Dia De Los Muertos | Los Angeles

In Latin America, picnic lunches are held on the graves of the relatives who passed the year before in  happiness and celebration. They bake bread and make candy in the shape of skulls and crossbones, caskets and skeletons. The children run through the streets with lanterns and ask for coins and treats while the adults tell stories and predict fortunes. People light bonfires, set off firecrackers, and hang lanterns on trees to guide the souls of the dead from homes of the living and into the dark.

All Saints’ Day is devoted on November 2nd (Dia de los Muertos, officially) as the holiday on which all the souls of those who died the year past walk through this world and on to the next in great number. But the littler ghosts have exception and are actually welcomed to find their way back home. Parents and family members often shoot off firecrackers, leave out sweetbread, candy skulls and toys. In some parts of the new world a path of orange [any flower] petals is formed from the graveyard to the front door, if the graveyard is not too far off, to encourage the young spirit to come home.

In Mexico Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a day filed with happy all-day picnics at grave sides of dead relatives or at home with assembled altars called “ofrendas,” offering decorated with sugar skulls, sweet milk drinks, photos and/or sweets as well as candles, perfumes, and (orange) flowers associated with the dead.

In Los Angeles or southern California the Day of the Dead is celebrated with ritual prayers, [white] candle left at the location where the person died or window sills, candy/sweets (misc.) decorated portraits, toys, stories and forget-me-nots from Oct 30th to Nov. 2nd.