Is Halloween as big in other countries as it is in the USA? Seems to get more popular every year
In my country it isn't, yet. I live in Bulgaria.
It's mostly celebrated by groups of people who are in way too much love with the American culture - skaters, punk/emo/gothic people, the hardcore american rap fans. The "underground/rebelious" sub-cultures, so to speak.
To be honest every time I encounter a group of kids sprawled on the metro stairs listening to rap or metal, with skateboards in their hands I experience a strong urge to kick their shit around, as a reminder that stairs are made for going places.
But yeah, those are the main ones who'd celebrate things like Halloween or July Morning and the like. And maybe some young people/students, who have nothing better to do, but paint themselves and get drunk. Many night clubs have Halloween parties for just that reason.
The thing is - the branch of the Eastern Orthodoxy in Christianity doesn't have the same religious holiday on that day. Or in any day, as far as my knowledge goes. So we have no reason to celebrate whatsoever and that's why only people who have nothing better to do organize themselves for the novelty of it.
Kids aren't going around asking for candies either. To be honest I'd like it to stay that way - we have our version of the thing which our ancestors used to do on Christmas, where you dress like that:
And you go through your village, singing special holiday songs, gathering special bagels on your stick. And other things like fruit preserves and such. But it's a tradition from the past, it's probably dead for two decades or more, especially in the big towns. I've done it only once myself, and it was for cheering up some old folk in a senior home, organized by my school.
We have, however, tradition close to Halloween, where people would dress in scary costumes to scare off the evil spirits. All gather in a small parade and you shout, dance and ring large cow bells to scare off the evil.
Here's a video of such an event:
But it's not a widespread event anymore, kept more for the sake of preserving the ritual than anything else.
But yeah, our traditions in this regard are more rural if you'd like, not commercialized, but also almost extinct in the modern society.
I get it how kids could fall in love with Halloween, I myself probably would have as a kid, but on my part I prefer to avoid it, because it's not a part of our branch of religion and it would just feel weird.
My younger brother celebrates it though. So there's that. And it would probably grow more popular with time, but for me it feels weird the same way someone in US celebrating a Bulgarian/Slavic holiday would feel. There are reasons for those days to exist and they deserve to be respected, but practicing a foreign holiday without any regard for the background story, and just for the chuckles, is something I couldn't understand.