Dia de Muertos

Today we had a day off of school because of Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead). This is a day when you prepare an alter for someone that has passed in hopes that they will return and you will be comforted by their spirit. It is a huge celebration in Mexico and I was so glad to be a part of seeing some of these amazing alters and preprations for this holiday. I remember in my first Spanish class in high school that I feel in love with the Mexican culutre because of this day.

My newest decorations!

Today was the day for the adults to come, and yesterday was the day for the kids to come. When you create an alter you need to have all four elements represented: fire, wind, water, earth. Fire is the candels, wind can be paper machie with the wind design in it, water is a bowl of water, and earth is the food you prepare from the earth. You must preapare the dead ones favoirte foods to leave in the alter to entice them to come. It is also custmoary to put incents and flowers in the alter to guide the dead to their alters. I just love that they take a day to celebrate their lost ones by honoring their life and death.
Here are some of the alters I saw...

It is customary around this holiday that you see a lot of Las Catrinas. In the centro there was a whole exhibit of these dolls. Here are some of the best ones we saw:

After walking around we had a great dinner and a couple drinks to help celebrate dia de muertos. It is a very neat holiday, but since I don't have family down here or an alter to go to, I celebrated today by sitting at a hotel pool and finally getting some tanning and swimming in! It was a GREAT day off!!

Maya and her flight of tequila!

This is the pool I sat at today!!

I promise blogs from my Oaxaca trip are coming! I am just waiting to get a few pictures from Adrian so you can actually see me in some pictures! I'm hoping to post all about day 1 tomorrow!