A Different Celebration

Judy. Two years ago when we came to Oaxaca, we made sure our stay included Dias de Los Muertos, the two-day celebration of loved ones who have died. It’s a beautiful holiday, personal and sweet, with families building altars, or offretas to honor their dead, in hopes they’ll return for the evening. Marigold petals are everywhere to guide the dead home, and cemeteries are filled with flowers and families eating and drinking with those who’ve gone on. We were deeply moved as we witnessed it. One of my favorite parts is the Catrina, a skeleton in fancy makeup dressed to the nines. She not only helps people laugh at death, she also reminds us that under our fancy clothes, we’re all skeletons.

This year we decided we’d not celebrate in Oaxaca, but in Mexico City. It was a whole different ballgame.

Dias de Los Muertos is a southern Mexico holiday, practiced for centuries. Except for a few families who had moved to Mexico City from the south, it was not celebrated there. That is, until 2015, when the James Bond film Spectre was filmed there. The studio wanted a Day of the Dead parade, and, upon finding out there wasn’t one, created it. Well, it took off. People fell in love with the parades and with Catrina. They added their own spin, including two parades on consecutive weekends down Reforma, a main street of Mexico City.

The result is a kind of family Mardi Gras/Halloween celebration, with adults dressed as Catrinas and children carrying jack-o-lantern candy containers and dressed in costumes from superheroes to anything from Frozen. Huge decorated skulls and massive alebrijes, or imaginary animals, line the parade route, and half the city, it seems, turns out. The few offretas we saw were in hotels or restaurants, or in parks, and honored famous people or areas of the country. It’s definitely different, but fun.

Decorated skull

One of many alebrijes

Offreta honoring a hero

Party-goers

 

Up close and personal with Catrina and friend

As  we waited for the parade to begin, a lovely Catrina turned to us and asked where we're from.

“Atlanta.”                                        

Our Catrina Sonya

“Me, too!”

Turns out that our Catrina, whose name is Sonya, grew up in the town where we lived for 30-plus years, and was taking drama at the big rival of the high school where I taught drama! We discovered many mutual friends. She lives in downtown now, and takes one month a year to be a digital nomad in some exotic place. (She gave us some great ideas.) We found mutual friends, and definitely some shared interest in travel.

And we’re looking forward to meeting up again in Atlanta.