Denison's Day of the Dead

    Dia de los Muertos....    In English it means the 'Day of the Dead'.. and is a day set aside to pay honor to friends and family that have died. Needless to say, it is a Hispanic holiday but with the huge migration of Hispanics into this country it is rapidly becoming a common holiday for America.
    Saturday Denison held a parade and other festivities for the holiday and our family joined in...

       Momma and daughter Laura started early in putting on their make-up... It turned out to be about a two hour effort. Both of them painted up their faces over a base coat of white.

         This is the final result when we arrived downtown. Grandson Louie almost didn't recognize his Granny and Aunt as they surprised him. Louie was part of the Denison Dance Academy's troop that put on a performance before the parade..

         Immediately upon arriving Momma and Laura were placed into a contest for the best make-up... and I was prepared for either one to take top honors....BUT the judges picked the woman to the far right of the bottom photo. Evidently this was another of those elections decided by the hanging chad...

       The Dance Academy put on a show to get the crowd into the act... Top photo is our niece Mikayla, who was super as usual. Bottom photo is Louie and his partner Cadence.. Both were giving a guttsy effort, Louie was feeling bad and Cadence is still recovering from a knee injury.

        These girls came all the way from Gunter, Tx to be part of the festivities and told me each girl hand-made their own dresses. Colorful and extremely pretty, both the dresses and the girls.

        Once the parade started forming up it was decided that the Denison Dance Academy would lead the parade down Main Street...so Momma and Laura were the first ones prancing and waving...

       

Some of the giant puppets showed a lot of work and investment in the final product. This top photo shows that it takes three men to operate it due to the height and weight of the puppet.

               Denison has a long history with the railroads, and this mini-train gave rides before the parade....but in the parade itself it carried a Mirachi band that played music as they made their way down Main Street..

          Not all of the costumes were participants in the parade... These three beauties were part of the big crowd that came to see the parade... It was a fun time and the weather cooperated with clear skies and temperatures around sixty degrees.. Thank You Lord !