The Swiss calendar is packed with bizarre and often alarming traditions. Is there room for Halloween? Absolutely, say delighted children and pumpkin-sellers. Some neighbours and cultural purists are less sure. “Süsses oder Saures!” “Des bonbons ou un sort!” Thirty years ago, most Swiss wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on if they had opened their front door to find a couple of eight-year-olds, high on sugar and dressed as witches or skeletons, shrieking “trick or treat!”. Since the mid-1990s, Halloween has embedded itself, albeit weakly, in Swiss cultural life. “Like Oktoberfests, which now also intoxicate town and country in Switzerland,” wrote the St. Galler Tagblatt, referring to German beer festivals. “Cultural pessimists see domestic customs threatened,” it continued. "And evangelical Christians in particular reject Halloween because it’s about occultism and Satanism – regardless of the fact that the event has long since ceased to have any serious religious traits and is ...
