Archive for November, 2009

Had a great Halloween. Our daughter Amara got to participate in her first dressed up like a “love bug”. Sandra Ljung reflects upon traditions and sends a longer post from Sweden on how celebrations morph at the Intersection of cultures:

It is interesting to observe how traditions travel around the globe and intersect with different cultures, and thus transform, and evolve. The influence constituted by an immigrating or imported tradition can also spark innovation and creativity within the new country or culture resulting in evolving modes of celebration. As such, the Swedish tradition of Lucia, for example, has evolved into something uniquely Swedish with celebrations which bear no resemblance to how the Sicilian Saint Lucia is celebrated in Italy. The same is true with Halloween.

Toward the end of the 90s the American tradition of Halloween suddenly appeared in Sweden. People were going to Halloween parties like never before, and the cheap orange and black paper and plastic items sold in the US around Halloween all of a sudden appeared in Swedish supermarkets.  People’s reactions ranged from excited about the new fun tradition to appalled at the introduction of a tradition on purely commercial grounds, because the truth is that Halloween actually was introduced as a commercial project by the Swedish business community. Businesses felt that it was a tradition that could “work” in Sweden and that there was lots of money to be made from it, and hence it was pushed through in almost over-night fashion in the year of 1997.

Although the initial Halloween frenzy does seem to have waned some, and although you would still be hard pressed to find anyone who knows why it is celebrated, i.e. the history behind the tradition, it still seems as if Halloween has come to Sweden to stay. An interesting observation is that as Halloween has gained ground while another Swedish tradition, very similar to Halloween, has slowly but surely lost ground.

Most Swedish holidays have pagan influences, and so does Easter. Long time ago, people believed that on the Thursday before Easter “the witches” went off to an imaginary destination called “Blåkulla” to dance, with the devil. Somewhere along the way, the tradition of dressing up as a witch developed and became an innocent activity for the kids on Easter Eve.  Hence, on Easter Eve, Swedish girls and boys would dress up as witches and witch-men, and walk around from door to door in their neighbourhoods with baskets asking for candy. In return you would often receive a hand-made Easter greeting card. Although the Easter witches can still be seen, they have become a rare sight compared to twenty years ago. It is quite striking how similar the practice of this Easter tradition is to Halloween.

The history of Halloween has lots of pagan influences as well, such as its connection to an ancient Celtic harvest festival, and the idea of keeping evil spirits at bay, but it was also eventually integrated into the celebrations around the religious holiday All Saint’s Eve/Day, which is also how its’ name came about. All Hallows’ Eve (old English meaning All Saints’ Eve) became “Halloween”. Finally, it developed into what we know today, characterized by the wearing of costumes, jack-o-lanterns, and candy. Originating from Ireland and integrated into America through the Irish immigrants, Halloween is also a tradition that was not American from the very beginning, although largely perceived as such now. So why does the American Halloween seem more “genuine” than the Swedish?  Isn’t it just the natural course of globalization for traditions to cross borders?

Well, I guess one could argue that perhaps people are more accepting of traditions that have evolved over time and become embedded in the culture in a natural way through the social fabric of the population, rather than as a commercial venture. I am inclined to believe that those traditions will be more long-lived. But, on the other hand, at some point a genuine emotional connection will be developed in a “natural” way toward a tradition, even in the case where the tradition in question has commercial origins, as children will not know of a time when it didn’t exist. At that point Halloween will indeed have become Swedish.

An incident from my own child-hood comes to mind as I write this. I could never quite understand why my grandpa, a very pious man, seemed a bit reserved toward the whole idea of the celebration of Lucia – a holiday perceived as very Swedish by people in my generation and which celebrates the Italian saint Lucia, but more importantly: the arrival of light in darkness and the arrival of Christmas.  My grandfather must have liked the fact that the Lucia celebration included Christian Christmas carols, but he always seemed more hesitant toward the songs dedicated to Lucia herself. I realized why when he once said, after I had recited the Lucia song, on piano: “We didn’t have Lucia when I was a child……..”