Grikk eða gott

Trick or treat

The Icelandic word for Halloween is “hrekkjavaka”, which literally translates to the “night watch in which you play tricks on somebody” or perhaps simply the “night watch of pranks”.

In recent years, it has also become more common in Iceland to decorate houses with glowing pumpkins, skeletons and witch folk and to celebrate spooky parties at the end of October. However, I have the feeling that children, teenagers and young adults are more likely to celebrate there. On social media I see a lot of photos of beautiful costumes worn by Icelandic friends or people who live here. I haven't noticed any excessively decorated houses yet.

The call for the children who go around collecting sweetsis "grikk eða gott", i.e. "trick or treat".

There are also Halloween decorations in stores. For example, here at Krónan three witches have taken over the action area in front of the fruit and vegetable department.

And the town center of Selfoss is always decorated to match the season, two years ago there was a poor old skeleton and a few big, scary spiders.

Personally, I like the Halloween decorations at the hardware store much better: just a small artificial Christmas tree decorated with an orange garland, a chain with grinning, glowing pumpkins and a chain with illuminated eyeballs. I find that much cuddlier!

And in the background all the Christmas decorations have already broken out...

To be honest - I'm looking forward to unpacking the Christmas decorations again after October 31st and making our Iceland house a little more Christmassy...