How to Decorate for Day of the Dead

Day of the Dead is a Mexican celebration that welcomes the spirits of the deceased to join the living for 24 hours between November first and second each year. To the uninitiated, it may look as though natives decorate for Day of the Dead with a morbid fascination of death. However, families are actually paying their respects to their ancestors when they decorate gravesites and erect home altars in their honor. Liven up your memorial festivities by learning how to decorate for Day of the Dead.

Things You'll Need

• Bowl or vial of water
• Bread
• Three boxes
• White cloth
• Salt
• Candles
• Family photos
• Calaveras
• Flowers (especially marigolds)
• Traditional treats, including Pan de Muertos
• Comb and mirror
• Window cleaner
• Soap and washing bowl

Instructions

Learn How to Decorate for Day of the Dead

1. Visit the gravesites of your dearly departed to decorate their final resting place for Day of the Dead. Family and friends often gather together to place candles, photographs of their loved ones and flowers on the tombstone and around the site.

2. Prepare to decorate your home for Day of the Dead by cleaning the entire house, including washing the windows. Then fill the house with flowers, which symbolize the shortness of life. Marigolds, known to Mexicans as cempasuchil (to mean "400 lives"), are the traditional flower to decorate with during Day of the Dead.

3. Decorate your home and place of work with handmade skeletons, known as calaveras. Calaveras are doll-like figures that humorously characterize the appearance, hobbies and occupation of the deceased while he was living. It is also said that placing calaveras about the home aids the spirit in finding the right house during Day of the Dead.

4. Create an altar to honor your deceased loves ones for Day of the Dead. The altar is a shrine consisting of three boxes placed in a pyramid fashion (representing the three levels of death), all covered with a white cloth. Aside from decorating the altar with flowers, photographs of the deceased and calaveras, there are other traditional elements called for. A bowl or vial of water is laid out to quench the thirst of the spirits, bread to nourish the soul and salt to season and purify the bread. A comb, mirror, soap and washing bowl are also included to allow the spirits to groom themselves during their brief visit.

5. Decorate the feast table with traditional foods to welcome the spirits during Day of the Dead. This includes candied sugar skulls and Pan de Muertos, a coffee cake-like glazed bread often baked in the shape of a skull and/or crossbones.

Tips & Warnings

• In Mexican tradition, Day of the Dead commemorates three levels of death, the first being physical death, the second being a return to the earth and the third occurring when no one living remains to remember the departed soul.