Día de los Muertos — Day of the Dead — is a Mexican tradition observed on November 1 and 2 in which families welcome back the souls of loved ones who have died. It is not a day of mourning. It is a celebration: food, música, marigolds and laughter, offered to the people we have lost.

The tradition grew out of Indigenous Mexican practices honoring the dead, which over centuries blended with the Catholic observances of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day brought by the Spanish. UNESCO added the Indigenous festivity dedicated to the dead to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008.

It is not Mexican Halloween

The two fall in the same week and both involve skeletons, and that is where the resemblance ends. Halloween treats the dead as something to fear. Día de los Muertos treats them as guests — people you set a place for, cook for, and talk to. The skulls are sugar, they are smiling, and they often have your own name written on them.

November 1 and November 2

Traditionally, November 1 honors children who have died — Día de los Inocentes or Día de los Angelitos. November 2 honors adults. In many families the ofrenda goes up in late October and stays through both days.

The ofrenda

The ofrenda, or altar, is the heart of the tradition. It is not an object of worship — it is a welcome, built so the dead can find their way home and rest when they arrive. Most ofrendas include:

• Photographs of the people being honored.
• Cempasúchil — Mexican marigolds. Their color and scent are said to guide the spirits, and petals are often scattered in a path to the altar.
• Candles, one for each soul remembered, to light the way.
• Papel picado — cut tissue paper banners. The movement of the paper signals the presence of the spirits, and its fragility is the point.
• Pan de muerto, the sweet bread shaped with bones across the top.
• Water, so the traveler can drink after the journey, and salt, for purification.
• Copal incense, whose smoke carries prayers.
• The food and drink they loved — their coffee, their cigarettes, their favorite dish. This is the detail that makes each ofrenda personal.

Calaveras and La Catrina

Calaveras — skulls — appear everywhere: sugar skulls decorated with icing and foil, painted faces, papier-mâché calacas going about ordinary business. The most recognizable figure is La Catrina, the elegant skeleton in a feathered hat. She began as La Calavera Garbancera, an etching by José Guadalupe Posada around 1910, satirizing Mexicans who denied their Indigenous roots to imitate European gentry. Diego Rivera later placed her at the center of his 1947 mural in Mexico City and gave her the name she carries now. Her message has not changed: underneath, we are all the same.

Alebrijes

The brightly painted fantastical creatures you will see are alebrijes — a 20th-century Mexican folk art form, now woven into Día de los Muertos celebrations as spirit guides and companions.

Día de los Muertos in southern New Mexico

The borderland has observed these traditions for as long as there have been families here. In Las Cruces, Mesilla, Anthony and across Doña Ana County — and in El Paso and Juárez just down the road — Día de los Muertos is not an imported festival. It is a continuation.

Our celebration, Día de los Muertos in Las Cruces: Arte, Música y Cultura, takes place Sunday, November 1, 2026, from 5:00 to 9:00 pm at the Downtown Plaza de Las Cruces, 100 N. Main St. Admission is free.

You will find a juried art exhibit, ofrendas built by community organizations, live música, a mercadito of local artisans, a lowrider car show, free café de olla and pan dulce, and calavera face jewel decorating.

Bring someone with you

At the center of the Plaza we build a free community ofrenda, open to everyone. Bring a copy of a photograph of someone you want remembered and place it there. Write your name and mailing address on the back if you would like the copy returned to you.

That is the whole tradition, in one gesture: they are not gone as long as someone says their name.