In Mexican culture, the departed are believed to be with us still, and the annual celebration of Dia de los Muertos is a way of paying them tribute. But what if that tradition could be combined with the tradition of the family Christmas, with all its attendant potential for strife, scandal, and spirits in abundance?
A dear friend recently celebrated Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico. Thanks to social media, I was able to follow her every move. I choose my friends well, so I was glued to her feed as she did a pretty good job of documenting her trip. It was so fascinating and I was intrigued enough to go on a Day of the Dead deep dive.
According to the internet, the Day of the Dead originated several thousand years ago and it’s bigger than Christmas, which is already pretty big in a predominantly Catholic country. It’s based on the premise that the dead are still members of the community as they’re kept alive in memory and spirit, and celebrated during Dia de los Muertos when they temporarily return to Earth.
Celebratory altars are built in homes and they’re loaded with water, food, family photos and a candle for each dead relative. Marigolds are the main flowers used to decorate the altar and the bright petals are scattered from your house to the gravesite to guide great aunt Moira* back to her place of rest, just in case she overstays her welcome, just like she used to do when she was alive.
I feel deeply in love with this ritual, it really resonated with me. And unless you are a part of that saccharine TV family, The Waltons, I’m willing to bet there’s always a bit of feels being felt at your Christmas table. I mean, who in their right mind thinks that throwing a whole lot of people related by blood, marriage and sometimes scandal together for a few hours, in a confined space with or without booze, is a good idea?
All the sibling rivalry, divorces, cheats-who-stayed, cheats-who-moved-on, childhood feuds, adult feuds … it’s the perfect mix for disaster.
After many years of having to endure the Day of the Feels or Christmas-with-family, I’ve decided that this year, I’m taking a leaf out of the Mexican playbook by calling on my dead relatives to restore law and order. Because life is short, you know.
For as long as I can remember, my late mother’s sister Lizzy* and her sister in law had words (or in their case, lack of words). Aunty Lizzy married John*, Ursula’s* brother. John cheated on Lizzy, she divorced him, but then Lizzy’s younger brother Patrick*, fell for Ursula and now Lizzy has to look at Ursula at every family gathering and relive the humiliation.
At the risk of sounding like a Kardashian, super awkward! My late mom was the only person who knew how to set the table and plan the duty roster to ensure these two are never alone or in too close proximity of each other. A skill I wish I inherited.
Then there’s my younger uncles Albert* and Cecil*. There’s been an allegation of favouritism for years and as far as I can tell the last straw was when Albert received an analogue watch for his birthday. The numbers glowed in the dark and he thought he was all that, until the next year when Cecil was gifted a digital watch!
The cold war started by the watches, has carried on all the way to the ripe old age of 50+. At most gatherings, the whiskey would flow and these two inevitably got into their mama-loved-you-more-than-me session. Granny would expertly and sometimes crudely shut it down by reminding them they came from the same place and did equal damage to her body, so if anything, she despises them equally.
Many of the feels being felt at our Christmas table comes from real and not-so-real slights, so I think if we built an altar of granny, gramps and everyone else who passed on, we could for once, just once have the sort of Christmas meal we had when granny ruled the roost.
The whole lot of us can be on our best behaviour, especially aunty Heather* who always complains about aunty Claire’s* “cheap perfume” giving her a headache. And aunty Claire, the stingy one, taking out her perfume with price tag still attached boldly declaring that R195 for 100ml is not cheap.
And honestly, we need great aunty Moira, who is the only one who dared tell granny that her roast potatoes were not fully cooked in those few years when granny had cataracts and refused to have the operation. The rest of us made our dentists richer by eating granny’s rock hard roast potatoes rather than saying anything to her.
Hopefully granny gets to the family house after we’ve done the potatoes as I believe cataracts grow back and that old lady was so stubborn the first time around, my teeth are much older and still structurally compromised from the hard potatoes the first time around. She might just make the new potato roaster serve us raw potatoes as well!
We’ve lost so many family members and the scales are starting to tip in the other side’s favour. I love the idea of having one of granny’s full long (trestle) tables again, even if just in spirit to remind us where we come from, what we were and help the next generation find their feet and hopefully remember us too when we shuffle off. We go to the graveyard on Christmas day, anyway, so this won’t be such a departure from our Christmas ritual, we’re just celebrating them instead of mourning.
And I think granny would approve of my new Christmas, especially seeing as how her garden was always full of marigolds. I think she’ll definitely be intrigued enough to follow the trail of brightly coloured marigolds starting from her grave on Christmas morning.
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