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Halloween in Poland Posted by on Oct 7, 2011 in Culture

As many of you know Halloween is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31. Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires, costume parties, visiting “haunted houses” and carving pumpkins. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century including Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom as well as of Australia and New Zealand.

Do people celebrate it in Poland? Well, not everyone, but it definitely has become more popular in recent years.

Some people in Poland like Halloween and have started celebrating it with their children. It is usually a dress-up party without the trick-or-treating part. For adults, bars and restaurants have themed parties starting as much as one week before Halloween. A lot of people are indifferent to the whole thing and some others are against the idea of Halloween in Poland. Maybe it it because of Halloween’s proximity to the holiday of All Saints Day (read https://blogs.transparent.com/polish/?s=halloween).

My opinion is that these two holidays can live side-by-side. OK, Halloween is one day before All Saints Day. So what? That doesn’t make Halloween any less fun nor does it make All Saints Day any less sincere.

What is your opinion on celebrating Halloween in Poland?

Do następnego razu… (Till next time…)

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About the Author: Kasia

My name is Kasia Scontsas. I grew near Lublin, Poland and moved to Warsaw to study International Business. I have passion for languages: any languages! Currently I live in New Hampshire. I enjoy skiing, kayaking, biking and paddle boarding. My husband speaks a little Polish, but our daughters are fluent in it! I wanted to make sure that they can communicate with their Polish relatives in our native language. Teaching them Polish since they were born was the best thing I could have given them! I have been writing about learning Polish language and culture for Transparent Language’s Polish Blog since 2010.

Comments:

  1. Andy Golebiowski:

    Ridiculous. I want to throw up when I see Poles taking on these types of holidays, and I’m born in the U.S.

  2. Tyler:

    @Andy Why?

  3. Bob @ HealthyMeansYou:

    Andy, don’t hate!!

    Halloween is just not a traditional holiday in Poland. Polish people are just really getting to know about it. Give them some time.

  4. SUE:

    OFFENCE ANDY ILL GET U

  5. Margaret Phillips:

    It’s not surprising that these two festivals are in such close proximity. Hallowe’en just means Hallowed [or Holy] Evening and is the day before All Saints Day, just as Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas. They are just different parts of the same festival. In the UK, Hallowe’en lost ground when the country became protestant and was largely replaced with Bonfire Night, also known as Guy Fawkes night on Nov 5th. Catholics in Ireland took Hallowe’en to the States and we got it back again from copying films, towards the end of the 20th century as fireworks and bonfires began to be discouraged on safety grounds. Just like in Poland, some people are against it as yet another example of Americanisation while others enjoy it as safer than having fireworks.

  6. ms:

    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Halloween-Polska/128543180628566

  7. Anonym:

    i was wondering if you get free from work and the classes at school/universities in Poland when its halloween?