Children in white robes sing hymns and adults in purple robes carry lit candles to honor her. This fall festival is a time to remember dead family members and pray to their souls to return to the land of the living for just one night. Mexicans build altars decorated with cooked foods, candles, sugar skulls, and colorful flowers such as orange marigolds and purple orchids to welcome back the dead. Read more about the Day of the Dead . Guadalupe Day December 12, Mexico Thousands of Mexicans come to the church at Guadalupe to commemorate the day in 1531 when the Virgin Mary appeared before an Indian woodcutter and asked him to build a church on this site.
Friends approach a house singing traditional songs, asking to be let in.
At first they are refused, but finally, they are invited inside and the Posada party begins. St. Thomas' Day December 21, Guatemala On St. Thomas' Day, Guatemalan Mayan Indians honor the sun god by dancing the dangerous palo voladare, the flying pole dance, in which three men climb to a platform at the top of a fifty-foot pole. In some parts of Mexico, the radishes grow as large as athe length of a child's arm. On this day, there is an annual radish sculpture competition. Sculptors carve radishes in the shapes of famous and historical figures for all to see.