Let’s Have Fun at a Death PartyElephant Journal

“Let’s have fun at a death party” is probably not the most commonly uttered combination of words in the English language. There’s something a bit too irreverent and dangerously inappropriate about the image, like a friendly slap on fearsome Lord Voldemort’s back, affectionately calling He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named “Voldy.” Death and celebration don’t usually get to tango in our collective psyche, and yet, every year on November 2nd, right down the street from my house, a throng of hip-shaking, candle-carrying and guitar-strumming neighbors do just that: Celebrate the dead.