PBS NewsHour asks 'What is Día de los Muertos?'

Halloween is over, but spooky season continues for one more day with Day of the Dead. Since Monstrum on PBS Storied hasn't created a third video on Mexican monsters since last year, I'm returning to news coverage of the holiday, which I last did in 2022. Watch PBS NewsHour asking What is Día de los Muertos? An expert explains the holiday celebrating loved ones who have died.

Día de los Muertos is a celebration honoring the deceased that takes place in Mexico and other parts of Latin America on Nov. 1 and 2. The holiday is celebrated through ritual observations like constructing altars, ofrendas, filled with offerings to the dead and decorating family gravesites to commune with the dead. It is also commemorated through fiestas in which communities gather to celebrate by dancing, playing music, feasting, drinking and masquerading as death.

"The beautiful thing about Día de los Muertos is that it allows the pain and difficulty [of death] to be transformed through joyous celebration so that it's not about just sitting in the difficulty of death," Arizona State University researcher Mathew Sandoval told the PBS NewsHour's Casey Kuhn.

That's an explanation of the holiday like I last posted in 2021's Inside Edition and NBC News report on Day of the Dead. Of course, PBS covered it in a more intellectual way than Inside Edition, which is not the hardest news source.

PBS's story included clips of a Day of the Dead parade. Global News covered one of those in Day of the Dead: Skeletons parade through Mexico City in annual Catrinas march.

Hundreds of people dressed as “La Catrina,” the iconic skeletal figure associated with Day of the Dead, paraded through the streets of Mexico City on Sunday evening.

The parade is one of numerous celebrations held throughout Mexico City for Day of the Dead, or “Dia de Muertos” in Spanish. It is a day when families in Mexico honour their loved ones.

Day of the Dead is celebrated this year on Nov. 2.

It's also celebrated on November 1st, which is when National Day Calendar lists it, so I'm sticking with November 1st.

Watching these two videos reminds me of my experience celebrating Day of the Dead in Oaxaca.

I spent the week of Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico during October and November, 2011. It was an eye-opening experience. I'll just concentrate on the public celebrations I observed.

First, I toured a cemetery during the night of Halloween. In the U.S., only the thrillseekers and vandals would be there. In Oaxaca, entire families were having picnics on the family plots. The atmosphere was festive with the local orchestra playing, fireworks, and vendors just outside the gates of the cemetery. Kids were trick-or-treating inside the cemetery, just as mentioned in the article. While they were wearing costumes, like American kids, they weren't going door to door asking for candy. Instead, they were begging strangers for coins. That's certainly an adaptation of an American tradition that makes it distinct.

The next night, I joined a grownup version of trick-or-treating. My hostess and her friend invited me to a parade of sorts. A bunch of revelers, most in costume, lined up in an alley behind a brass band. We then strolled down the street, stopped at a house, and asked for treats. We got tortas, Mexican sandwiches, which were passed out on a platter the size of a small door. I managed to get one of them. It was delicious. Also, plastic shot glasses of mezcal were being passed around. That made for a very entertaining evening, and is the reason I often describe the holiday as a combination of Halloween and Mardi Gras.

While waiting for that parade to form up, I watched another pass by. It was led by three young men in costume, a devil, a grim reaper, and a Mesoamerican death god. That image perfectly summed up the Mexican heritage of being a fusion of European and native elements. I wish Americans could be as comfortable with our hybrid origins.

Since I have gained many new readers during the past eleven years, I decided it was worth sharing my story again.

I close with WGN News presenting Tequila Cocktails for Day of the Dead.

Day of the Dead is a cherished Mexican tradition honoring the lives of loved ones.

Brand Ambassador Ricardo Rodriguez joined us to share how Mijenta Tequila is celebrating this long-standing tradition.

Drink responsibly. This includes the anchors of the local morning shows, which engage in more day drinking while on the clock than I knew about before I started writing this blog.

That's a wrap for today's post and spooky season, unless tonight's Saturday Night Live has Halloween content, in which case I'll share it as part of tomorrow's Sunday entertainment feature. Stay tuned.