I just read a blog post about the Dia de los Muertos or the Day of the Dead... and I'm a little annoyed.
It's not that I disagree with the premise that sugar skulls are not appropriate Hallowe'en costumes, but the writer seems to think that hallowe'en has nothing to do with the day of the dead.
"Dia De Los Muertos is celebrated November 1st & 2nd (in alignment with All Saints Day & All Souls Day respectively). It is NOT celebrated on October 31st, it is not tied in with Halloween in America at all."
To which I say: what?!??.. AT ALL??
How about the fact that the very name "hallowe'en" comes from the old name for the holiday "All Hallows Eve" hallows meaning hallowed like holy.
All holy day = All Saints day
All hallows eve: the evening before All Saints day
for those of you who don't know, All Saints day and All Souls day are days where we honour those who have died and gone to heaven (saint) and those who have died and haven't reached heaven yet (all those other souls)
Back in the olden days, when All Saints day was a huge feast day, Hallowe'en or All Hallows eve, was a time to prepare oneself for awesome times (think Shrove Tuesday/Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras: the day before Ash Wednesday/Lent).
Traditionally Holidays (from holy days!) began the evening before the day of the feast (like the Jewish Sabbath starts sundown friday night even though the Sabbath is Saturday). This is why you can open Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, throw a New Years Eve bash... and go to Easter Vigil Mass if you're so inclined.
Of course we don't live way back then. We live now, long after these ideas teamed up with pagan rituals involving the time where the veil between the world of the living and the spirit world is at its thinnest. So we get this eerie holiday where they reach out to us, and we commemorate their lives and pray for their happy deaths in the days following.
Of course we actually live NOW now, long after those ideas were hallowe'en candy coated with consumerism, marketing and secularism. And maybe the Day of the Dead doesn't have anything to do with this current mass marketed holiday, but it has a lot in common with what Hallowe'en was supposed to be, and still is for many Christians.
So Cheers to the holiday that lets us dress up like goblins and ghouls, and gives us a chance to laugh in the face of death by reminding us that death is just another part of life, and the scary things can't hurt us. Jesus conquered death and sin, so let's celebrate!
Day of the Dead indeed
