here, everyone visits their dead loved ones in the cemetaries, which often means travling to the home village. So the country is essentially shut down for business and the roads are packed.
You visit the graves, clean them up (from leaves and dirt), put candles and flowers on the grave, and then stay for awhile and have a picnic and socilaize. There are vendors in the cemetary who will sell you candles in case you forgot to bring them, and also snacks and bottled water (beer is forbidden but they used to sell that too). And they also have toys for the kids in case they get bored.
IN the richer areas, we have small houses for the dead where the family is buried but in the older parts, it is merely a tiny plot where the boxes up to three deep are there. Lolo's mom is buried in one of these, and he wanted to be buried there, but two other relatives died in recent years, so there was no room... so I bought a small plot that can be used for us and the next generation.
We went THrusday to clean up the grave and put flowers, and might visit today to light a cancle if it is not too hot...but Kuya and Joy are Protestant so don't celebrate such things anymore. Sigh.,
All Saints day (and Nov2, all Souls day) is to remember the dead, and in Catholic countries, our dead in heaven keep an eye on us and we remember them too.
the above video is in Tagalog, but here is an explanation by an ex pat of how we celebrate Undas
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