[SV] Why do we celebrate Halloween? And, don’t miss a few tips!

Soon it will be Halloween and All Saints’ Day.
2 days that are connected but not connected.
What are we celebrating?

Halloween in Sweden

Halloween is a fairly recent celebration in Sweden.
All Hallows’ Eve is a Christian holiday celebrated in honour of martyrs and saints. It has been an uninterrupted part of the Swedish church year since the Middle Ages.
Nowadays, it may not be the saints we think of first and foremost, but it has become a day when many of us may visit the cemetery to light a candle and think of our loved ones who are no longer with us.
However, the phenomenon of Halloween celebrations is quite new to us.

It started on a small scale, mainly in some Stockholm pubs, in the late 1980s. But it is estimated that from 1992 onwards there was a steady increase in celebrations in Sweden.
and now Halloween is considered an established tradition.
The trade cheered on and one cannot ignore the fact that it has contributed to the establishment of the weekend. But they alone hardly decide what should be adopted by the Swedes.
When autumn darkness falls, we all feel the need for some light and festivities. After all, Christmas is still a while away.
And hand on heart, it’s probably not just children who like to decorate and perhaps dress up!

The origins of Halloween

But back to why Halloween is celebrated;
It is a tradition that (mainly) came to the US with migrants from Ireland.
Originally it was a Celtic celebration, Samhain, a harvest festival celebrating the end of summer and the beginning of winter.
It was believed that at this time the line between the living and the spiritual world was at its thinnest.
During the celebration, people dressed up, lit fires and appeased the gods with animal and crop sacrifices.
Later, believed to be around the 18th century, candle lanterns began to be carved out of turnips or turnips and only in the 19th century did they become known as Jack-o-lanterns.
The origin of the lanterns was that they represented the blacksmith Jack, who was too evil to enter heaven but tricked the devil so that he couldn’t go to hell either.
Instead, he had to wander the earth and to find his way, he poured glowing coal into the turnips he had eaten.
When Halloween came to the United States in the mid-19th century, candle lanterns were replaced by pumpkins. From the 1920s and 30s onwards, the Halloween holiday grew and spread from its original Irish roots and nowadays Halloween is the second most commercial holiday in the US after Christmas.

Halloween now

It hasn’t really gone that far in Sweden, but it is certainly advertised and the shops are filled with more or less scary products.
This has become mainly a children’s holiday when you get to dress up and eat lots of candy and maybe do a trick or two….
Most schools have a day where you can come in costume and maybe Halloween crafts are on the agenda for the day.

Then, of course, there are many adults who don’t want to miss out on the fun and go to the occasional Halloween party in costume,
or maybe, like us, have a day at work out of the ordinary 🙂

When it comes to Halloween costumes, there are plenty to buy but the most fun is probably if you can build your own. Corrugated cardboard is a great material for various projects!

Here are silhouettes made of corrugated cardboard that can scare the hell out of most people:

And below are some imaginative examples of what corrugated cardboard costumes can look like:

Don’t forget the pets…

and for those who have plenty of time, you can always build yourself an AT walker from Star Wars!

So there you go, cardboard boxes and corrugated cardboard, cardboard tubes and pallet liners, all can be used for lots of other fun things after they’ve done their job as packaging.

Good luck and happy Halloween!