Halloween in Madrid

Pumpkin window display. It makes me smile every time I walk by on my way home from work.

Halloween has only been celebrated in Spain for the last 20 years or so. It is adopted from the US and there are many similarities, but some differences.

People generally don’t decorate their houses as much, and not everyone buys candy for trick-or-treaters. Young children go trick-or-treating, but the 11-13-year-olds I teach are definitely over that phase and don’t want to go trick-or-treating. Teenagers and adults sometimes go to Halloween parties.

Almost no one dresses up at work or school. Today I only saw one student dressed up in the whole school.

All the students, however, are very excited and intrigued by the holiday. They loved my powerpoint about the history of the holiday, its customs, and costume examples. They loved drawing pumpkins and bats and things in Art class.

I would love to hear about how Halloween is/isn’t celebrated in other countries around the world. 🙂