How to celebrate Dia de Muertos with kids
Dia de Muertos is almost here! It’s a great way to celebrate this time of year. You can avoid Halloween if you’re not a big fan, have a big party and learn more about Mexico all at the same time! It’s an incredibly rich and ancient tradition so there’s plenty to learn about. You can even pick and choose which traditions you adopt (although please don’t just do dressing up as a sugar skull - see our post on appropriation at Dia de Muertos for more into why!).
We’ve compiled a list of decorations, food and activities kids can try for Dia de Muertos…
What is Dia de Muertos?
Dia de Muertos or Day of the Dead is a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico on November 1st and 2nd. Unlike Halloween it’s a time to celebrate the lives of those who’ve left us, to welcome them back home and have a feast and party. It’s a holiday about fun, family and memories. Plus food.
Decorate….
Decorating the house for Dia de Muertos is the first step. The celebration is always very colourful and joyful, so go wild with your colour scheme! There are a few specific things you’ll need.
An ofrenda is like a altar for the home. This is central to the celebration. The ofrenda can be a small table with a beautiful cloth over it. It’s the place where the photographs of ancestors are placed. The ofrenda should be decorated with flowers and candles and food and drinks should be left out. That’s so that the spirits of the ancestors have something to eat and drink after their long journey from the underworld.
Marigold flowers are traditionally associated with Dia de Muertos. The strong smell of the petals is supposed to guide the spirits back to the world of the living. Of course, if you live in the northern hemisphere, finding fresh marigolds may be a challenge. So we’ve found a great resource for making marigolds out of tissue paper - all you’ll need is orange tissue paper, scissors and a stapler!
✅ Try a tutorial for making marigolds from tissue paper
Papel Picado means cut or pierced paper, and is strung up around and inside houses on Dia de Muertos. A little bit like making paper snowflakes, all it takes is some colourful tissue paper, scissors and some string. It’s a great activity for kids (always remembering those safety scissors!) and can decorate a house beautifully!
We’ve got instructions on how to make Papel Picado in our Dia de Muertos download, or you can find plenty of resources online!
Eat…
Dia de Muertos is about feasting - big time. It’s when the spirits of the ancestors and the living can share a meal and celebrate together. There are a bunch of traditional foods, but other people choose to make the foods their ancestors most enjoyed. Here are some ideas for new Mexican recipes to try, from simple ones to more complex ones…
Guacamole is super easy to make with kids - you basically add all the ingredients into a bowl and mash them. Or you can use a blender. It’s also really flexible with ingredients - you can add chili if you like, or garlic, tomatoes or onions, even a bit of cinnamon. Kids can get creative trying different versions of guacamole. Watch out though, you’ll need plenty of avocados!
✅ Try a basic guacamole recipe
Tamales are pretty popular around Dia de Muertos, and there are literally hudreds of different ways you can make them. Tamales are little packages of masa or corn filled with anything from meat, vegetables, cheese, chilies, and then steamed in a corn husk or banana leaf (which isn’t eaten!).
These are another opportunity to get kids involved in food choices - they can decide which fillings they’d like to try in their tamales. I’ve never made them, but there’s a really good looking recipe on Mexico in My Kitchen…
✅ Try whipping up some tamales
Mexican Hot Chocolate is a great way to finish off an evening for kids. While the drink will probably be familiar, this recipe gives it a Mexican twist. In fact, chocolate originated in Aztec Mexico. The Aztecs believed the beans were a gift from Quetzacoatl, the Sun God, and used them as a form of currency. Ask your kids if they’d like to swap some cocoa beans for their pocket money!
This version is less sweet but more chocolatey and comes with a whole lot of spices - marshmallows and cream optional!
Activities…
Disney’s film Coco, although it had it’s own problematic appropriation issues, is a great intro to the tradition for kids. It tells the story of Miguel, a music loving boy who travels to the afterlife to find his ancestor, in order to get permission to play guitar and sing. Of course, it doesn’t quite turn out as expected.
Be aware: You will end up singing the songs constantly. Un Poco Loco is playing almost constantly in our house, and we don’t have any kids. You’ve been warned.
Also, playing the soundtrack in the original Spanish is a great way to expose kids to a different language!
If you’re not a Disney fan, try this beautiful illustrated video explaining Dia de Muertos…
✅ Watch an alternative animated video about Dia de Muertos
Colouring in some beautiful skulls or calaveras is another fun activity, especially for younger kids. In our Dia de Muertos downloadable we’ve got some blank skulls which can be printed out and decorated. Take a look at our Instagram page where we’ll be sharing a short video on how to do it.
Use as many colours as you can, plus any other decorations (glitter, sequins, paints) that you have around! Then you can hang them up as decorations.
Find and listen to some Mexican music to get a soundtrack going for the evening. There are a bunch of different options here. You can start with the Coco soundtrack (in Spanish of course!), but why not try some other Mexican music - a mixture of pop and traditional? There's also a list of fun songs here.
Some individual songs include:
Viva Mexico, a classic
La Llorona, about a famous Mexican myth of the crying woman (you might recognize some of this from Coco!)
Somos Más Americanos, a new song which reminds Americans that large parts of the US used to belong to Mexico
Selena is my personal favourite for 80s style videos and fun pop
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