Have a Great Halloween

So tomorrow is Halloween night here in the States and all the children will disguise themselves in scary costumes and start knocking on doors asking for candy and we will had it over and their parents will have a hard time putting them to sleep after the sugar rush. Grownups have their own version of the Halloween holiday, the teen aged kids and or young adults will have a costume party and drink punch with strange colors, or watch a scary movie like Halloween whatever number comes to mind…and the contemporary adults as we like to call ourselves will be celebrating at home handing candy out to children and or in a costume party with no strange colored beverages, but with lots of spider webs and dim light rooms and coffin decorations, so whichever way you decide to celebrate go ahead and have some fun. Enjoy Halloween and see you on Monday.

Giant Alebrijes take Mexico City II

As with many traditions in Mexico the art of alebrijes manufacture has become a folks craft that everyone likes and takes home as a souvenir from their vacation trip to Mexico. The City authorities have decided to make a parade every year and according to my Mexican friend this is the second year around where the giant Alebrijes come to life in Mexico City’s streets. If the wonderful alebrijes look half as amazing in real life than in the pictures, I would certainly be planning my trip to Mexico City for the next parade. In one of my Mexican vacations I was introduce by my friends to the alebrije craft, and I have one for every time I have been to Mexico which means I have quite a few, so I will really like to see one of the giant ones. I like the colors and the creatures and according to one sales lady they pick you not the other way around, I just hope a Giant one won’t pick me to bring him home, what would I declare in customs? LOL

http://baalart.com/tienda/alebrijes/cat_17.html

http://www.mexart.org/pages/maderapolychrome2.html

Giant Alebrijes take Mexico City

The price you pay for one of the smaller for sell Alebrijes is not so much for the material but for the artists creativity. This colorful companion is said to have its origins back in the zapotec culture, but the history you will find in most places is much more recent. A story in which Pedro Linares was a piñata maker in the Merced market in the 1970’s he fell very ill and in his delusional dreams he saw these fantastic creatures chasing after him and calling him alebrije, after he got well he tried to explain his dream but as a representation of the creatures that followed him he made a few of them out of paper and card board, he saw his creation and started making them for a profit, up until now his family owns the registered name alebrije, which everyone uses to name these fantastic mixture of animal and fantasy creatures.

http://jlong.cancunarts.com/alebrije.html

http://www.latinaviva.com/50226711/alebrijes.php

Beautiful Craft: Mexican Alebrijes

My Mexican friend just sent me these great pictures of giant alebrijes, a paper Mache or wood carved fantastic animal with great colors and strange surreal appearance. Apparently there was this huge parade of Alebrijes in one of the main streets of Mexico City in which moiré than 100 figures where made by local craftsmen and women, and after the parade they left the exhibit in the touristic zone of the City, near down Town a beautiful street named Reforma, which I remember form my trip to Mexico City in which my Royal Holiday membership put me in one of the nicest hotels I have ever been too and near all the main touristic sites in the City the Sheraton Centro Histórico. The alebrijes are a popular craft made now in several parts of Mexico, if you visit any craft market and ask for them they would surely be someone selling them.

http://www.mexonline.com/animal1.htm

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/Alebrijes.html

http://princetonol.com/grOUpS/iad/lessons/elem/Linda-Oaxaca.htm

Traditions and Celebrating the Deathday

Ok so enough with the turtles and the cute pictures. Let’s continue with the Mexican Celebration tradition of the Day of the Dead, My Mexican friend promised to send me pictures about how great it is in Mexico City, pictures of altars and shrines and all the paraphernalia they come with. According to Wikipedia,  they can trace the origins of such a singular tradition back to Aztec days and the celebration in honor of goddess Mictecacihuatl  Queen of the underworld the  Mictlan. The Brazilian also celebrate a similar holiday Dia de Finados  in Portuguese, they visit the cemeteries and churches, in Spain they have festivals and parades into the cemeteries and they pray for the deceased. Today in Mexico the holiday is celebrated with candy or chocolate skulls with the names in them. The celebration of the children who have died takes place on November 1^st their spirits are said to visit for the whole day and leave just before the adult spirits come visit.

http://www.royal-holiday.com/

JM and the Turtle’s Diaries

Continuing with the Turtle theme and the Cancun liberating turtles experience my nephew  JM wants you to know he named his turtle Dragon and that Dragon was one of the first to make it to the water. So there you are JM now everybody can read about Dragons first encounter with the sea. Dragon has and still is  the main character in many of JM’s conversations about his vacation trip in Cancun, the turtle made quite and impression on him and he can’t stop talking about it, drawing and telling everyone that will still listen to him for the hundredth time that Dragon was the best turtle that ever existed and that he is sure he will be meeting him in his next trip to Cancun. Of course my sister is starting to think that it wasn’t such a great idea for JM to have a turtle of his own if even for 20 minutes.

Free the Turtles in Cancun

Remember the Turtle liberation posts a while ago, the ones in which I told you about my sister’s trip to Cancun Beach in Mexico where she and her family spent a week long vacation trip in the luxurious Cancun Caribe Park Royal Grand of the Royal Holiday family. On these posts I talked about the turtle liberation ceremony she and her family assisted to and how excited they all were about it, well I recently received the pictures and I want to share them with you. We will continue to talk about the Day of the Dead in Mexico in the next post but please take a look at these pictures, aren’t they adorable, I wish I had been there. I love all kind of animals and of course the baby turtles had me exclaiming aaaaaahhhhh at every picture I saw. I would love to have my own free the turtles experience.

Celebrating the Dead in Mexico

The way I see it the Mexican celebrate their dead ones remembering them with a goodbye party every year after they died, pretty much as we do with birthdays  we celebrate each year after we are born, we celebrate our birth anniversary, and they also celebrate their death anniversary which seems kind of weird but if you follow the tradition and understand what is behind every object and every  addition, and trace some of them to the pre colonization times, then you can’t help but feel that this is a joyous festivity and a one filled with love. On my next Royal Holiday vacation trip to Mexico I definitely would like to be there for this Day of the Dead celebrated each November 2^nd. You too should plan your trip for these dates and stay for the whole week, it doesn’t matter which  travel destination you choose the Day of the Dead is celebrated everywhere in Mexico.

Day of the Dead in Mexico III

The Day of the Dead is a festivity, a celebration of life which can seem paradoxical but is really very interesting it has merge the indigenous tradition and the one the Spanish brought with them during the colonization of the Indian cultures. And the tradition people follow today is a combination of the indigenous beliefs and the catholic ones.  The candles and the flowers and the food , the bread and the ash cross and the colors of the paper use to embellish the tomb, the bread especially made in this time of year called bread of the dead, is actually a sweet baked bread with batter in form of bones in the top covered with sugar, and is an important element in the shrine. Water is put out there for the soul to take and refresh itself. The candles light the way so the spirit can find its loved ones, and so on it is a real family joyful occasion.

Day of the Dead in Mexico II

The best thing about the way Mexican people seem and embrace the Day of the Dead holiday is that although they prepare for the spirit to come home and belief that their love one is making a trip from the land of the dead to the land of the living if only for one day, this visit is not seen as something to dread or to be afraid of, (as Halloween is all about) this visit is actually a welcome back party celebration in which they rejoice at the thought that their love one will share a few hours with them. They bring out the spirit’s favorite things, his guitar, her jewelry, his cigars, her gloves, or her perfume, and of course their favorite meal and whatever music they enjoyed in life. All of the altars or shrine objects have a meaning and they all want the best for the deceased.