November 1 is Allerheiligen (All Saints' Day), and 2 November is Allerseelen (All Souls' Day). American Hallow'een, 31 October, is the "evening" ("'een") before All Hallows' Day (the old name for All Saints' Day). (Some of you with Midwest roots may also know of Beggars' Night, 30 October; here's an example.) American-style Hallow'een is penetrating German culture; some people dislike that, others like it (and no one is forcing them to do it that way). Here are resources about traditional Allerheiligen / Allerseelen, with a foretaste of the later holiday season in the form of information about Advent Calendars, both sacred and rather profane.

Robert Shea's site: German Customs, Traditions, Origins of Holidays

german.about.com: November holidays

"Kirchenweb.at": Feiertage (Holidays) - The main site has a wide range of resources related to religion, and some that aren't (German recipe collection, for example). You'll see that the Austrian-German word for "Januar" is "Jänner".

Garten + Literatur (Gardening + Literature) site - flowers and holiday customs, with related literature (broadly defined: poems, folk sayings, etc.); example: Wenn's an Allerheiligen schneit, dann lege deinen Pelz bereit. Regnet's aber an diesem Tag, viel Schnee im Winter kommen mag. (If it snows on All Hallows', get your fur coat ready. If it rains, winter may have a lot of snow.)

Religiöses Brauchtum.de site about Allerheiligen - compiled by the Archbishophric of Köln

While we're at it, there are now online Advent Calendars (Adventkalender, also spelled Adventskalender).

www.adventskalender.net has not only calendars, but also free Christmas music, lyrics to Christmas carols, poems and prose, recipes.

Here's the Adventskalender page of the Bremische Evangelische Kirche / Protestant Church of Bremen. Expect religious content. Don't go there if that bothers you.

Here's the link to the "Action Sports Advent Calendar", which may offer content that is un-religious and even vulgar at times. Don't go there if that bothers you.

And here's the on-line interactive one at advenz.de.

Here is yahoo.de's list of Adventkalender links,

And search as you choose, either on Adventkalender or AdventSkalender - they use both spellings. Note that in German it's "kalendEr", in English "calendAr".