What's your Halloween plan for your kilt?

[OC Richard]

I will leave an offering of food and drink for my deceased ancestors... At this time of year the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. People used to wear masks so they wouldn't be recognised by the dead. Offerings were left out for the dead so they knew they were not forgotten.

Are these traditions which survive in Spain? Or are they things which have been revived in modern times?

I ask because I had an interesting conversation about these things with a person from Mexico, and the traditions he described were virtually identical to ones I had been told about by Irish people.

The Mexican said that food would be left on the table for your deceased relatives/ancestors, the front door left partly open. The living family would lock themselves in a back bedroom- "you want to honour them, but you don't want to see them!" he said.

In so many ways Mexican culture is Spanish culture, and I assume that these traditions were brought from Spain.