HALLOWEEN CAME TO BELGIUM

I have published my reportage about Turkey. If you want to know more about this country it's here

The Blogging Chicks

This morning looking at sleeping PC Pookie , I told her"I have nothing from you concerning Halloween" and as she didn't even open an eye I just put some Halloween stuff around her. But when I wanted to put a little witch head on her, she woke up and protested. Therefore PC Pookie has no Halloween costume. Kim her "sister" is dressed for Halloween the whole year, as she is a black cat.

I have my head full of Halloween stories, tales customs etc. It's the first time I realized what an important event it is especially for Americans. The other years I just found the decoration nice and also a nice custom so I bought some things myself without thinking more. Now by reading blogs I became curious and wanted to know the origin and a little more. And that's what I found : Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, and Britain as the Pagan Celtic harvest festival called Samhain. Irish, Scots, and other immigrants brought versions of the traditions to North America in the 19th century.

The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Pope Gregory III moved the old Christian feast of All Saints Day to November 1 to give Halloween a Christian interpretation. (The rest you can read yourself in Wikipedia here if you wish I have always known this day as being the All Saint's day and in Germany they used to put candles on the window sills to remember the death. As a child I have always been amazed by the lights on the sills.

mums

In Belgium I learned another custom. Suddenly once a year people are remembering that they have deads in the family. So everybody runs on the 1st Nov to the cimetary armed with huge bundles of mums. You will find mums in almost every shop and on every market. Usually they only buy this for the cimetary. But there are also exceptions of course, me included, I like these big flower bundles and bought some for the patio and the house entrance, and of course on our animal grave under the wheeping willow tree. Nobody knew about Halloween anymore until Hallowe'en celebrations in England became again popular when in the 1980s, American families living in London reintroduced Hallowe'en traditions such as pumpkin faces (and the US trick-or-treat) uncommon in Britain and Ireland.

And from there it probably came to us, as Brussels is the captal of Europe and many English and American families are living here. So yesterday I saw a mixture of all customs and that sometimes became funny. I saw people in the Supermarket buying 5 or 6 flowerpots with mums to be put on the graves and at the same time pumpkins and Halloween decoration. In the only funeral store we have here in Waterloo, big mum bundles sat together with artistically decorated wreaths or flower arrangements. The only strange thing was that these were decorated with little pumpkins and even little Halloween figurines. I suppose the deads have nothing against celebrating Halloween. Until a few weeks I wouldn't even have noticed that. It is normal that you take the nicest things to the grave of a beloved person and as nobody knows what Halloween means everybody only find the colors nice and adapted to autumn. There is no bad intention involved by putting pagan and christian customs together. So you can see side by side some people holding to old christian traditions only going from cimetary to cimetary with their flowers, others are combining both, they also visit the graves and decorate with mums but have pumpkin decoration in the garden and house.

Or you even see disguised children with their parents and mums of course, in the cimetary. And people who go to mass (in Belgium 90 % of the population are catholics) would celebrate Halloween afterwards. I personally like to take over nice customs from other countries and apparently, other people do it as well. And so did the little neighbour's boy and decorated the front garden.

If you want to see the pictures of the Halloween party in Waterloo,

they are here