Tony and Jenna Moreno have lovingly and oh-so-generously hosted Día de los Muertos outside their house for the past two years, serving tamales, soup, Mexican sweet bread, and Mexican hot chocolate, providing DJ music, offering space for anyone in the community to make ofrendas (altars honoring the dead), and giving beautiful calaveras de azúcar (skulls made of sugar) to take home.
This year it is moving to the Village Green where it will begin with a candlelight procession and the Green will be a giant, beautiful, glowing graveyard filled with candles, flowers, photos, and mementos honoring deceased loved ones on ofrendas large and small. ANYONE and EVERYONE is invited to make an ofrenda, so start imagining yours now.
Also, begin thinking about how you will adorn yourself. This is your big chance to dress the part and paint your face as a Catrina, the ornate skeleton faces you see in Día de los Muertos photos. I did it the first year, and I’ll include photos below. There will be a costume contest for all who want to enter!
The big evening will be November 1st, beginning at 5 PM, and there will be food vendors, a place to share loved ones’ favorite foods, tamales, Mexican sweet bread, pan de muerto (a slightly sweet bread with an orange sugar glaze often placed on the altars), café de olla (a traditional Mexican coffee boiled with cinnamon sticks and piloncillo, which is unrefined sugar), and Mexican hot chocolate. There will also be a DJ for dancing, and you will not want to miss Jenna singing her hauntingly beautiful rendition of “La Llorona,” a traditional song for this day.
Along with individual participation, all businesses and organizations are welcome to have a booth and/or an ofrenda, so if you would like to secure a spot now while you are imagining what you will create, email Tony and Jenna at tjdiadelosmuertos@yahoo.com.
Click this link from Tony and Jenna’s first celebration at their house, where you will see some of the ornate ofrendas that locals displayed for their loved ones, as well as explanations of how to make ofrendas and what the different elements of an ofrenda mean. You will also see the sugar skulls and pan de muerto they sent us home with, along with videos on how they are made. If you are not a make-up pro, which I am not, there are tutorials in the post about how to paint your face and how to fold sycamore leaves into roses for your hair, which I did that year since I didn’t have any big flowers. You can also watch a video of Jenna singing “La Llorona.” And most importantly for being able to sleep after you get home from a Día de los Muertos celebration, there is a tutorial on how to remove all of the paint from your face!
Here are some visuals from that first year, and I hope to see you and your skeleton face on November 1st!…
