It's hot. It's a long summer. And we needed something to beat the heat. So we opted for Christmas in July with a Mexican theme.
Instead of making all the food, I ordered it from a local bakery/restaurant called Juarez - which I'm so glad I did - all delish and easy to put together. We ordered the street tacos, queso and tamales. And I made elote corn at home. We also ordered an assortment of Mexican pastries.
For decoration, we dressed the table with a runner and plates from Hobby Lobby, made tissue paper flowers (remember those?) and found maracas at a Mexican market, and an ornament for each kid. We added some small succulent candles down the middle.
As the family arrived, we had Mexican Christmas music playing, and the AC was cranked up so it felt cool inside...and we spread a big Mexican blanket on the floor for the kids.
We had three family games:
One was a list of 20 Spanish words that the kids had to guess what they meant in English - most were pretty close to the English word - so the guessing wasn't too hard.
We found little tops that you spin (at a Mexican market) and the kids played that game.
And finally, we played Mexican bingo!
Then as a family, we played the maracas to the music and celebrated together.
It was great fun, and those pastries were amazing.
We just included this also, as a back to school gathering, so the kids all got a bag: a laptop desk from Target (dollar spot), a popit zipper pencil bag (from Target school section) filled with treats, a pencil and some squishy worms. Little Camp (9 mo old) got a little blue dog that crawls.
That's it - no other gifts - just fun and festivities - and
Feliz Navidad! (manger scene from Ten Thousand Villages)