It's more common in central & southern Mexico where it is the most important family holiday of the year & families might spend as much as two months salary on it. With the movement of people up from the south to work in the factories in Nogales, Sonora, it has become a big holiday there as well as across the border in southern Arizona.
In Mexico, it is a national holiday. Families create lavish ofrendas (altars) at home to welcome the spirits of their departed loved ones with food, drinks & memorabilia they think will entice them to return. They believe that the children return at midnight on October 31st for 24 hours followed by the adults on November 2nd. They may change the food & other items on the ofrenda to suit the spirits they expect. The food & drinks are always supposed to be open. It is believed that the reason the drinks go flat & the food goes bad is that the spirits take only the flavor out of it, not its physical presence.
Families also go to the graves of their loved ones, clean them, paint them, decorate them especially with the traditional Aztec flowers of the dead -- marigolds & cockscomb, & spend the day & sometimes all night there depending on the part of Mexico. The farther south, the longer they stay.
This year, Trout & I observed as much of the tradition as we could. For me it started by leaving a note for some of my ancestors at the ofrenda at Tohono Chul Park. I also created an ofrenda at home for my parents & grandparents & Trout's parents. We had no pictures of his grandparents, so I couldn't put pictures of them on the wall.
I wasn't as observant as most, though. I didn't open anything, but I did leave a can opener on the altar so they could open the cans themselves. I think all the people we honored this year would find that amusing.
I put these lighted squash (fake) in the guest bedroom window.
Since we can't see the front at all from our current living room, I also decorated the back porch for our (really my) own amusement.
