Coco - Day of the Dead Movie
Our family recently watched the movie Coco - Day of the Dead. Since it is Saturday night, I can highly recommend this as a really great family movie that everyone will enjoy. Here's the trailer:
(Trust me, we are getting to the photos side of this blog in just a minute)
At first I wasn't sure if a movie about dead people was all that appropriate for my 6 and 7 year old girls. But that was because I did not understand about what The Day of The Dead actually was.
Being a Kiwi/Aussie with no Spanish or Mexican cultural understanding, I had thought it was like a Mexican Halloween, but it is actually a beautiful spiritual holiday and not creepy at all.
It is an annual multi-day holiday that focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died, and help support their spiritual journey.
Families set up shrines in their home called ofrendas with photos of their ancestors and place favourite foods, drinks and other gifts for them.
Image from https://dayofthedead.holiday/traditions/the-ofrenda
In the spirit world, the spirits can only visit their living families if there is a picture of them displayed, and if there are too many years with no pictures on display, the spirit fades away to nothing as they have been completely forgotten by all living souls. Chills right?
It really makes you realise how important photographs are, not just a digital file on a USB drive, but printed, real-life photos that you can see and remember your past and your ancestors.
Also, the sort of photo that you put out on display is important. Can you imagine our grandchildren only having images like this to remember us by? I mean, of course it is a bit of fun, but I don't want to be remembered like this!
The Day of The Dead is a holiday that completely centres around the importance of photography in our family life. How printed photos connect us to our past and at the same time our future, as our own children and grandchildren will one day only have photographs of us to remember us by.
Take lots of photos.
Print lots of photos.
Because one day, that is all that will be left of our time on earth.
If you are overdue for family photos of your own,
