Dia de los Muertos

I would like to thank the Mexican people for ALL you bring to us from sea to shining sea (of course the SHINING sea is over here in California!) and now especially….

My new favorite holiday.  

 For some reason, after a few years of learning more and more about this festival, THIS year, it really sunk it’s teeth into my soul. Making beauty from our ashes and joy from our mourning. 

As a child I looked forward to Halloween.  As a mom, not so much. My kids, as kids, they are OK with it.  My first born was totally NOT into it as a child but is COMPLETELY into it as an adult.  My younger son, now 11, was too cool for candy this year. I couldn’t even motivate him to put on a hat nor mask and go to the trunk or treat 400 meters away!  Not even for candy! 

So, when I went to see what there was to see downtown for Dia de los Muertos that hook hooked me but good!  

I found several events happening from the events pages on facebook.  (In case you didn’t know, this is a GREAT place to sit in bed on a Saturday morning wondering what to do for the day-then jump up and GO! Of course one COULD plan in advance but hey….I’m a teacher, single mom living on a shoestring budget of both money AND time….so go read my blog post on GRACE and give me some!) 

My BFF and I headed out with a couple of addresses.  We couldn’t find the Latino Center for Arts and Culture and then realized that we had attended last year so we crossed it off our list and moved on to venue #2.  

Although I highly recommend stopping in at the Latino Center of Arts and Culture, the venue is beyond Old Sacramento proper.  About 2 miles so unless you like to wander somewhat aimlessly and have lots of time, I suggest driving. It has its own parking.   Find out ahead of time what is going on and get there EARLY or on time because there are GREAT things to see and DO here for kids.  Last year it got crowded after about an hour and arts and crafts supplies started running out. Once you’ve seen all there is to see do and here, you can head to Old Town and/or Downtown areas. 

So, venue #2 on our list  was sponsored by Sol Collective and held in the beautiful Old Sacramento.  There were many beautiful crafts and altars (called ‘offrendas’ in Spanish). The plaza was lined with booths.  There was a stage ground with Ballet Folklorico dancers.  I DO LOVE traditional dances–Irish, jitterbug, line dancing, swing, tango, Flamenco, Tarantella—I do just LOVE them all! 

At this venue there were food trucks with lots of places to sit and enjoy a meal.  My birthday was last week and although I have decided NOT to celebrate until my life’s hiccup is over and behind me, my BFF has been bugging me about taking me out to dinner for my birthday.  We saw most of what there was to see and she said that she didn’t see my birthday dinner as coming from a food truck, but we were both really hungry and if that’s what I wanted it was totally up to me.  We sucked it up like buttercups and moved on to the 3rd venue on our list.

Midtown.  

THIS is where the magic happened! 

As accidental tourists in our own town, we drove by my son’s comedy hotspot venue (unsolicited shout out to The Comedy Spot which has nothing to do with my blog but all to do with my heart!) And there, right there, as I said  “OH! There’s Tomas’s hang out, The Comedy Spot”…we couldn’t miss it because the street was blocked off by the police right in front of us so one couldn’t even GET to The Comedy Spot if they tried!  We quickly found parking at a hilarious public parking lot just a block away.  Wish I had taken a picture of the pay spot because the owners are clearly anarchists when it comes to fighting off technology–but that’s a whole other blog post–my hats off to them! 

Are you following along with me?  We parked and then walked back in the direction of The Comedy Spot to run right smack dab into The Procession.  There was a wild person with a cracking whip, tap dancing-side stepping horses with their caballeros, Mayan dancers, Ballet Folklorico (folk dancers) yellers & screamers and a Mexican marching band.  Do you wanna hear a good Mariachi Band? Tonight was NOT the night. That was the ONE thing that I did not see nor hear all night. 

We shot and filmed segments for your viewing pleasure here with our crappy smartphones.  Next year I will go with my camera and some intent to do justice to the beauty surrounding us.

There was one area full of booths selling arts, crafts and merch.  I’m rather particular at craft fairs. I’m crafty myself and if I can make it, I’m not going to buy it.  I go to craft fairs looking for unique items and inspiration. So, I DIDN’T purchase any head dresses… but I did purchase hand crafted cross–because I love hearts and crosses and I can’t make this cross…very easily anyway. 

Connected but separate was another area of offrendas and alters that families had set up.  Below are some of my favorites. Again, I only brought my crappy cell phone with me so I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures because I’d rather have no photo than a low quality photo.  

There was a community altar with supplies to write a note to our own loved ones.  We each added a tribute to a specific loved one, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel the presence of mine the next day while I was getting groceries.  

We were STARVING at this point.  So we meandered around a few city blocks.  Of course all the Mexican restaurants were packed full.  We had Cantina Alley on our list to eat at, however there was a 1 hour wait.  So we wandered some more.  

Weigh laid-even though we were STARVING at this point…we stumbled upon Kulture  which my co-worker had mentioned to me.  And we dipped in here as well. It was NOT to dissappoint!  Absolutely gorgeous alter. And this lovely family. Again, not too many pictures because of the low quality of my crappy cell phone. 

We ended up at Burger Patch.  My BFF is vegan and gluten free and I LOVE a good burger.  The burger here was amaze-balls! She was a little disappointed to take me to my birthday dinner at a burger stand but I was perfectly happy and in case I didn’t mention it…we were STARVING at this point.  We had burgers and their apple pie milkshake. The shake was great because it wasn’t too sugary. I don’t eat a lot of sugar-try not to anyway-and so many things are just loaded with sugar and that sugary taste that the guilt overtakes me and I have trouble really enjoying what I’m eating.  This vegan shake though was not too sweet so I was able to sip away, guilt free…like I was filling my body with health food instead of junk-foody desert that I would have to exercise off later. (Hey, some of you know the huge ‘hiccup’ in my life at the moment so cut me some slack.) 

If you didn’t know, Dia de los Muertos, (Day of the Dead) is a Mexican tradition of remembering, honoring and celebrating loved ones who have passed on.   Watch the movie Coco for some fun ideas surrounding the beliefs that our ancestors affect us even from several generations passed. Or some children’s books , or some more  or watch this video on a wonderful modern history of the celebration or this one on the significance of the butterfly (this one isn’t subtitled so enjoy the videography first and then let the thread fly-pun intended- or start searching youtube for other butterfly references to Dia de los Muertos.)  Forgive me but I teach 2nd grade and it’s all about rainbows, butterflies and soccer…not to mention All you need to know or Simon & Garfunkel’s Everything You Needed to know tends to get over shadowed by crap later on.  But do NOT miss the humor in this! Cuz if you can’t laugh at yourself then you end up laughing at others, and that’s just rude! (WARNING: be sure you don’t have a drink in your mouth because you might spit it out laughing out loud and ruin your computer.)