Day of Dead Presentation

This afternoon I did a presentation at the Buena Park Public Library. The topic was El Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead. This is the first year they have had this, so we had no idea how many people to expect or who our audience was going to be.

We got to the library about an hour before the scheduled start so that I could set up an altar and set up the computer and projector, etc. Here is the table just starting to set it up for the altar.

 

Next is the table set up. I didn't think the table was going to be this big, so the ofrendas had to be spaced out a little bit. But otherwise, I think it worked out okay.

 

Here is the section for Mom and Dad:

 

This one is especially for Dad. American flag and the fresh produce.

  

This one is for Mom. Figs, Pizza Hut pizza, and behind her picture is Chocolate Mexicano.

 

 And here I am trying to get everyone interested in finding out about their ancestors and doing family history.

 It was fun building an altar to honor my parents and my grandparents. It is the first time that I built one, and what I have learned is that anything goes. If this set up hadn't been at the library I probably would have included live plants and lots and lots of candles. Maybe more food items, also. As it was, I was glad to have my two greatest helpers, Hubby and Son, carry all of these ofrendas.

The  staff at the library was just great, but the best were the audience. They were genuinely interested in the topic. We had about 100 people, more than half were children. After the talk about the altar, there was a high school group dancing folkloric numbers. The children and parents then painted masks and enjoyed refreshments that included Pan de Muertos.

When we finally got home, Hubby and I were literally exhausted, but it was a good tired, a satisfied tired.

At the Farmers' Market

We were at the Farmers' Market yesterday. We bought the tastiest persimmons. These are the fuji persimmons, and have the texture of an apple, not squishy like the other persimmons I remember as a child.





















The other things that caught my eye were not related to farm products at all. There were many things for Halloween, but I saw these little figurines for the Dia de los Muertos.

I liked this bullfighter and Frida Kahlo standing behind him. Note the smaller figure in purple between the charro and bullfighter. I think she is supposed to represent the Catrina. I was hoping to find sugar skulls, but the lady at the booth said she wasn't going to bring them to the market until next week.

Fresh Cut Flowers in October

Yesterday I had the picture of the mums and that brought a deluge of memories of when my dad used to sell flowers as the Dia de los Difuntos or Dia de los Muertos drew near.

We did not observe the traditions of Southern Mexico of making altares, but we did have the tradition of honoring our dead ancestors. The preparations started by going as a whole family and taking a hoe to clear weeds, a bucket to haul water, and maybe an evergreen to plant. In Robstown when I was growing up there were two cemeteries--one for the dead anglos and the other one for the dead Latin Americans (that was the term of the day). Today, there is a third cemetery (it allows any dead people) which is perpetual care, but not so in the old days. November 2nd was a holy day of obligation to attend mass in the morning, and then take fresh flowers to the graves of family members who had passed away.

In the book Hecho en Tejas, there is a chapter by Cynthia L. Vidaurri on the cemetery art in Robstown. She captured the scene very well.

Below is Dad's ad in the Robstown Record for mid October 1950. If you click on it you can read some of the other "news" going on in Robstown. A bunch of flowers sold for 50 cents! The bunch was a generous amount of chrysanthemums and/or marigolds, about 24 stems-mas o menos. I especially loved the colorful display of the flowers at our store before they were sold. At the cemetery the graves were adorned not only with the fresh cut flowers, but with other adornments, too. But it is the bright oranges and yellows that have stuck in my memory.

 

A couple of weeks later this ad ran during the first week in November 1950. He still had some of the flowers, it seems, but the featured items are green beans at 12 cents a pound. Apples are not a bad buy at 10 cents a pound.

Fresh cut flowers are prohibitively priced these days. The last time I took flowers to the cemetery they were silk flowers. The silk or plastic flowers don't require water, and I guess that's a plus, because we also have memories of the mosquitoes in my home town. But that's another story for another day . . . . .