Day of the Dead 2009

I keep on the lookout for Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead - stuff all year long. To be accurate, there are two days of the dead, connected with the Catholic All Saints' Day on November 1st and All Souls' Day on November 2nd and to an old Aztec holiday. In some areas November 1 is dedicated to departed children and November 2, to adults.



On a trip to Van Buren, Arkansas, this past Spring I happened into A Little Bit of Mexico, an import shop, where the proprietor showed me quite a bit of Day of the Dead stuff. See the lovely skulls in the cross?



I do so love both the decor of this holiday and the idea behind it, which is to honor and celebrate the dead. Traditionally a household altar might be made and the graves of ancestors cleaned off and decorated.

Lovely things, these are; but I presume that most such decorative items end up in the hands of tourists like me instead of traditionalists.



Arr...someone combined pirates and Day of the Dead.



I finally saw something I wanted and could buy - a skeleton playing miniature golf. It might be regular golf but the green is linear so I prefer to believe it's miniature golf.

See also 2005's Happy Day of the Dead!, 2007's Dias De Los Muertos and 2008's Day of the Dead.