In early November each year, Austin writer Lucinda Hutson celebrates Day of the Dead, a Mexican holiday for remembering and honoring deceased loved ones. Decorating her Rosedale home — her purple casita, as she calls it — and Mexican-style garden with colorful flowers, food, tequila bottles, skeleton decor, and her collection of Mexican folk art, she creates festive and sentimental altars to family members who’ve passed away, while welcoming friends in a celebration of life.

I was invited to stop by this weekend to see the decorations, with permission to share them with you, so let’s start with a tour of Lucinda’s garden. HEB’s Day of the Dead plastic grocery bags make a colorful and weather-proof display around her arched porch doorway.

A colorfully attired skeleton lady greets visitors near the front door.

Lucinda even has Day of the Dead planters this year.

Sancho the cat, guardian of the garden, was pretending to snooze on a purple chair next to a charming ceramic birdbath with a toad.

Another skeleton lady, this one with purple monarch wings, greets visitors at the gate to the back garden. Stepping through the gate you enter Lucinda’s mermaid garden…

…where skeleton mermaids frolic amid under-the-sea style plants like kalanchoe.

And sunbathe on seashell pillows.

A raised bed of edibles is brightened with pots of orange marigolds and yellow chrysanthemums.

Coral bougainvillea still blooms amid tropical greenery as yet untouched by the early freeze that nipped colder gardens in town.

Tendrils of coral vine bloom in front of a yellow wall hung with children’s chairs from Mexico.

On the rear deck, tiered tables draped in Mexican oil cloth make a pretty plant stand or a party bar, as needed.

Lucinda’s tequila cantina, behind a turquoise garage, always delights. A metal agave makes a tequila-themed finial atop the cedar structure, with empty tequila bottles on the table and upended on a bottle tree testifying to wild parties held back here.

Tequila bottle tree with cork mulch and a folk-art imbiber

Heading back through the gate I noticed that Lucinda in her purple vest echoed the monarch lady’s dress.

On the porch, more skeleton mermaids greet you.

And this lanky fellow lounges on colorful pillows.

St. Francis feeds his birds in a narrow window niche.

Lucinda goes all out in decorating the interior of her home, which is colorfully painted and filled in all seasons with Mexican folk art and textiles. But for Day of the Dead, she adds even more, including altars elaborately arranged with art like this Aly Winningham piece, skull tequila bottles, candles, and carved Madonnas.

Hearts — corazóns — adorn a small tray.

Even an interior door is dressed with a Day of the Dead table runner.

On the dining table itself Lucinda creates an eye-popping display of sugar skulls, sugar coffins with pull-strings that make the occupant pop up into a sitting position, dishes with clay renditions of favored foods, and flowers and candles.

A painted, skull-shaped tequila bottle

Decades-old sugar skulls from Mexico (amazing that they can be preserved so long!) line an antique buffet gleaming with silver pitchers and spoons, candles, and mirror.

There’s even a Day of the Dead skull-shaped spoon.

Lucinda hangs her collection of glass and painted-tin Day of the Dead ornaments from a pierced lampshade. Skulls, tequila bottles, devil heads, dancing skeletons…

…sombrero-wearing men and skeletons…

…more devils and cats — all shine in the lamplight and seem to be enjoying the party themselves.

In the kitchen, tequila bottles stand at the ready.

I enjoyed a shot of Lucinda’s homemade pomegranate-orange-chili sangrita accompanied by a shot of tequila — delicious with a spicy bite.

Our lovely silver-haired hostess

In a room filled with books and Mexican folk art, Lucinda has made an altar in honor of beloved pet cats who’ve passed over the Rainbow Bridge.

But her favorite altar this year is one she’s dedicated to a trio of women who were an influential part of her life: her sister, her mother, and her grandmother who’s pictured in the white oval frame wearing a white blouse with purple embroidery. Lucinda has her grandmother’s blouse — which Lucinda cut short in her young midriff-baring days, she confessed with a smile — hanging above the altar “like angel wings.”

Photos of her glamorous mother and handsome father adorn the altar alongside bottles of their favorite spirits, flowers, and candles.

Photos of her sister, at right, accompany the portrait of her grandmother and sentimental objects, making the altar both a celebration and a tender remembrance. I’m honored that she shared them with me. Thank you, Lucinda, and a toast to you and to your loved ones for Dia de los Muertos!

To read my other posts about Lucinda’s Day of the Dead decorations, click the links:

• Dia de los Muertos in Lucinda Hutson’s festive home and garden, 2018
• Lucinda’s Dia de los Muertos garden, 2016

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Digging Deeper

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