Day of the Death or Día de Muertos is celebrated here in Mexico in the beginning of the November. It's my absolute favorite of Mexican fiestas, so even though it was already couple of weeks ago, I want to show you some pictures I took this year from the altars in Coyocan (my favorite part of the city) and at the University.
The Day of the Death is not like Halloween, although you can see more and more Halloween stuff in the shops, which is a great shame, I think. I much prefer the traditional sugar skulls, cempazutchil (the orange flowers you can see in the photos), the paper decorations and happy skeletons to all those comercial monster stuff.
During the Day of the Death celebrations you see skulls, and skeletons and other symbols of the Death everywhere, but they are not scary. The death come to the Earth to visit their love ones, who build them altars with their favorite foods and drinks. There's nothing scary about that... '
That's exactly why I love this fiesta. The Death is not something scary, it's familiar and close, something that happens to everyone. You can even joke with it, and the skeletons are often represented drinking tequila, partying and doing other earthly stuff. Or smiling gently, as the lady in this picture:
Great attitude towards the Death, colourfull and ingenious decorations and the yummy pan de muertos (bread of the Death, special holiday bun made only for this fiesta) - how could you not love it?
