Halloween in the south of Spain

This year the school that I work at celebrated Halloween in what I would consider a big way for the south of Spain (where this holiday is growing in popularity but is still not on the scale of the USA). We decorated both our classrooms and the hallways about a week before our celebration, which fell on last Tuesday instead of Friday. As English teachers we were tasked with preparing our students with the necessary vocabulary to see a Halloween play that was presented by a troupe of English speaking actors. It was based on Frankenstein and ended up being pretty funny.





The kids were also allowed to dress up for the day and we handed out candy. Here in Spain there is a somewhat misguided belief that Halloween costumes need to be scary, like witches, demons, vampires and zombies. I tried to explain to my students that they could come dressed as anything they wanted like princesses or football players but they still all showed up in dark costumes. I dressed up like a mime since I already had a beret, black pants and black and white striped shirt. I only had to buy the face paint and voila! 



Someone recently told me that Halloween is the second most lucrative holiday (after Christmas) for companies in Spain. Now, I don't know if that is true but I can say that this year I saw much more Halloween presence in our stores than I remember in the past. I was able to buy an actual pumpkin and there was a ton of themed candy as well. Most of my students said that they planned on going out trick-or-treating on Friday evening. In our apartment complex we didn't get any kids at the door but in the future it is something that I will organize. Happy Halloween!

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