With Halloween only about a week away, I’ve been thinking about holidays for expats. Which holidays are observed and how they are celebrated varies a lot around the world.

In the English-speaking countries alone there are great variations. (Canada’s Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October, while the US version is in November.) But as soon as you look at non-English-speaking lands, including Germany, Austria and Switzerland, there are even more differences. Even within Germany itself there are many regional differences as well, partly depending on whether a region is Protestant or Catholic. (For a country where few people attend church, Germany has an amazing amount of religious holidays.)

It just so happens that Halloween also falls on what is another holiday (Feiertag) in the Protestant (Lutheran) parts of Germany: Reformationstag (Reformation Day, which in Switzerland is the first Sunday in November). According to a recent US survey, most Americans do not know that it was the German Martin Luther (1483-1546) who “reformed” the Catholic Church and created Protestantism. Thanks to Luther, the 31st day of October is an official holiday in the Bundesländer that used to be part of East Germany (but not in Berlin). It’s a bit ironic, considering that East Germany discouraged religion. But on the other hand, it was also home to the Lutherstadt (Luther city) of Wittenberg.

I suspect that few Germans could explain what Reformationstag is all about, but surely they would outnumber the Americans who could do the same. READ MORE »