Where the Living Remembered the Dead, Pasadena Celebrated With Flowers and Song

The dead were having quite a Friday night in Pasadena. They were remembered with marigolds, photographs, candles, music and, in one particularly cheerful corner of the San Gabriel Mountains, a mariachi band.

At Villa Parke Community Center, the city opened its gymnasium for a Día de los Muertos celebration that transformed the basketball court into a colorful gathering place for the living and the departed.

Elaborate ofrendas, traditional altars honoring deceased loved ones, filled the room. Family portraits, favorite foods, candles and orange marigolds surrounded photographs of people whose stories were still very much alive.

Two sisters attending the celebration were honoring their parents and other family members, including a brother and sister who had died. They explained that they also maintained an ofrenda at home, keeping their loved ones close even beyond the public celebration.

Nearby, Julieta Reynoso, a teaching artist with Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts, helped visitors create pop-up cards using collage, mixed media and acrylic markers. The cards could become personal tributes to someone who had died or simply an afternoon’s creative expression.

Día de los Muertos, rooted in Indigenous Mexican traditions and observed around November 1 and 2, celebrates the belief that departed loved ones briefly return to visit. Unlike Halloween, its neighboring holiday on the calendar, death is not something to fear. It is an occasion to remember, welcome and occasionally laugh.

Meanwhile, high above Pasadena at Adams Pack Station in Chantry Flat, remembrance came with a soundtrack.

Beneath strings of glowing lights, musicians in traditional mariachi attire performed against the station’s rustic green buildings. Visitors gathered around picnic tables, sharing food and conversation as the mountain evening settled in.

The emotional centerpiece was the station’s own Megan “Maggie” Moran, who sang beautiful, sorrowful songs for friends, family and lovers now gone. With mariachi musicians accompanying her, the music seemed to make the distance between past and present a little smaller.

It was the Pack Station’s final scheduled musical gathering of 2026 before its winter shutdown, although there has been some talk of a special winter event. Live music is expected to return in February.

For now, the mountains will grow quieter.

But the memories, like the music, have a way of lingering.