Festive Food & Face Painting
Food for the soul at this time of year is taken literally. In addition to the bread of the dead, tortillas, Mexican chocolate caliente (hot chocolate) and other traditional treats are on hand. They’re made for the dead, but the living get to enjoy them as the leftovers (sans essence) make a feast for both worlds. Sugar skulls are the most iconic image of the festival. To make them, granulated white sugar is pressed into skull-shaped molds, then colorfully decorated, each containing the name of a departed one. These are placed on graves and altars in remembrance. Some sugar skulls have inspired a whole range of cultural art based upon this tradition.
Another tradition that has spread beyond Mexico is elaborate face painting. In the tradition of the sugar skulls, people paint their faces like the calaveras and processions become a dance of the living dead. The Aztecs believed that death was an awakening or rebirth. The symbolism of skulls is a powerful one and signifies the power of death as a vehicle for transformation to a higher level of consciousness.