Día de los Muertos celebrations planned Saturday at 2 local cemeteries
This weekend any number of tributes to loved ones who’ve passed away may appear in public spaces, as altars, or ofrendas, are erected in observation of Día de los Muertos — the time when the dead are thought to momentarily rejoin the living.
Celebrated in Mexico and other Latin cultures for centuries, the Day of the Dead is gaining traction in the U.S. as schools, libraries and businesses make their own commemorative spaces and invite visitors to add objects of remembrance.
But when it comes to communing with the souls of the departed, there is perhaps no more fitting location than the places where the dead reside — and two local cemeteries on Saturday will allow people to mark the occasion while visiting the grave sites of their loved ones in Costa Mesa and Santa Ana.
Costa Mesa’s Harbor Lawn-Mt. Olive Memorial Park & Mortuary will host a Día de los Muertos celebration from 4 to 8 p.m. that will feature folklórico dancers, live mariachi bands, themed activities and a blessing by a local priest at 5:30 p.m. Free face painting will be available throughout the evening, and a taco truck will sell food until 7 p.m.
Participants may wander from the main event in the parking lot through the Gisler Avenue cemetery, which will be decorated with lights strung just for the occasion. They are invited to bring photos and decorate free picture frames on Saturday or they can visit the mortuary office ahead of the event.
Family services manager Peter Nguyen said Wednesday the cemetery is an appropriate place to celebrate the tradition of welcoming the departed through offerings placed directly at a loved one’s grave site.
“Us being a cemetery, it just goes hand in hand with that tradition as a way for people to spend time with their loved ones,” he said. “Families can leave a photo of their loved one, and we allow them to leave the decorations, which will stay up for about a week.”
The Costa Mesa evening event will follow on the heels of an earlier celebration at Fairhaven Memorial Park & Mortuary in Santa Ana, where a slate of activities will take place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the site’s North Gardens.
Organizer Cynthia Adair said the local event began in 2012 as a small ceremony that honored the Aztec roots of the Day of the Dead and quickly grew into a larger event that moves and flows throughout the cemetery garden.
“We did it in front of the mausoleum, and it was very structured,” Adair said Wednesday. “The feedback each year was, we need it to be a little different, come out with us to the grave sites.
“Now, [guests] are able to sit at their loved one’s grave and hear and participate in the service all at the same time.”
In addition to separate musical performances by youths from RHYTHMO Academy’s Mariachi Puño de Oro and Trio Los Salazar, visitors can watch folklórico dance troop Relámpago del Cielo and take part in a dance lesson.
Prayers for the dead take place at 1 p.m. and at 2:15 p.m., Fr. Mario Juarez from Santa Ana’s Saint Anne Catholic Church will deliver a Blessing of the Souls. The event also features an altar-building demonstration, craft booths, face painting and food available for purchase.
Offerings may remain at grave sites for 10 days after the event before they are cleared.
Harbor Lawn-Mt. Olive Memorial Park & Mortuary is located at 1625 Gisler Ave, Costa Mesa. Santa Ana’s Fairhaven Memorial Park & Mortuary is located at 1702 Fairhaven Ave.
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
