Halloween in Spain, and the quiet holiday the next day

Costume parties on the 31st, the cemetery on the 1st, and the chestnuts and sweets that come with both

Spain has two days at the turn of October and November, and they could hardly be more different. The 31st is Halloween, newer and noisier. The 1st is Todos los Santos, All Saints' Day, old, quiet and for the family.

The 31st: a newer party

Halloween has spread in Spain over the last few decades, mostly as a night out for teenagers and people in their twenties. Bars and clubs hold fiestas de Halloween, sometimes with entrada gratuita con disfraz, free entry in costume. The question all week is ¿De qué te vas a disfrazar?, what are you going to dress up as? The answer uses de: me disfrazo de vampiro.

Children trick or treat too, more in newer housing estates than in old town centres, and they use a translation of the English: ¿Truco o trato?

The 1st: Todos los Santos

Todos los Santos is a public holiday across Spain, un festivo, and most shops close. Families go to the cemetery to clean the graves of their relatives and leave flowers, often chrysanthemums, so cemeteries are at their busiest and keep longer hours. You might hear vamos al cementerio a llevar flores, we are going to the cemetery to take flowers. The 2nd, el Día de los Difuntos, is for remembering the dead and is not normally a public holiday.

When a holiday falls next to a weekend, people take un puente, a bridge, to make a long weekend. In 2026 the 1st falls on a Sunday, so nine regions, including Madrid and Andalusia, move the day off to Monday the 2nd. Check your region's calendar.

What you eat

Bakeries fill up with huesos de santo, saints' bones, little rolls of marzipan filled with sweet egg yolk, and buñuelos de viento, light fried dough balls often filled with cream. On the street, stalls sell castañas asadas, roast chestnuts, hot in paper cones.

In Catalonia the night is la castañada (la castanyada in Catalan): roast chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets, small marzipan cakes covered in pine nuts. Galicia has el magosto, an autumn chestnut feast, and Samaín, a revived festival that claims Celtic roots and carved turnips and pumpkins.

A play for the season

Don Juan Tenorio, a play from 1844 by José Zorrilla, has scenes in a graveyard and is traditionally staged or broadcast around 1 November. Many Spaniards can quote a line or two of it.

Not the same as Mexico

Mexico's Day of the Dead, on 1 and 2 November, is something else again: a family welcoming its dead home for a few days, with an altar, marigolds and their favourite food. It has its own guide, and so does Halloween in South America.