10/19/2025
How Halloween Is Celebrated in Southern Italy
Our founder, Alba Renninger, gave a beautiful talk about how Halloween is celebrated in parts of southern Italy, where the traditions carry a warm, family-centered spirit quite different from the American version.
In the south of Italy, Halloween is mainly a celebration for children, filled with joy, imagination, and togetherness. On Halloween night, a basket or decorated container is placed under each child’s bed. After the children fall asleep around 8 PM, much too early for all the excitement, the parents quietly hide the baskets somewhere in the house, turning it into a playful Easter egg–style treasure hunt for the next morning.
To keep the little ones from getting up too soon, parents often whisper that ghosts might be wandering the house at night, not to frighten them, but to keep them tucked safely in bed until daylight.
When morning comes, the children rush through the house searching for their hidden baskets, which are filled with toys, chocolates, and all sorts of goodies. Sometimes a brother or sister finds the wrong basket, and you’ll hear, “Hey, that’s mine!” followed by laughter and cheerful teasing that fills the home with joy.
Later in the day, families visit the cemetery together. They bring food for a simple picnic, wash and decorate the tombstones, and share stories about loved ones who have passed. This beautiful custom shows how people in southern Italy are at peace with the idea of death, seeing it not as something dark, but as a natural part of life.
It gently teaches children that remembering those who came before us is not sad or frightening, but an act of love and continuity, a way of keeping family bonds alive across generations through care, storytelling, and remembrance.
