Saints, hallows, whatever
Today is All Saints' Day in the Swedish calendar (Alla helgons dag). It's a public holiday, which means that everything runs to Sunday schedules (opening hours, timetables etc.)
But... tomorrow is also All Saints' Day -- but it's not spelled the same in Swedish: Allhelgonadagen. It is also (all according to my calendar), the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
...What?
Well, the answer is (apparently), that All Saints' Day in the church year (Allhelgonadagen) is always on the 1st of November, and has been since the 8th or 9th century. That just happens to be on a Sunday this year. It used to be a holiday here, before the Reformation, but was later abolished. It's still marked in the church calendar, though.
All Saints' Day as a public holiday, however, was instituted in 1953 as Alla helgons dag, and made to be a moving holiday, falling always on a Saturday between the 31st of October and the 6th of November, just like how the Swedish Midsummer's Day as a holiday always falls on the Saturday between the 20th and the 26th of June, even though the Summer Solstice is always on the 21st of June (and the supposed church holiday is St. John the Baptist's Day on the 24th of June*). Easter is, of course, another example. Anyway, the public holiday of All Saint's Day was instituted because people felt that there were too few holidays in the autumn compared to the spring, but they put it on a Saturday so it wouldn't disrupt the working week too much. So, once again we have a public holiday that is supposed to be tied to a church holiday for the sake of appearances, though the reason is actually pretty mundane. But in an attempt to tie it more closely to the church calendar, the succeding Sunday was called "The Sunday after All Saints' Day", even if it, like this year, falls on the same day as the traditional church All Saint's Day. These days (as opposed to when I was a kid) the whole week leading up to All Saints' Day is a school holiday, and is usually just called "the autumn holiday".
Importing the Halloween celebrations from the English-speaking world, which begun in the 1990s, has only added to this confusion. Not only because our traditional way of marking All Saints' Eve or Day is to light candles on the graves of dead relatives, and not really much else -- it's a quiet holiday, not laden with party traditions like New Year's Eve or Midsummer's Eve. When I was a kid, fancy dress was worn for Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, when we kids dressed up as witches and went door-to-door wishing everyone happy Easter and begging for treats, in return for little Easter cards that we had painted ourselves. Halloween as a dressing-up holiday for kids has begun to replace Easter, partly because at Halloween the boys can join in without having to dress up as girls, as opposed to Easter, when it was all about witches and nothing else (the mythos being, of course, that only women were witches), but also because everything American is seen as so much cooler than anything from our domestic traditions. Halloween falls on the 31st of October -- the eve of All Saints' Day (or All Hallows' Day), but since our public holiday is always on a Saturday, they don't always correspond.
Halloween is for me largely a commercial gimmick -- something that isn't really rooted in our cultural tradition, but the retail businessess push it really hard since they see an opportunity to make lots of money selling American Halloween decorations and costumes (they are most likely made in China or somewhere, but I say American because the witches don't even look like they do in our tradition; ours don't have big black pointy hats, for instance) -- and a children's thing. Maybe teenagers and young adults today also celebrate it, because any excuse for a dressing up party is a good excuse, but in my age group it still feels rather alien.
...All of which has really been a rather long-winded way of saying: WHY DON'T I GET INVITED TO ANY COOL HALLOWEEN PARTIES?
*or was, up until 2003, when the church finally gave in and allowed Midsummer's Day to be a church holiday under that name, for the reason that the actual populace never gave a passing thought to Johnny Whatsisname, but rather celebrated the summer and other things, as they had done since time immemorial.
But... tomorrow is also All Saints' Day -- but it's not spelled the same in Swedish: Allhelgonadagen. It is also (all according to my calendar), the Sunday after All Saints' Day.
...What?
Well, the answer is (apparently), that All Saints' Day in the church year (Allhelgonadagen) is always on the 1st of November, and has been since the 8th or 9th century. That just happens to be on a Sunday this year. It used to be a holiday here, before the Reformation, but was later abolished. It's still marked in the church calendar, though.
All Saints' Day as a public holiday, however, was instituted in 1953 as Alla helgons dag, and made to be a moving holiday, falling always on a Saturday between the 31st of October and the 6th of November, just like how the Swedish Midsummer's Day as a holiday always falls on the Saturday between the 20th and the 26th of June, even though the Summer Solstice is always on the 21st of June (and the supposed church holiday is St. John the Baptist's Day on the 24th of June*). Easter is, of course, another example. Anyway, the public holiday of All Saint's Day was instituted because people felt that there were too few holidays in the autumn compared to the spring, but they put it on a Saturday so it wouldn't disrupt the working week too much. So, once again we have a public holiday that is supposed to be tied to a church holiday for the sake of appearances, though the reason is actually pretty mundane. But in an attempt to tie it more closely to the church calendar, the succeding Sunday was called "The Sunday after All Saints' Day", even if it, like this year, falls on the same day as the traditional church All Saint's Day. These days (as opposed to when I was a kid) the whole week leading up to All Saints' Day is a school holiday, and is usually just called "the autumn holiday".
Importing the Halloween celebrations from the English-speaking world, which begun in the 1990s, has only added to this confusion. Not only because our traditional way of marking All Saints' Eve or Day is to light candles on the graves of dead relatives, and not really much else -- it's a quiet holiday, not laden with party traditions like New Year's Eve or Midsummer's Eve. When I was a kid, fancy dress was worn for Maundy Thursday, the Thursday before Easter, when we kids dressed up as witches and went door-to-door wishing everyone happy Easter and begging for treats, in return for little Easter cards that we had painted ourselves. Halloween as a dressing-up holiday for kids has begun to replace Easter, partly because at Halloween the boys can join in without having to dress up as girls, as opposed to Easter, when it was all about witches and nothing else (the mythos being, of course, that only women were witches), but also because everything American is seen as so much cooler than anything from our domestic traditions. Halloween falls on the 31st of October -- the eve of All Saints' Day (or All Hallows' Day), but since our public holiday is always on a Saturday, they don't always correspond.
Halloween is for me largely a commercial gimmick -- something that isn't really rooted in our cultural tradition, but the retail businessess push it really hard since they see an opportunity to make lots of money selling American Halloween decorations and costumes (they are most likely made in China or somewhere, but I say American because the witches don't even look like they do in our tradition; ours don't have big black pointy hats, for instance) -- and a children's thing. Maybe teenagers and young adults today also celebrate it, because any excuse for a dressing up party is a good excuse, but in my age group it still feels rather alien.
...All of which has really been a rather long-winded way of saying: WHY DON'T I GET INVITED TO ANY COOL HALLOWEEN PARTIES?
*or was, up until 2003, when the church finally gave in and allowed Midsummer's Day to be a church holiday under that name, for the reason that the actual populace never gave a passing thought to Johnny Whatsisname, but rather celebrated the summer and other things, as they had done since time immemorial.