Suß oder Sauer

I have been asked by many friends if Halloween is celebrated here in Germany. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is not by everyone and not all Germans love it. I have been told that five or ten years ago there wouldn’t have been any Halloween.  

An awesome part of celebrating Halloween in Munich is that it is in the Bavarian part of Germany which is mostly Catholic. In fact some Catholic Holy Days of Obligation are actually holidays.  One of these is All Saints Day which falls on November 1st. This makes celebrating Halloween in Germany particularly terrific because the kids don’t have to go to school the next day.  Really, what could be better than people giving you candy and then getting to stay up late eating it!

Rachel, Stefanie, AJ & Dominic

We had about 30 trick or treaters at our door and 90% of them were German little kids who did not speak English. They knew to try our door though, the four jack-o-lanterns (the only ones I saw) on our gate were a big clue. As a side note, jack-o-lantern pumpkins were just piled up in the corner of a field. We picked our four and left our money in an honor box posted next to the pumpkins.

Some kids know the english phrase of “trick or treat” but many just said Suß oder Sauer” which literally translates to Sweet or Sour. While I tried to get them to say “trick or treat” it was quite hard with the little kids. Most kids don’t start English until the fifth grade so unbelievable as it may seem, they know less English than I know German.  

Within our international school community different areas of trick or treating were organized. AJ volunteered with friends at one where they had a haunted garage, a ghost walk and trick or treating. 

Stefanie and her friends trick or treated where AJ was. A key difference to the US, the kids rode the train on their own to the neighborhood and returned when they were finished.  Kids are much more independent here and in general it is quite a bit safer.  Stefanie continued her trend of non-scary costumes as Minnie Mouse while surrounded by ghouls and zombies and devils. 

Rachel had a sleepover party with friends, where they played spooky games and dressed up and trick or treated through the community. The neighborhood where she was has many international families who embraced trick or treating. She had a blast and unlike her sister completely loves the creepy and scary aspect of Halloween. She was a princess zombie.

Dominic completely abandoned Halloween activities and met friends in Munich for the evening.  They had their own kind of no school the next day fun!

And since the kids had their own plans, what did Steve and I do?  We gave out candy and then met friends for drinks.  A fun evening for all of us.