Celebrate Cinco De Mayo With Your Family

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear Cinco de Mayo is to hit the local bar or Mexican cantina and grab a margarita and party! Have you ever stopped to think that you can do all that in the comfort of your own home? Start a new family ritual of multicultural traditions that your whole family can enjoy.

Many schools now have the students participating in cultural awareness programs. You can further their education in a fun and engaging way by adding this celebration to your calendar. One approach is to start with a huge round balloon for making a pinata. Newspapers torn into strips and dipped in simple papier mache or even Elmer’s glue will do the trick. Cover the whole balloon with the pasted paper. Once it dries, take brightly colored tissue paper, and dip it in the glue. Stick it onto the balloon in colorful designs around the pinata. Fill it up with either little toys or candy. Tie a string to the pinata, find a stick or baseball bat, and let them break it open carefully in an orderly fashion to get at the treats inside.

Get the kids to weave some placemats for the meal using primary colors. In Mexico, people like to dress themselves in bright colors and to use bright decorations. Blue, green, red, and yellow are excellent choices. The children will be pleased with their work and their placemats will make the meal look as festive.

Have the whole family design the menu for Cinco de Mayo. Have each person select part of the meal. If other friends are coming over, have them bring different condiments; like cheeses, olives, cilantro, tomatoes, refried bean, avocado, salsa and chips.

Smaller children love to have coloring books. Look around your town or on the internet for pages to color. Have the older children make maracas from dried beans and toilet paper rolls. Close one end of the paper roll with tissue paper and tape, pour in the dried beans, and close the other end of the roll. Wrap tissue paper around the whole thing to make them colorful.

One craft that is popular in Mexico is making tissue paper flowers. They can be put into vases to decorate the house or worn in the hair. They should be large and colorful. In Mexico, making flowers from tissue paper is a real art form. With practice, you and your kids can get very good at this craft.

Cinco de Mayo can be a great new family tradition if you have never celebrated it before. It gives you a chance to learn more about Mexican culture and it adds another great celebration to your family calendar. Invite the rest of the family or some friends over to join in the fun. Play Mexican music during dinner and invite everyone to dance and have fun all evening long.

Anytime you can get your family and friends together for great food and fun is worth the effort. Learning about the culture of our neighbors to the south through their food and music enriches us all. Hopefully these times of celebration will make you want to do it again and again. Creating new family traditions that help you appreciate other cultures helps us all understand each other better.

Cinco de Mayo history is a fascinating glimpse into the battles Mexico went through with Europe. Far outnumbered by the French, the Mexican army fought bravely anyway, pushing back the French. Eventually, they accepted aid from the United States who had finished with the Civil War.