Sunday, November 2, 2008

No Halloween in Czech Republic




Pictures from Halloween parties have been around blogs lately. Here we don't have it but we have All Saint's Day on the 1st of November. The main activity is to go to cemetery and light up candles on graves of your relatives. Our deceased are far away so we went to a cemetery in the neighborhood, which is also the biggest in Prague and has many old and abandoned graves. It looks spooky at places. But on this special day it was packed with people and it felt very comfortable to walk around, the graveyards lit in the night. Dominik liked it especially, it was his first experience of this kind.

4 comments:

raining sheep said...

I remember doing that when I was little. I also remember other customs in some of the villages on All St. Day.

Bohemian girl said...

Really?? What were they like? In my family we never did anything else then the cemetery....

Jill said...

lovely, soulful pictures :) i love seeing how people celebrate in other countries. we (meaning my family) never celebrate all saints day here, only halloween. our family, living and not is spread out too far to have any custom like this.

Merruli said...

Here in Finland the traditional way to celebrate All Saints is similar to yours. I personally can't stand the evasion of Halloween into our culture. It has no roots here, only merchandise value, but more and more people are choosing the halloween over the All Saints.