Quince Años

The last several weeks have been a little hectic since I have been on the team in charge of organizing the Quince Años party for two of the girls here at the Mission. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mexican tradition, it is similar to a “Sweet 16” coming-out/coming-of-age party, but it happens at the age of 15 here and is similar to a wedding in its scope. I was put in charge of decorations, which meant I thought of the weddings I have been to and the decorations at those celebrations and tried to come up with something similar to deck out the room in which we would be celebrating our two wonderful girls. It was a lot of fun to be involved in the whole process, from the first meeting discussing colors, time and place, to the dress shopping, to shopping and designing decorations, to set-up and tear-down. The first thing I learned is that the Quinceñera is the girl of honor, whereas the party is referred to as the Quince Años party (15th birthday party). What was especially entertaining to me was how Jill and I (their house mom, also American) started out with one idea for the decorations and ended up with a completely different idea, but it still turned out beautifully.

We started with a big empty room (once all of the church chairs were moved out and the music set-up was moved to the corner)…


And ended up with a wonderful banquet hall feel, perfect for our evening party.


The girls were stunning! Beauty school students came in and did their hair and make-up for free, which was a huge blessing. Their families all showed up for the celebration and the evening was wonderful! I don’t know how a traditional Catholic/Mexican Quince Años party goes, but I loved how the one here at the Mission was truly a celebration of the lives of the two girls; the ways in which they have grown, and the hopes/prayers we have for them for the future.

One of the great cultural differences between the states and Mexico is the distribution of favors. In the U.S. there are usually designated items that are given out at weddings or other parties. In Mexico, as I learned at the wedding I went to back in July, all table decorations, or any decorations for that matter, are free-range as party favors. That means that about half-way through the evening, or as people start to get up to go, all the decorations start to disappear. Our tables started out looking like this…


…and by the end of the evening were nothing more than a tablecloth and a couple of scraps of fabric. The vases, candles, mirrors, robosos (table runners)—all gone off the tables, with the leaving of the guests. It is an interesting phenomenon to watch people sneakily stuff things into purses or check with other tables to see if anyone has claimed the vase yet. At our table we eventually had to pull our decorations off to the side of the table so they looked taken so people would quite trying to take our beautiful decorations. It is something I find quite humorous.

Overall though, the evening was beautiful, well played out, and a great tribute to the girls. They were absolutely pleased to be the centers of attention for an evening and they deserved it. I think it is a wonderful practice to have because, as their house mom said during her part of the evening, in the U.S. we tend to only celebrate people’s lives at their wedding or funeral. Celebrating this way gives people, or at least young girls, a chance to see how loved they are and to be recognized for how special they are as individuals at a very formative age.