Crossing Cultures

Fiesta Navideña
Celebrating the Holidays is always a big deal, and for our family, we have the blessing of celebrating with a taste of Latino culture. We've struggled with balancing both cultures and have ended up making our own traditions that don't quite fully represent one culture or the other. The mix is great and helps Angel feel at home. This year, we helped our church plan a special outreach service for the Latino community. It was our first time doing something like this, and was a great success.
Interrested in how Latinos celebrate? Well, a few things are essential for a real Latino flavored Fiesta!
1. Patience. Usually there is a beginning time, but typically the fiesta never begins at that time. And there's never really an ending time. People come when they want and leave when they want.
2. Food. Tamales, Mole, Tinga, Flan, Galletas, Pan Dulce. Yum, yum, yum! This is typically done potluck style and there is usually enough to feed an army! When word gets out about a fiesta, people bring their family, and their in-laws, extended families, abuelos, primos, neighbors, and the list goes on. So a lot of food is a good thing.


3. Piñata. Not just the piñata, but people for crowd control, someone to control the piñata, someone to do the blindfold and spinning. Someone to call 911? You know, just to be prepared. Here's Alisia and Caleb taking their turn at a swing. Angel was the pupet master controlling the piñata. That's usually his job. And notice he's wearing a Santa hat? Not very Latino-ish. That's part of the crossing-cultures thing.