Never Give a Living Person Mums: How the French Celebrate Toussaint

I read a celebrity interview early in my French cultural journey in which the person made a comment about her horror at receiving chrysanthemums as a gift.

Her tone made it clear that everyone should know the extreme faux pas of giving chrysanthemums.

I sure didn’t.

And I couldn’t figure out why it would be—which meant that the comment stuck with me.

Have I ever given someone a pot of mums? I have no idea. Maybe?

Then I figured it out. Finally.

Let’s go through the step-by-step unfolding of my a-ha together.

The Origins of Toussaint

In France, the first of November has been an official holiday since the time of Napoleon Bonaparte.

November 1 on the Catholic calendar is All Saint’s Day, when you honor, well, all the saints. The French have blended the term, making November 1 “la Toussaint” in French parlance.

Now, so say the Catholics, you wait until the following day, November 2, to tend to the memories of your dead dearly beloveds—a day called “All Souls’ Day” or, in French, “la commémoration de tous les fidèles défunts.” (That phase translates more directly as “the commemoration of all the faithful dead.” Kind of an odd way to put it, I know.)

However, as the French have the 1st as an official government holiday and not the 2nd, they elided the two days just like they elided the holiday’s name and, on Toussaint, they spend their day off in a combination of activities to recognize close friends and family members who have died.

How the French Honor Toussaint

Depending on the family, French people recognizes Toussaint in different ways.

Some people go to Catholic mass and have lunch with the family before heading to the graveyard. A far greater number skip the church and lunch segments of the celebration and go directly to the cemetery. They pay their respects, of course, though this respect-paying includes a more active and intentional tending to the graves of their dead family members than it might on other graveyard visits.

Toussaint tomb tending includes cleaning the stones and the area around the graves and decorating loved ones’ final resting places with commemorative plaques, plants, and flowers.

And these flowers? They typically include hardy pots of chrysanthemums.

Yep. There was my a-ha.

Chrysanthemums (or mums, as the flower is much more easily said and spelled in American) are the flowers given pretty much exclusively to the dead in French culture.

Giving mums to a living person is well, a message you shouldn’t want to give.

Grave site Tending for Toussaint Still in Practice

Think this whole Toussaint thing might be a bit outmoded and no longer an active practice?

Think again.

If you pass a cemetery on the 1st of November, you’ll see it far more populated with the living than usual. People in noticeable numbers bustle around the graves, tending to the tombs.

In fact, if someone lives too far away from the cemetery (or no longer has the ability) to personally do the honors for their dearly departed, they’ll ask the cemetery guardian to take care of their beloveds’ graves for them (which happens for a fee, of course).

In the days after the holiday, when passing by a graveyard, you’ll see nicely swept and polished tombstones, lovingly placed messages, and beautiful plants and pots of flowers.

A Holiday to Honor the People We Loved

Toussaint is a measurable a distance from the way some countries celebrate at this time of the year—with costumes and candy—but I say the French have a lovely tradition here.

Though Halloween is gradually growing in popularity in France, the season in the French part of the world doesn’t honor only ghouls and goblins and ghosties. It honors our memories of the people we have loved, too.