Halloween and El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

My kids are looking forward to Halloween and El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

Pumpkins have been purchased and will be carved Friday evening in preparation for Saturday night’s festivities. The kids are still deciding just what garb they’re wearing for Halloween. Mark and Holden have put their heads together to see what they can come up with to scare the neighborhood kids. Oh, the excitement!

So, after Halloween is over and the kids have decided that they really don’t want to eat five pounds of sugar, we turn to El Día de los Muertos. The kids will likely add to an altar, already started, in the front hall. We will serve the Guatemalan Fiambre, a delicious pickled red salad, with dinner. Unlike Guatemalan tradition, we do not visit, party and eat at relatives’ gravesites (many have been cremated). But, weather permitting, we will try to fly kites.

The Guatemalan tradition of flying circular barriletes gigantes, kites some forty feet in diameter, occurs in several villages around the Guatemala City (where Greyson was born) warding off evil spirits and honoring the deceased. The bright colorful kites are made of tissue paper and decorated with images and messages as they soar through the air whipped around by hummers and streamers.