With Pearl’s Halloween costume finished (thank you for the sweet comments!) I finally had a minute to think about making my day of the dead altar. We’ve lived in three different places in the last three years, so I don’t exactly have a traditional place for it — but now that we have a fireplace with a mantel for the first time, it seemed like a perfect spot to decorate instead of setting up a table somewhere. I did a pretty simple version this time: five family photos of my grandparents, my aunt, and my dad, each adorned with candles, flowers, charms, sugar skulls and chocolates. I brought Pearl around to each person’s picture and told her all about them, and what I think they each would have loved best about her if they’d gotten the chance to meet her themselves.

Just like every election year, I am leaving the altar up a few extra days; I know everyone would have absolutely loved to find out what happens.

And on a sad note, my heart goes out to my friend T., and to Barack Obama and Maya Soetoro-Ng, and each of their families on the loss of their grandmothers yesterday. I added two extra candles to my altar in honor of them.

I have more details about everything in this flickr set, if you’re curious. And if you want to share photos of your altar, I would love to see them!