El Día de los Muertos

Today is another sort of a holiday, and it's called The Day of the Dead.  This holiday mostly started out in Mexico, so Mom taught me the name of it in Spanish.  The Day of the Dead is really TWO days long.  It is always on November 1 and 2.  This makes it come right after Halloween, which is not a coincidence, because "Halloween" is actually short for "All Hallows' Even."  In ordinary English, this means "The Evening Before the Day of All the Saints."  But since that's a whole lot of words to have to say, it's probably best that the name got shortened to "Halloween."

Anyway, in America and Canada and such places, November 1 is called All Saints' Day, and November 2 is called All Souls' Day.  In Mexico, though, November 1 is called The Day of the Innocents or The Day of the Little Angels, and it's when you remember children who have died.  Then on November 2, you remember the grown-ups, and that is called The Day of the Dead.  Are you confused yet?  If you are, I know how you feel because I got sort of confused learning about this holiday because it has so many names!

In doing my research, I found out that people way back in ancient history were already celebrating The Day of the Dead.  Except that in those days it was probably a day dedicated to the Aztec goddess Mictecacihuatl.  This goddess had such a long name that it took a whole month for the Aztecs to honor her properly.  She was also known as "The Lady of the Dead," and so while people were honoring her, they also thought about their loved ones who had died.

Eventually, the month of celebration got shortened to just two days, probably because nobody wanted to give a whole month of paid holidays to their employees.  Anyway, during the two Days of the Dead, people go to the cemetery to visit graves, and they take all the favorite food that the dead person used to like to eat.  And they decorate the graves with marigolds, which are supposed to bring the souls of the dead people back so that the living people can talk to them.

Another popular thing to do is make skulls out of sugar and frosting.  Mom says these are yummy, because she has eaten them, but that was a long, long time ago when she went to school in Mexico.  I wish she had saved a sugar skull for me to eat, but she says it wouldn't have tasted very good after more than 30 years.  I don't really care about that.  I would have eaten it anyway!

And here's a very yummy-looking food which is called pan de muerto.  This means "bread of the dead," which rhymes, so it could be a poem, except it's kind of short for a poem.  I wish I had one of these dead bread things to eat.  If I look at the photo long enough, I can almost smell how good it tastes!

Well, now my mouth is watering, so I think I will go ask Mom if I can have a dog treat.