flowers or trinkets, light food, and leave food that their ancestors liked to eat. They also have some traditional dishes that they make… I’m not sure if they leave those at the cemetery or just eat them. All I know is that they were tasty.

Not wanting to intrude on anyone’s visit to family gravesites, we waited until siesta before heading out. Cemeteries are always interesting to me. The one in Martos seems a lot like those in New Orleans… That is to say it’s kind of a necropolis, with streets and tall buildings.

It was obvious that people had been by to clean up the graves. Flowers and candles were everywhere. Some were more elaborate than others, but pretty much every grave had something on it.

It’s a cool tradition, and one that demonstrates how family-oriented the Spanish actually are. We did run into a few people during our trip – a whole cross-section of age groups. It was definitely not limited to just the old folks. Which only makes it even better.

So there you have it, as promised. What I did for Halloween. Next up, I’ve got to prepare for an expat Thanksgiving.