Only my mother...

"Dia Del Los Muertos"

"Day of the Dead" A Spanish & Mexican holiday that occurs on October 31st, which is similar to our own Memorial Day. A candle is lit and a memorial is created for those friends and family who have passed on. A celebration, if you will, of that's person's next life.

In his Spanish class, Elliott learned about how Spanish speaking cultures spend their respective Halloween's. Elliott brought home a picture he colored of a little smiling skeleton, whose caption read "Dia Del Los Muertos".

When I came home for lunch today, I giggled inwardly as mom found the little drawing on the counter because I knew what lay ahead. She picked it up, studied it and trying her best to be nonchalant, fumbled through the Spanish dialect. After a moments pause, she asks "Day of . . . murder?"

"Day of the DEAD" I correct her. (I didn't elaborate; I've found that it doesn't help to explain these things until her wheels are done turning anyway.)

"Isn't that the pagan holiday where people think that spirits inhabit their body's to act out sins of the flesh?" I just about shot chicken soup out of my nose.

"Yes, mom. Elliott's learning all about pagan holidays at his Catholic school."

My mother, folks.