charl wrote:Also Swedish. I think very few people care about the holiday these days. Some college aged people use it as an excuse to drink, but to be fair they do that with everything so...
Anyway, the origins of Halloween in the anglophone context is actually slightly more complex than that. All Hallow's Eve is the origin of the name, of course, but the whole dressing up thing and the associations with the spooky and whatnot supposedly come from ancient Celtic traditions that the Catholic church back in the day absorbed into their own holiday (like they did with Christmas and the ancient midwinter feast and a whole bunch of other holidays).
The point of All Saint's Day from a purely Catholic perspective is to have day where all the saints that do not already have a day of their own (every day of the year has a saint associated with it) can be venerated properly. The paying respect to the dead thing is a later addition, which actually in Scandinavia is a fairly recent tradition with its roots in the reformation (Lutherans don't venerate saints, so they made it into "All Souls' Day" instead).
And now you know.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, the Catholic church also has an All Saint's Day just to make it even more confusing.
Can't speak for you and your surroundings, but in mine it's still very much cared about. Not the drinking and dressing up mind.