Celebrating "El Grito"

If you are anything like 95% of Americans out there, you believe that Cinco de Mayo is Mexico's day of Independence. After all, we call ours the 4th of July more often than we refer to it as Independence Day so why shouldn't it be the same? Cinco de Mayo is actually just the Americans excuse for drinking obscene amounts of Corona and tequila and gorging themselves on the taco bar down at the local Mexican restaurant. The restaurant fully supports this belief because it is really about the money and commercialism is where it's at. Cinco de Mayo is actually a celebration of the Day of the Battle of Puebla which happens to be the area where we will be moving to if it comes down to that. The United States owes its thanks to Mexico for our own independence but I'll let you educate yourself on that over at Wikipedia. Getting back to Mexico's true Independence Day, September 16th, 1810.

The celebrations begin the night before on September 15th with "El Grito" which means "the Cry." Watching it on television this year reminded me of the millions of Americans who gather around their televisions and watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Years Eve. We had hoped that one of the local organizations was going to plan something for El Grito but nobody seemed to know anything. José mentioned that they normally organize a futbol tournament and it's followed by food and games for the kids. I didn't have the time or energy to plan a large scale event on my own so we decided to do something in our home this year.

We purchased two piñatas for the kids during the Festival of Cultures on Saturday. Mia picked out a Dora one and Erika got a Tangled one, each one cost $12 and the ladies were actually making them while sitting at their booth during the festival. I stuffed them full with nine bags of the candy I brought home from Mexico and a few peanuts. They got pretty heavy and the dang wire coming out of the top is just straight so that was fun hanging it up later on in the evening.

My beloved wonder babysitter made a special Dora cake for the party along with a tray of mini cupcakes that looked like the Mexican flag, all the way down to the eagle holding the serpent in the middle! She made an awesome Chola Dora cake for a friend's costume party so I knew this special order would be a piece of "cake" for her too, ha ha! The two separate cakes actually worked out really well for us because it was easier to pass around the tray of cupcakes and offer one to everyone than try to cut up Dora and find enough plates and forks left over. So at the end of the night, Dora was in one piece in the kitchen for us to enjoy the next day.

While we were planning the party, José sat down with a menu of what type of food, side dishes, and condiments would be needed. As each family or person was invited, the food list was divvied up so it wouldn't fall solely on us to provide everything when we were expecting 30+ guests. We ended up having tinga, pozole de puerco, pozole de pollo, flautas, fruit salad, beans and rice, ambrosia fruit salad, Jamie's grape, pecan, and cream cheese salad that I adore so much, and all the condiments to go with every dish. By the end of the night, the only thing remaining was some of the pozole de pollo, fruit salad, and the leftover vegetable condiments. José and I didn't even get a chance to eat anything of the food except I scored on half the bowl of Jamie's grape salad. The secret is to not put a serving spoon in your favorite dishes and then people have a hard time getting it onto their plates to eat, ha!

The weather was not cooperating with me at all! I had originally set up the canopy in the front yard with the tables underneath it and chairs scattered randomly around the yard. Instead the cold fall breezes decided to set in, blow over the canopy before I staked it down, and essentially chase all of our guests inside to our very small living room. After an hour or so, I didn't have enough room to put all the food out so I lined up the tables in the driveway and took all the food out there and eventually, everyone got the idea.

The hardest part for me was definitely trying to coordinate the flow of everything while at the same time trying to keep up two conversations in English and Spanish so none of our guests felt left out. We had invited several new people to the house from José's work and I didn't want anyone to feel left out or clueless with the babble of languages flowing around them.

We strung the piñatas up on the playground set and divided the kids up into two groups; those 7 years and under and those 8 years and over. My thought was that this way the big kids wouldn't overwhelm the little kids so they could have a chance at candy, etc. Nope, as soon as that first piñata broke, everyone was all over everything and my plans went up in smoke. I handed out ziploc baggies and it looked like everyone got plenty of sugar to get them hyped up. The piñatas were not very strong though, they busted right open and some children didn't even get a chance at bat. Erika has gotten pretty good at smashing them too.

As the night cooled off and it got darker, the remaining guests trickled back inside and we watched the ceremonies take place in Mexico, two hours ahead of our schedule so it was 9pm here and 11pm in Mexico City. José opened up a bottle of Don Ramon and passed it around. It seems to be the most popular tequila that I bring home on my trips. It was nice to finally sit down and chat with our friends during the last couple hours and not have to worry about anything beyond the cleaning disaster but I knew that it would be waiting for me in the morning regardless :) Viva Mexico!