Reinventing Day of The Dead

PHILADELPHIA, PA, UNITED STATES, October 30, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- How to Celebrate Day of the Dead (All Soul’s Day) in the 21st Century as Cremations Continue Their Rise

What can families do without a gravesite to tend?

With nearly sixty-one percent of Americans now cremating their lost loved ones, estimated to increase to 81% by 2045, what happens to traditional graveside Day of the Dead observances?

For hundreds of years, Mexican families have commemorated All Souls Day by “welcoming back the souls” of relatives dead and buried. Dias de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) includes visiting and cleaning the gravesites, and holding gravesite celebrations with lost loved ones. Festivals, colorful costumes, and home altars, or “ofrendas” (altars in Spanish), were also part of the celebrations. In the MesoAmerican culture, visiting gravesites is not a mournful occasion, but instead, a sacred tradition to welcome and visit with the souls of lost loved ones, share stories and memories, and celebrate death as an intrinsic part of life. To such celebrants, death is not to be feared. It’s simply the prerequisite for being alive, as natural as childbirth.

Day of the Dead traditions have grown throughout the world with more festivals, parades, spectacles, and specialty foods. But with cremation being the number one choice for families today, how do contemporary families celebrate the Day of the Dead in the 21st century? Here are ten useful tips:

1. Remember a favorite anecdote or story about them, write it down in an email, and then share it with friends and family. You’ll be surprised at how this will bring your loved one back to life for the day.
2. Plant a tree using your loved one’s ashes, and on subsequent Days of the Dead, celebrate your loved one by pruning, raking leaves, and bringing items to adorn the tree, while sharing memories with family and friends.
3. Share the favorite recipes of the deceased with friends and families and cook their favorite foods. Share photos of the dishes between them, or if you live in close proximity, invite each other over to try every dish.
4. Share your loved one’s favorite song or a Spotify playlist with friends and families and encourage them to listen to them.
5. Share their favorite movies with friends and families and encourage them to watch one that evening.
6. Whether your loved one was cremated or buried years before, create an event at home with a slideshow of old photos, or return to where their ashes were scattered, and invite all who can attend.
7. Create an altar or “ofrenda,” and ask family and friends to bring an offering: flowers, candles, a food the deceased enjoyed, photos, and colored paper.
8. Ask family and friends to donate or volunteer in the name of your loved one’s favorite charity.
9. Can’t or don’t want to (for climate change or costs reasons) get family members and friends together IRL for Day of the Dead? Hold a virtual remembrance or Celebration of Life in the metaverse. See MetaMemoryBox.com.
10. Pull out those old pictures or take time to review a MemoryBox Memory of your lost loved one. (This also helps stimulate storytelling around the photos.)

The benefits associated with rituals such as Day of the Day celebrations don’t need to disappear simply because cremation has become the dominant disposition in America and graveside events are increasingly becoming a thing of the past.

According to Dr. Clay Routledge, tools like MemoryBox have been clinically proven to be beneficial in grief recovery. World-renowned expert in the psychology of memory, nostalgia, and death, the author of 85 scientific papers and the book Nostalgia — A Psychological Resource, as well as a popular blogger for Psychology Today, Dr. Routledge says:

"Nostalgia acts as a psychological resource that helps people cope with life’s stressors and uncertainties, resulting in increased positive mood, self-esteem, feelings of belongingness, and perceptions of meaning in life. If you’re a family member or friend of someone who’s dying, or of someone who has recently passed, MemoryBox can help you cope with your loss more effectively, delivering real clinical benefits.”


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Sylvana Joseph
Cremstar
+1 267-888-8015
email us here
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