Tag: Holiday

A community Ofrenda or altar to commemorate and celebrate our loved ones who are no longer with us.

You are invited to bring a memento for the altar: a photograph, special object, flowers, etc.

Fundraiser for Four Tides Hospice and hosted by Iguana’s Mexican Grill and Claudia Medina.

The ofrenda is a free, all ages event.

Please note new venue this year at the Carlson Community Club

🕯️This event is part of the 2025 Memento Mori festival.
Visit qathetart.ca/memento-mori-festival-2025/ for more information.

💀🌼 🏵️🧡🕯
This community ofrenda is influenced by the Days of the Dead/Xantolo tradition of Mexico. There, households commonly set up an altar space to welcome their loved ones returning from “el otro lado/Mictlan”, the other side/realm of the dead. During these days our dearly departed are met with their favourite foods, drinks, and special objects so that they can feel connected to the land of the living.

Traditionally, the altar has flowers, especially marigolds, or cempoalxochitl, with a potent scent that attracts the spirits. We place a cup of water to quench the thirst of the spirits who have travelled so far, and candles to light their way. Incense, especially copal, is burned to cleanse the air of negative energy and make the spirits feel at home. Papel picado, the decorative coloured paper represents the element of air, which the spirits use to travel into the land of the living. Food, especially fruits and chocolate represent earth, the place where we grow our sustenance. In this way, the ofrenda holds the elements fire, air, water and earth, the fundamentals to life (and death) on this planet. Photos of our loved ones are placed on the altar, so that we can remember and honour their lives. These are days of joy, sadness, love and honouring, reminding us that we are all a part of the cycle of death and birth that makes each moment so precious.

The ofrendas are personal expressions of love created in a home, as well as a collective honouring of family and ancestors when they are created in public spaces. Our grief is personal, and yet our experience of grief and our own mortality is universal. We come together to share our personal grief and love for our loved ones who have left this world, knowing that we are connected through these cycles of life and death.

Tlazohcamati – Thank you