día de los muertos in vermont

A baton was passed at our house yesterday. After fifteen years of a creative Halloween party http://micabob.blogspot.com/2008/11/picasso-pumpkins-and-pop-quiz.html we started a new annual tradition—a Día de los Muertos party. This Mexican celebration combines Aztec and Mayan traditions honoring the departed with Catholic celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day http://micabob.blogspot.com/2008/11/da-de-los-muertos.html.

The event blends remembrance with some irreverence. We prepared an ofrenda with framed photos of ancestors, smiling skeleton figurines called calacas, candles, and even authentic papel picado, thanks to the generosity of a worldly neighbor. My daughter and I shaped painted cardboard boxes into tributes to favorite pets and animals. She adorned hers with faux pearl earrings and three sparkly toothbrushes. Friends brought their own contributions. I loved hearing and telling stories about hats worn by missed family members, meditation stones they held, a red sox fan, an old whaler’s golden earring, a lost cat, a pie tin, a horse race, a favorite breakfast. It was lovely, and fun. Mariachi music played in the background.  Kids colored skull masks.

We feasted well. Rolled black bean, beef and chipotle enchiladas. Layered corn enchiladas with salsa verde. Spicy Spanish rice. Southwest chicken and lime soup. Outdoors we had a brick oven cranking so people could roll dough into skull shapes and bake it under the stars. The hot bread looked so tasty, I think everyone got slightly burned fingers.

This morning after cleaning up, I sat on the sunny porch outside drinking a hot cup and savoring the previous evening.   It was nearly 60 degrees F.  As my husband took apart the brick oven, a gentle breeze blew traces of ashes over my bathrobe.  I looked down at the ashes and thought that was a nice ending to our Vermont celebration.

bob marley and mary poppins

Today’s title seems an unlikely convergence of musical icons. Yet, this peculiar combination proved a recipe for recovery as my family fell like dominoes to influenza. Music and movies surely helped five days of severe fatigue, inertia, et al pass more quickly. If you thought a spoonful of medicine helps the medicine go down was the main attraction, you are wrong! Instead it was stir it up, little darlin’.

I often subscribe to naturopathy, so we had a mélange of flavors and concoctions to consume. Licorice tasting immune glycerite and tart tasting cough glycerite, freshly brewed by my naturopath, accompanied thousands of IUs of vitamin D to combat the virus. The trick was to get a small child to swallow these healing elements. That’s where the little medicine cups were handy. I have some sweet, tiny stoneware mugs. Add a little ginger ale and maple syrup to the herbs, and sing together stir it up, little darlin’! Worked every time.

I’m sure some of you quietly shuddering readers pictured this practice as something more like brimstone and treacle, a song by the anti-nanny from the Broadway version of Mary Poppins. It was a great ritual, really! Dessert was ultra-fragrant chicken soup delivered to the porch by a dear neighbor and pictured above along with the other accoutrements. After couch sitting and humming along through Mary Poppins many times, Bob Marley got us moving vertically. A reggae beat is truly the rhythm of influenza when you need to stand up and do something.  Let’s get together and feel alright!

halloween moments

The predicted Halloween downpour happened while we were strong-arming a small child to eat some dinner toast before trick-or-treating. That's why we got a late start. That's why her newly sewn kimono stayed dry and miraculously mud free. Our goal was to keep it simple and keep to Pleasant Street. This small street of 12 houses offers the best ever of small town Halloween. It's blocked off by the ambulance and fire truck so it's pedestrian friendly.  Kids can climb inside the trucks. The neighbors have bonfires, if it's not raining, and other, well, pleasant things.

My favorite is browsing candy while being mesmerized by live bagpipes and drumming. Fresh coffee and doughnuts. Giant gnomes over a pot of gold. One ancient woman with a long string of kids out the door asks each child what their costume is about and records the explanation and their name in a journal. Every year. My little Japanese princess made this year's list.

The evening ended at the local small coffee house where we were entertained by a ghoulish looking ten piece band playing Motown. No candy there, just tiny pieces of chocolate cake and a cup of warm tea. By the time we got to the pumpkin display at a local farm, a special little someone was fast asleep in the car. A perfect and peaceful Halloween evening.