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I do the usual family stuff, but I don't really hang with them that much. Halloween wise I'm mainly there for the pumpkin carving contest (my family is VERY competitive) and other holidays I usually am off by myself or with my favorite cousin Stephanie.

Halloween has always been very important to me. This will be the first year in AGES where I'm not really doing anything - no parties, no costume, no jack o'lantern at home (I helped a friend with carving theirs last night, I have small hands so I traditionally do all the gutting and inside scraping). In the past couple years our larger group have moved away, or have too-small children for parties/trick-or-treat, or in my case simply don't have the money and time to celebrate massively. Usually there's a huge party everyone comes together for, all bringing big dishes of food and bags of candy to hand out to trick-or-treaters.

I may still go out and throw something together last minute, but one of my professors has goofed and not made the weekly tests available. College comes absolutely first because doing well NOW will provide me a solid career, which equals the ability to have massive Halloween celebrations in years to come.

Day of the Dead is coming up too. This was a holiday I didn't learn of until I was an adult and it's helped me to accept death and celebrate life. I'm comforted by the idea of being able to clean and decorate the graves of my loved ones and tell their stories after they're gone from this world. I've been so tied up with school I've not even planned to bake breads and cakes, but it's not too late for that!

Halloween is pretty fun, but where I live it always turns out to be really bad as far as weather. This was my first year not trick-or-treating. I am fourteen and I am really self-conscious, plus I felt too old to do the whole "ask for candy from random people" thing.

I like Christmas, I just don't celebrate it like most people. My mom believes in a god and stuff like Heaven or the Underworld, but I don't. Plus, my mom isn't the nicest towards me. I like the idea and gift-giving, I just am not sure if I like the holiday due to some not-so-fond memories of it in my household.

As I don't really believe in a god, I don't really like Easter. My mom cooks a turkey every year, but I am not sure how the next Easter is going to turn out because I am now a vegetarian.

That's a really good idea. My mom usually spends Thanksgiving and Easter with other people and going outside of the apartment for the gathering because she got divorced from my dad. I can easily work that out if I bring a dish to the gathering. Thank you for suggesting that. I will try that when Mom is starting to think of things to cook for the holidays. biggrin

I like holidays and I don't stress over them. "Halloween" isn't official holiday here, in Finland there's this "all saints day", Christian version or something, err? It's just about visiting graves, mainly, I don't pay attention to it, except most of the stores are closed. Buuut me and my friends had Halloween party anyway.

Well most of the holidays have ancient pagan roots so I think it's great to keep them alive, adds a bit of cultural and historical spice to my year. But to be honest, traditions and history are really great, but I'm happiest about having small vacation above anything else. Also I love food. So specially I like Christmas / Joulu (it's Joulu here, it comes from the same word as Yule I think but is translated as Christmas anyway), I usually spend it together with my mom and sister, and I'm trying to visit my father, other family and friends too. And eat a lot.

Midsummer is another one of my favourites, it used to be a big family gathering when I was a kid, I would see my cousins, but now we're all older. I still go to see bonfire during midsummer night tho, it's a very important tradition to me, for no apparent reason I guess.

Yeah it does move around a bit but they're pretty close! It's always on saturday and around 31 of October or in the beginning of November. Hmm not sure about the history, since it's about saints and dead people I presumed it to be of Catholic origin, but Lutherans also celebrate it here. (Lutheran is the main branch of Christianity in Finland.)

Yeah it was fun, first I had some university friends come over and we made muffins and stuff with my sis and decorated them with white chocolate skulls. We watched some movies, got our costumes on and headed to another friend's place, he had just moved there so it was a welcoming party too. Aaand then we continued to Hard Rock Cafe's Halloween party but we just sat around chatting because everything was expensive and we're just poor students. xd
Then we went back to my place with three people and grabbed all the treats and headed to another place because they had awesome TV and netflix, continued eating, chatting, laughing and watching movies 'till 4 or 5 AM, can't remember clearly. There's no trick-or-treat tradition here, I had a small pumpkin pail with me and some dude commented it being "so American style" or something, I bet he was just jealous because my pumpkin was awesome. ninja

That sounds like a great evening too! (-:

http://fi.forvo.com/word/joulu/
^This is how you pronounce it, you got close!
It's basically the same, since people don't differ Christmas and Yule or other pagan traditions that much, they're mixed together. You know, like Christmas tree is really common here too. But 24th of Christmas is when the presents are opened, in the evening. And Santa Claus is called "Joulupukki" which actually means "Yule Goat". It used to be a man wearing a scary goat mask but that was a LONG AGO, never met a real Joulupukki/Nuuttipukki when I was a child, Santa visited our house tho. Also in Sweden and Finland you eat ham on Christmas, and rice porridge. I guess the food is what mostly differs haha. And I'm not sure if people go to sauna on Christmas in other countries.

Whoa, that's too bad...! I guess it depends a lot on what kind of job you have too, but that doesn't sound very nice...

Good luck with job hunting! emotion_yatta
Ohh I remember hearing similar stories, I thought that's the way it's spend anyway, but didn't know it's Celtic origin! Except here you get rid of the "evil" spirits by going to sauna, though sauna at night will be where the spirits gathered to have their own turn for bathing and there are many stories of what happened to people who went there during ancestors'/ghosts sauna turn and how they got attacked or scared by the spirits.

I saw the picture of your facepaint, it was really cool! If I have time maybe I'll post some pics too!

I think best part of Joulu is that it can be both Christian and non-Christian holiday. I think most of the Finns would say that Joulu is celebrated because the birth of Christ but pretty much all of the Finns know that Joulu traditions and celebrating date way before Christianity was introduced here. And this is why I don't have a problem with "religious" (well, mainly Christian) holidays, since here they're really mixed with different traditions anyway. Pecan pie sounds like something I'd like to try! AND YEAH, the fruitcake problem! I have this one aunt who always makes it, but my family doesn't run into her fruitcakes every year, luckily!
Can you tell me more about Hanukkah, I've heard a bit about it but mainly I just know it's a Jewish holiday, so my knowledge is very limited... sweatdrop