Halloween isn’t the only seasonal observance that is just around the corner. Early November heralds another tradition in which the dead are in focus.

In Mexico, Day of the Dead — Dia de los Muertos — developed around remembering ancestors and welcoming them back to visit loved ones. In anticipation, the living clean gravesites, celebrate Mass for the deceased, or set up altars or “ofrendas” with the deceased’s favorite foods, flowers and photos.

Candles are also important, so the dead can see their path back.

Eulalio Mata, owner of a Half Moon Bay grocery and a native of Jalisco, Mexico, holds a photo of his mother and late father, that he plans to incorporate into an ofrenda with the Main Street/Moonridge Day of the Dead celebration.

Each year the Half Moon Bay Library holds a Day of the Dead celebration with traditional foods, music and literature, headed by Community Services Librarian Armando Ramirez, a native of Mexico. The Spanish-speakingMain Street and Moonridge housing communities create their own ofrendas and celebrate quietly.

This year, while the library holds its Day of the Dead event as usual, Moonridge and Main Street Housing welcome the community at large to theirs. Organizers say they hope to share their culture and traditions before the next generation adapts to other traditions.

“I think it’s hard for most of us because here, we don’t celebrate the way they celebrate over there,” said Half Moon Bay native Maggie Mata, 26. Her parents grew up in Jalisco. “In Mexico, they celebrate people who passed away.”

Her father, Eulalio Mata, owner of a small grocery store in Half Moon Bay, remembers taking flowers to the graves of his parents and uncles in Mexico and celebrating Mass and saying the Rosary over them. It was a special day.

Ultimately, he hopes the tradition will not fade away. “If you teach (children) all these things, they won’t forget. You have to keep an eye on family.”

Beginning at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1, at the library at 620 Correas St., community ofrendas will be displayed. Women from Pescadero will make sugar skulls, another Day of the Dead staple. There will be traditional foods, like baked “Pan de Muertos” or “atole,” a corn-based beverage.

Ramirez will read “El Zapilote y La Chirimia” (“The Vulture and the Flute”) by Gabriela Olmis, about a young girl who longs to give her grandfather’s flute back to him in heaven.

Ramirez said he thinks that while young people born in the United States don’t absorb tradition as they adapt to new culture, the Day of the Dead will live, even in a high-tech world. “I think it is one of those traditions that are difficult to eradicate,” he said. “I think technology will help preserve (it.)”

For information, call 726-2316.

Moonridge and Main Street will team up with the library and local partners to blend cultures while giving a nod to tradition.

Kids’ activities will include face painting, paper flower-making and games courtesy of the local YMCA, library and Promotores. The Bookmobile will visit and residents will make altars and food.

All was planned according to what residents wanted, said event coordinator Jennifer Petrie.

She said planners hope to connect Moonridge and Main Street residents with the greater community and “to put our own spice into the mix of Half Moon Bay and their own Mexican traditions.”

Call (650) 560-0197 for details.

For Hispanic Coastsiders, the future of Day of the Dead rests in their past.

Moonridge coordinator Norma Miramontes, who remembers flowers in cemeteries and Masses for the dead from her childhood in Camichines, Jalisco, has a close connection with the day. “To me, it’s respect for my family members,” she said. “It’s important so that we teach our children what happened back in Mexico.”

She plans to place an ofrenda in the Moonridge/Main Street celebration, for her late brother.

But Consuelo Vega, who grew up in Queretaro, Mexico, does not celebrate Day of the Dead here, because her family is in Mexico.

Emma Moctezuma of Half Moon Bay recalls placing favorite foods of the dead and lit candles on altars. “(The dead) come and visit us, and need the light from the candles.”

She came to the Coastside as a young adult. “Never forget that people pass away. It’s good that families and relatives think about people who have passed away.”

In some cases, like Maggie Mata, who fondly remembers her late grandparents, tradition wells to the surface when they are gone. “I feel like that day, I will celebrate something for them,” she said wistfully, noting that her father will observe the day. “If he does something for (my grandfather,) I will go help out.”