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Three years ago, Mellissa Berry and two friends were feeling down about the world. COVID was raging and a record-shattering heat dome had fried the Northwest that June.
Berry and her friends Moni Sears and Ivy Stovall thought the city needed a way to mourn its losses and look ahead to better times, so they started the Portland All Souls River Procession.
Their celebration comprises elements of Dia de los Muertos and All Souls’ Day (a Christian day of remembrance). All ages and faiths—or lack thereof—are welcome.
Last year, more than 400 people showed up at Cathedral Park in costume, carrying puppets, lanterns, rattles and drums. They paraded to the banks of the Willamette River, read the names of recently departed humans and nonhumans, and light a floating urn made of dried native plants into the water.
“There is all this grief in our community, and there is no way to honor it,” says Berry. The three founders have years of experience with costumes, mask making, and seasonal rituals.
Each year, the procession ends with a “revelry for the living” dance party at Green Anchors PDX, an industrial creative space that’s part Burning Man and part Mad Max just north of Cathedral Park. The bar is in an old trolley car. This November will mark the event’s fourth year.
Another dark, fun holiday in Stumptown? Krampus Lauf. It’s another parade (lauf means run in German) with costumes, this time in Southeast. Krampus is an inverse St. Nicholas who punishes bad children by taking them to the underworld and beating them with birch rods.
Portlanders have been celebrating Krampus Lauf since 2010, when Krampus fan Joseph Ragan organized the first lauf. He makes masks and banners for participants every year. This being Portland, many participants make horror movie-quality masks of their own.
The Krampus Lauf starts at Sewallcrest Park each year on a weekend in early December (watch Krampus Lauf PDX on Facebook for details). The procession goes down Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, where people in huge papier mâché demon heads smacking people (lightly) with birch rods are just a little out of the ordinary.