Wednesday, November 11

Días de los Muertos - Days of the dead

Over the last week or two we've been celebrating the days of the dead in their various forms. San Antonio is brilliant; not only do we get the usual American Halloween fun including work celebrations, dressing up, lots of sugar and trick or treating but we also get the Mexican / Catholic celebrations of El Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) which is both a memorial and celebration of those who have passed on.

First off there was the work Halloween party which included a hallway decorating contest, costume contest (I was a judge, ha!), mummy wrapping game and dessert contest! The photo below is our friend Katy's 3rd place dessert entry (I think it should have won).

Katy's jelly brain dessert with berry sauce

Then there was the actual night of Halloween. I made a big pot of my Tassie Devil chilli (and a vegetarian version - neither of which actually include devils) and we headed on down to John and Jo's since their house is in a better neighbourhood for the festivities (you don't really get trick or treaters at apartments unless organised by the complex). There were a bunch of us going, some to trick or treat and some to man the door and hand out candy, but the deal was we all had to dress up. We thought we were all organised with Marty's costume since we had this fabulous chilli-pepper outfit we bought before he even existed... but at the last minute we discovered a wardrobe malfunction! Every time he moved his legs it popped open! It was too small!! (Actually, I think it was designed by someone who had never seen a real baby...maybe one of those people who design costumes for dogs) We did manage to get a few pics before retiring the chilli.

Awww

He was remarkably chipper all through the dressing up process!

Hot stuff (aww come on, someone had to say it!)

RAWR!

Luckily his mama did some fancy footwork and secured him a replacement outfit at the 11th hour... even if I did have to drive to the back of whoop whoop to pick it up!

It's a rainbow glow bug, I think. We'll it's cute whatever it is! (Poggie not in costume at this point)

Rainbow bug and his Papa Bear - make sure you check the Bears for more pics and news

Halloween loot for just one child o_0

Our church also does a lovely and very moving day of the dead celebration where members bring photos and stories of people they want to remember.

Altar of remembrance

Finally, to wrap up all this celebrating death/life we popped down to First Friday, which is a arts/beer festival in Southtown, the San Antonio arts district. This particular first Friday included a day of the dead parade as well as a Muertitos Fest!

We started First Friday with drinks, fried mushrooms and jalapeno poppers at our favourite Texan icehouse, La Tuna. We met up with friends and their little girl Camille and then headed down to Muertitos Fest at Say Si, arguably our favorite gallery in San Antonio. Say Si is a student art program but the quality of the work is excellent, as you will see in a moment.

Some of the incredible altars at Say Si

More altars. Call it my Catholic roots but I love these!

Some of the artwork. Hard to tell from the pic but these were gorgeous.

This was our favourite piece by far and we would definitely have bought it if it hadn't already sold! It is a combo of found paper, block printing, woodwork and resin.

After we'd checkout out the artwork we popped outside to catch some of the traditional dancing, including this incredible routine where they danced with real candles on their heads!


After that we did catch the parade, but my photos suck so if you want to see better ones check out the Bears.

Day of the dead parade at Say Si

And of course we dressed Rooey for the occasion so that everybody stopped to goo over him!

9 comments:

Mothersupex said...

Yet again another fantastic blog that makes us feel we were with you all.

Katy's jelly brain should have received 1st prize, incredible.

The chilli-pepper costume was gorgeous, perhaps for the next one!!! But his "Lord-ship" did look wonderful in his Glow Worm suit and also the skeleton jump suit. If you want clothes like that, purchase them there as there not over here yet.

The Alters also, were amazing.

Congrats again on a wonderful blog, need to see what the adults wore, apart from Papa Bear who gets a gold star for being on your blog, dressed.

Adrienne said...

I suggeseted a Day of the Dead theme for the End of Year Function for the Young Lawyers COmmittee. It was utterly ignored. They thought a Christmas theme - with no decorations was better. I had the marigolds for the alter and everything! Oh well maybe next year.

To more serious matters. Please consider the following to be a demand. I want to see Rainbow Bug's parents in costume too. Please arrange this forthwith.

Yours sincerely,

Adrienne Morton
Crown Counsel etc.

Anonymous said...

Marty's 2nd halloween outfit looks like 'the very hungry caterpillar'!
Love Britt. X

Freckled Sparrow said...

Gosh that gallery looks cool! Yay for chili baby and wicked Halloween dessert :D

Anonymous said...

Loving the Marty's skeleton costume and his expression on his little face in the Roo carrier!
The jelly brain looked ace, how can it only have won 3rd prize... what won?!!
Anri x

Vikki said...

I need that brain recipe! Do you think you or your friend might share it with me?

Cute pics. Also, I'm worn out from all of your celebrating. You guys are on the move.

Anonymous said...

Hello jo, jac and marty!

what lovely photos. Looks completely amazing! Will send a proper email soon. How lovely to have your parents over to visit jo. Marty is just gorgeous.

lots of love to you all!

Alison xxxx

Adrienne said...

Have installed Marty-the-chilli-goes-rawr as my wallpaper. Makes me giggle everytime I turn on my computer.

xA

Unknown said...

What a wonderful post! Katy - what can I say ... that cake ...
And thanks to the Travelling Bears for posting about Salado Creek - You had us both in fits of laughter over here in Norway ... But that greenway sort of grows on you, and we had many a nice afternoon walk there ...

Mona and Johannes