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Halloween and the Castanyada

halloween

By Maeva Cifuentes

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I don’t know what is, but something about spooky things, death, witches, ghouls, and pumpkins really does it for me. My friends say it’s because I’m American, so I thought it would be interesting to compare how the holiday is in America with how it is in Catalonia. Where I’m from, Halloween is an important holiday. We have parties the entire month and, of course, wear an original costume to each one. We carve our favorite characters, pictures or symbols into big pumpkins and then use the rest of it to make soup, bread, cookies, you name it – I’ll make it. Every house is decorated and children go trick-or-treating in their costumes for candy.

Here, in Barcelona, we celebrate the Castanyada, a festival occurring in Catalonia and Galicia, which also has roots in being a ritual festival of the dead. The word ‘Castanyada’ comes from ‘castanya,’ Catalan for chestnut, which are roasted and eaten with sweet wine, sweet potatos and panellets, small round desserts made from marzipan, almonds and pine nuts.

This year, I’m having a combination party at home: ghoulish decorations, pumpkin soup and costumes, as well as roasted chestnuts and panellets with sweet wine!

Can you comment with any other interesting Halloween-style traditions?

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