Day of The Dead Celebrations in Mexico

More than 500 years ago, when the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they encountered natives practicing a ritual that seemed to mock death.

It was a ritual the indigenous people had been practicing at least 3,000 years. A ritual the Spaniards would try unsuccessfully to eradicate.
A ritual known today as Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.

In rural Mexico, people visit the cemetery where their loved ones are buried. They decorate gravesites with marigold flowers and candles. They bring toys for dead children and bottles of tequila to adults. They sit on picnic blankets next to gravesites and eat the favorite food of their loved ones.

Today, people don wooden skull masks called calacas and dance in honor of their deceased relatives. The wooden skulls are also placed on altars that are dedicated to the dead. Sugar skulls, made with the names of the dead person on the forehead, are eaten by a relative or friend.

The Aztecs and other Meso-American civilizations kept skulls as trophies and displayed them during the ritual. The skulls were used to symbolize death and rebirth.
The skulls were used to honor the dead, whom the Aztecs  civilization believed came back to visit during the monthlong ritual.
Unlike the Spaniards, who viewed death as the end of life, the natives viewed it as the continuation of life. Instead of fearing death, they embraced it. To them, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake.
The Spaniards considered the ritual to be sacrilegious. They perceived the indigenous people to be barbaric and pagan.
In their attempts to convert them to Catholicism, the Spaniards tried to kill the ritual.
But like the old Aztec spirits, the ritual refused to die.
To make the ritual more Christian, the Spaniards moved it so it coincided with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day (Nov. 1 and 2), which is when it is celebrated today. The goddess, known as "Lady of the Dead," was believed to have died at birth.
Here in Mexico, the towns come alive through this celebration.  Families decorate their homes and erect alters.  Family members gather and pay homage to those they have lost.  As always in Mexico food plays an important part - with the favourite foods of the deceased prepared by loved ones and eaten in their honor.  Along the local roads and highways, crosses are already placed for those that have died in car accidents.  The local shops are filled with Day of The Dead statues and trinkets. 
It's really a very stange tradition - kind of spooky to us newbies!  But the Mexicans being so devoted to this long standing tradition enjoy yet "another fiesta!"
The picture below is an example of a decorative alter in the homes............