Latin American holidays worth visiting. Quinceañera - a celebration of growing up in Latin America "Zuko" and harmful sweets for children

The photographer showed the sacrifices parents make for a decent holiday for their daughters.

Quinceañera (Spanish: Quinceañera) is one of the most important family holidays in Latin America. It is celebrated by girls on their fifteenth birthday; if before this day they are considered teenagers, then after that they are considered adult women. The celebration must include a girl in a princess dress, pyrotechnics, dancing, a huge number of delicious dishes and a large cake. All this, of course, costs a lot of money. Many families save money for many years, working long hours and even going into debt.

Fascinated by this tradition, photographer Delphine Blust traveled to Colombia to learn more about it.

Blast photographs young girls dressed in their fairy tale dresses in their everyday settings. And he hopes to show the discrepancy between the extravagance of the Quinceañera holiday and the everyday life and income of these families. As Blast herself says, she wanted to find out what this holiday really represents for girls and their families. I wanted to figure out how Colombian women manage to combine modernity and tradition, and how important this is for them.

Liana Katalia Yasblaydi:

Parents have been saving money for this holiday for more than 15 years. They gave their only daughter the quinceañera she deserved.

Melanie Forero:

It was important for Melanie to celebrate the Quinceañera with her family. She invited 90 guests. Melanie performed a symbolic ceremony of changing shoes. The girl sat on the throne, and her father took off her flat shoes and put on heeled shoes instead.

Luna Valentina Arias Beltran:

Luna dreams of becoming an actress. Laura's father is a shoemaker, her parents couldn't afford to celebrate a quinceañera, but they were still able to save enough money to invite 80 people.

Laura Cristina Zarta:

Laura's father is a fruit seller, and her mother does not work. Laura herself plays soccer and has been part of the Colombian youth team since 2015. Wants to become a criminologist. Her parents saved money for six months for her quinceañera, which included 200 people.

A Latina girl's 15th birthday marks the transition into adulthood and is celebrated lavishly by the whole family. In Brazil, such a celebration is called the “debutante ball” (Leo Tolstoy immediately comes to mind:)

On August 11, two of my husband’s nieces celebrated their holiday, which prompted me to this topic (I was waiting for a professional photo, but it didn’t come, but you haven’t lost anything, 95% of photographers in Mexico are unworthy of this title).

1. Kenya is the eldest daughter of my husband’s middle sister

According to Mexican traditions, this holiday was the first time a girl wore makeup (of course, this rule is no longer observed). The Mexican fifteenth anniversary begins with a festive mass in the church. For a very long time, girls dressed in pink for mass (symbolizing purity and innocence); according to my observations, now all girls go to church not in a special pink/white dress, but in the same ballroom dress that they will later wear in dancing.

During mass in the church, the girl is given an illuminated necklace with the Virgin Mary and a tiara. The tiara is needed to remind her family that she will always be a princess to them.

3. A wonderful miracle - my mother-in-law Victoria with my sister-in-law Leticia (the same “Aunt Leti”). Religion does not allow them to be photographed, but difficult obligations to another aunt - Elisa - won out.

The girl is accompanied all day by her friends and relatives - young guys dressed identically (like bridesmaids at a wedding). Traditionally, they rent a limousine and visit a couple of attractions (reminds me of anything?).

4. For illustration, I pulled pictures from the Internet

5. This option is also quite popular, yes, Cinderella ate my daughter

6. After the mass there is a magnificent ball. First - the first dance - with family members, starting with the father.

7. Almost always after this there is a staged dance with the participation of gentlemen. Traditionally, Mexican girls weren't allowed to dance in public (except at school dances), so this was the first public dance (then again, I guess that tradition is a thing of the past too).

8. Another example of a dance (sometimes friends also participate in it)

9. I often see only gentlemen, sometimes couples, but apparently it happens too

10. Ceremony of 15 candles: the girl gives a candle to everyone who influenced her growing up over her 15 years. Each candle symbolizes a shared memory, a special moment connecting the birthday girl with a loved one. Sometimes giving a candle is accompanied by a thank you speech.

11. Tradition of changing shoes - a family member puts high-heeled shoes on the girl, again symbolizing growing up (in the case of Kenya, as you can see, this is a convention, her shoes “before” are already high heels).

There is also the tradition of the “last doll,” when the father gives the birthday girl dolls dressed like herself. This Mayan tradition is again associated with the symbolism of transition to womanhood.

12. My attempts to find at least one blonde were unsuccessful. American women, theoretically, celebrate the Sweet 16, but, of course, not on such a scale.

The ball usually includes 200-300 people of friends and relatives, a gala dinner (unlike Russian celebrations, at Mexican celebrations there is a lot of monotonous food, that is, you eat what they give, and not what you want, the same thing for everyone). The next morning, the close family gathers at the birthday girl’s house for the so-called “warm up breakfast” - eating the remnants of the feast.

13. The decoration of the hall for Mexican holidays is very traditional, and ceases to shock after the tenth ball. Without bows on chairs - nowhere!

14. And this is my other niece by marriage - Brenda. We have complaints about her family - they decided not to invite the Spanish-speaking blonde who had found her way into the family. Our revenge will be terrible.
Please note, this girl lives in Madison, USA, and, as for me, the ease of approach to the holiday (T-shirts instead of tuxedos) and American smiles are noticeable!

15. This holiday is an industry no worse than the wedding industry, with a similar selection of the smallest details

16. Sometimes it’s even a pity that we didn’t have this opportunity to play princess for a day.

17. Modern cakes won’t surprise anyone, and Mexicans rarely follow unbeaten paths.

18. Disney World is offering special 15th anniversary packages

To my legitimate bewilderment, “Is this like a wedding!?”, my husband always replies, “Not everyone will get married, but everyone needs a holiday.” Such a celebration costs a family from $5,000-15,000, often on credit. In Mexico, it is customary for relatives to pay for some piece of the holiday as a “gift” - a cake, for example, alcohol, music. group, renting a hall - everything is divided into parts. And at some point, thank you to all donors must be publicly said.

19. Is there a princess alive in you?

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Recently, more than a million (!) people from all over the country, including the local football team, were going to come to the fifteenth birthday of an ordinary girl Ruby from a Mexican village. And all because of a carelessly placed invitation on social networks made by her father. Of course, in the end “only” a few thousand came, but this involuntary flash mob demonstrates that children’s holidays are taken seriously here in Mexico like nowhere else. And Ruby (pictured below), by the way, is now a local star. So, without what is a birthday in Mexico impossible?

Renting a special salon

Holidays in this Latin American country are a whole industry. Firstly, there are special rooms everywhere that can be rented for a birthday, wedding or party. It doesn’t matter if you live in the most prestigious area of ​​Mexico City, or where it’s better not to appear on the streets after six in the evening, or even in a small village - most likely, there is a fiesta salon right next to your house. It will have slides, toys, balls - everything that children love.

Everyone is usually invited to birthdays: everyone or a class, neighbors, numerous relatives and friends, so those who want to organize a modest children's birthday for 15-20 people will have a more difficult time than those who want to celebrate in a close company of 50-100 closest friends and relatives: there are much more large premises with proposals designed for a wide scope in Mexico City.

Children's birthdays in Mexico are something grandiose; everyone is invited to them. But planning the number of people with Mexican relatives and friends is very difficult: let’s say you invite 50 people, but you really don’t know whether 10 or 100 will come; both options are equally possible. Once, for my son’s birthday, the boy came not only with his parents, but also with his nanny, the nanny’s daughter and his grandmother! And another time he came with his parents and their priest friend.

Mexican mom

Special design

It is fashionable to organize birthdays in a certain style: for example, a cartoon about Peppa Pig, Captain America, Mickey Mouse or whoever is currently the most fashionable hero in your child’s company. Everything is done in this style: paper birthday invitations, disposable tablecloths, dishes and napkins, balloons and, of course, cake.

There are many stores that specialize in decorating any kind of holiday, including children's. There you can buy tablecloths, balls, disposable tableware, badges, birthday caps, pipes, napkins and hundreds of other things, the purpose of which you may not immediately guess. And on each one the hero you choose will be drawn, of course.

Obligatory piñata

This is the most important thing - something without which a Mexican child’s birthday simply cannot take place. A piñata is a hollow figure made of papier-mâché or paper filled with sweets and toys. The classic piñata is a seven-pointed star, symbolizing the seven deadly sins, but for children today, piñatas in the form of their favorite cartoon characters, cars or dolls are more often chosen.

In Mexico, there are not only special piñata shops, but also entire piñata fairs, festivals, and even exhibitions in museums. They are also made in the form of popular actors, singers and even politicians. The piñata is hung on a rope, and the children take turns hitting it with a stick, trying to break it and win prizes. All this is accompanied by jokes and songs.

"Zuko" and harmful sweets for children

The food in such salons is usually not very healthy: hot dogs, pizza, chips, soda. It is especially surprising for Russian mothers that, given the availability of inexpensive freshly squeezed juices, most often at such holidays they drink... instant sweet drinks. Usually it's Zuko - remember this one? For Mexicans, it seems, this is the same obligatory attribute of a birthday as New Year's Olivier is for us.

There will most likely be mountains of sweets on the tables. These can be fashionable cake pops and cupcakes, as well as lollipops, chocolates, tamarind candies and marmalade. The main thing is that there will be many, many of them.

Gifts for guests

On children's birthdays in Mexico, of course, they bring gifts. Most often, parents indicate on the invitation the number of the list of toys that will delight their child, posted on the website of one large retail chain.

When my niece celebrated her birthday in a garden in Russia, her mother simply took cake, cookies and juice to all the children in the garden. In Mexico everything is more complicated. In our garden, for example, birthdays are celebrated on Fridays. You send invitations in advance, which the teacher, or “miss” as they call them in Mexico, puts in everyone’s briefcase. The parents of the birthday boy bring a festive lunch for the whole group - usually sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, muffins or pizza, juices, and, of course, cake. And gifts for each classmate - we gave coloring books and watercolors, because I am against extra sweets for kids, but usually my son brings a mountain of candy, cars, and the other day they gave me a toy phone. But even as a birthday boy he brought 22 gifts!

Russian mom from Mexico City

15th Anniversary Celebration

The 15th anniversary is the most important holiday for any Mexican girl, almost more important and long-awaited than the wedding. The holiday, which Mexicans inherited from the ancient Aztecs, symbolizes a girl’s transition from childhood to adulthood. There is even a special term for such birthday girls - quinceañera (fifteen-year-old).

Girls begin to prepare for this day in advance: they buy fluffy bright dresses, similar to classic wedding dresses, do their evening hair and makeup. On this day, the entire large Mexican family gathers for a banquet in honor of the birthday girl, and then the girl, accompanied by several young people (relatives or friends), usually dressed in the same costumes, goes off to have fun. A photo shoot, an ordered limousine for the party, and, of course, a dance choreographed by special teachers are required.