Apparently Halloween has its roots in Samhain, which was a Gaelic harvest
festival originally practiced mostly in Ireland and Scotland. It's strongly
associated with the celtic culture and its paganistic religious practices.

  Finland has never been a celtic cultural area, not before nor after
Christianity, and there are very little to no celtic historical customs here.
Finland has its own pre-Christian rich mythologic and folkloric history and
customs. Of course modern Finnish culture is mostly filled with Christian
customs, none of which are celtic in origin (AFAIK).

  Ten years ago Halloween was completely inexistent in Finland. We knew
about Halloween only from movies and TV series. It has never been a part
of Finnish culture, and it has always been a holiday of distant lands.

  Something like five years ago somebody, I don't know who exactly, seemingly
wanted to change this and forcibly introduce Halloween to Finland. Suddenly
all kinds of Halloween parafernalia started appearing on shops in October.
I was like "WTF? Are they kidding?"

  Since then every year such parafernalia appears on shops in October. And
apparently at least *some* people are buying it (and not only in the literal
sense of the word). What grinds my gears about this is that this is such a
blatant attempt at cashing in on a foreign custom, for no other reason
whatsoever, and some people are buying it. As if Finland didn't have its
own culture and its own holidays and festivals already.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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