Halloween in France is comparatively new: earlier than the Nineties, it was unknown right here. Largely seen as an American import, reactions to it are combined however it’s gaining traction amongst kids. Whereas it’s largely celebrated in bigger cities, small villages (like mine) are getting in on the act.
Halloween in France didn’t exist for me till I moved to the tiny lakeside village of Yvoire, over the border from Switzerland.
In summer season, Yvoire is a vacationer magnet, with 10,000 guests a day. In winter, a couple of scattered residents share the area inside its medieval partitions.
That’s when my brother, whose home I used to be sharing, got here up with the thought of a treasure hunt for Halloween.
Yvoire is close to each Annecy and Geneva (see simply how shut on this street journey), each of that are residence to many foreigners. In different phrases, it’s an enormous expat catchment space full of individuals already aware of Halloween.
And a treasure hunt all of a sudden materialized.
NOTE: Pages on this web site could comprise affiliate hyperlinks, which usher in a small fee for free of charge to you.
As Halloween rolled round, my brother spent days hiding presents and treats all through the village. With just a few residents, it wasn’t arduous to search out hiding locations, and the medieval streets and buildings lent themselves properly to this sort of magical, secretive celebration.
The primary yr went so properly it turned a practice, and by the third yr, a neighborhood tv station confirmed as much as movie these unusual, largely overseas adults and their kids, carrying robes and make-up and chasing pumpkins and ghosts via cobblestoned streets.
The novelty quickly wore off and right now, Halloween is sneaking into the world of French custom, though not everyone seems to be blissful about that.
Celebrating Halloween in France
By late October, the crisp air and fallen leaves sign it’s “that” time of yr. Fall in France. Summer season is really over.
Halloween falls on October thirty first, however there’s a better-known vacation the day after, on 1 November. That is All Saints’ Day, or La Toussaint, the day we go to cemeteries and place chrysanthemums on the graves of our family members.
The pagan traditions and the catholic church appear to coexist, yet one more solemn, the opposite extra spooky.
The French, a bit prickly about overseas imports, typically see Halloween as an odd occasion from America, one designed to half you out of your cash by making you purchase luggage of low-cost candies and unusual plastic masks made in China.
It’s extra of a industrial vacation, with quite a lot of black and orange Halloween decorations in store home windows: it’s an opportunity to promote individuals issues they don’t want and switch the occasion into yet one more shopping for alternative.
A barely extra unique show, nonetheless in my grocery store – let’s have a look at what we are able to do with colours! ©OffbeatFranceWith regards to enterprise, a few of my buddies evaluate Halloween right here to Valentine’s Day, though the day of affection will get by with extra affection than Halloween. Valentine’s Day IS about love, in any case…
However again to our ghosts and ghouls.
French Halloween’s city vibe
Not surprisingly, French cities have taken to Halloween extra simply than the countryside, though there are exceptions, as you’ll see in a second.
Outdoors my home, prepared for trick-or-treaters ©OffbeatFranceCities can simply arrange themed or particular occasions revolving round haunted and ghostly matters, particularly in areas the place there are vacationers aware of the custom.
Take Disneyland Paris – it could be excessive, however theme parks take their Halloween significantly. Right here and there, you would possibly discover a Halloween occasion, and let’s face it, it’s rather a lot simpler to trick-or-treat in an condo constructing than on darkish and lonely rural roads.
Not all kids go trick-or-treating, and lots of houses don’t inventory something to offer to them once they do present up. Nonetheless, the occasion is more and more acknowledged.
My rural Halloween
I do have fun Halloween, for no cause aside from giving kids a possibility to do and see one thing completely different.
We’ve been adorning the driveway for Halloween for greater than 20 years, and kids preserve coming.
We’re arduous to overlook, with witches and pumpkins and ghosts lit up by candles (nowadays they’re batteries, so the rain doesn’t matter), so if there are trick-or-treaters, they’re certain to cease right here on their sweet hunt.
And phrase will get round.
“They’ve candies! They’ve goodies!”
The streets round me are darkish – I reside within the countryside in a tiny village with no single store – so there’s all the time an grownup or older sibling accompanying them.
There’s little ceremony concerned: on Halloween evening, the grownup rings the bell or knocks on the door, we open (carrying our personal little Halloween costumes, after all), and the youngsters shove their uniform plastic pumpkin baskets at us.
We’re ready, after all, with 30 or so little treat-filled sachets, not less than 20 of which can go. The rest might be a present to my neighbor, whose nieces and nephews don’t trick-or-treat however are blissful to benefit from the leftovers.
What will we give?
Simply what you would possibly anticipate: chewy candies (individually wrapped), mini chocolate bars, different wrapped sweets, a 2 Euro coin… the same old, I believe.
I additionally suspect kids from neighboring villages present up right here, realizing they’ll hit “pay filth”, and that their very own villages will not be fairly so Halloween-sensitive.
As for the remainder of my village, there have to be somebody handing out candies as a result of by the point they get to my home (the village’s first or final, relying in your route) their baskets are sometimes half full.
Solely in France
Whereas Halloween could slowly be making inroads in France, it’s not likely a part of French tradition, and Halloween celebrations usually are not fairly the identical right here as in the US.
For instance, the youngsters’s costumes are comparatively somber: ghosts, ghouls, skeletons – issues associated to demise. Few carnival costumes right here.
Additionally, they’re largely store-bought, though you’ll often spot some originality, corresponding to a sheet with two holes minimize out for the eyes, or a little bit of clown make-up.
Just a few areas in France do have fun Halloween with a twist, just like the Lorraine, the place root greens are carved as a substitute of pumpkins.
In truth, there’s even a Grimacing Beet Competition, held on the finish of October every year (however I believe they imply rutabagas, not sugar beets).
If there’s a nook of France the place a stronger Halloween custom would make sense, you’d be trying on the northern half of the nation.
It’s believed that the celebration of Halloween developed from historical traditions, with the tip of the harvest marked by the traditional Celtic pageant of Samhain, a rapprochement of types between life and demise.
Given the Celtic background of components of the area, we are able to perceive a sure predisposition to Halloween. However on the entire, France prefers to have fun the church’s November 1st as a substitute.
All in all, regardless of a peak of curiosity amongst French individuals on the flip of the millennium, in recent times Halloween hasn’t grown massively right here. It doesn’t assist that it’s smack in the course of the Toussaint mid-season faculty break, which suggests some kids could also be away on trip with their households. However, since 1 November is an official vacation, nobody has to rise up early so nothing stands in the way in which of taking kids out for a Halloween night of trick-or-treating.
We could have tailored to Halloween, however I don’t imagine we’ve fairly adopted it but. Perhaps subsequent time.
Maybe it’ll flip right into a generational factor with individuals of all ages participating: kids and youngsters will don costumes and head out to trick-or-treat, whereas their older family will wait till the subsequent morning, La Toussaint, and take their flowers to the cemetery.
Earlier than you go…
Halloween could also be a modest occasion right here, nevertheless it may develop, particularly in main cities. French people, in any case, don’t draw back from ghost tales and beliefs within the supernatural.
And if you happen to’re in Paris round Halloween and searching for one thing spooky to do, you might go to the Catacombs (that are on this checklist of 9 haunted Paris locations), or any one among these darkish tourism websites.
Like kids in every single place, French kids are eager on spooky decorations, little lanterns, and a little bit of hocus pocus. And possibly some pumpkin carving…
In case you’re interested in La Toussaint and different French holidays, be sure you try my story on French holidays and traditions.
And meantime, Blissful Halloween!
Did you take pleasure in this text? I might love if you happen to shared it!
