How To Throw A Baptism Party

As you’ve seen from the previous posts,
Parties are a really big thing here.
Even the 5 month old baptism party
Is equal to or greater than all the others.
Little Diana was baptized on a Saturday,
In Atotonilco, in what they called
A very special place to be baptized. 
Atotonilco is a very special place
Which you can read about and see photos here 

Little Diana, 5 months old - it's her day

I was unable to attend the baptism,
But I have been to Atotonilco on other baptism days.
Where families with young babies,
Dressed in the typical white flowing gowns
Wearing white garlands of fabric flowers on their heads
Line up across from the church to register their children.
This is followed by a ceremony at the church,
Where a nun at the front,
shoos everyone who is not an immediate family member,
To the back of the church, so there is room
For the families
To watch the blessing of their babies
By by the priest.

Upon the return to the house,
There is food first, 
Exactly like the description in my previous post

Afterwards,
While the family was awaiting the musicians,
The ice cream truck arrived.
The padrino yelled for all the kids to go outside,
Order an ice cream, and he would be out to pay.
So, before cake, there is ice cream all around.
Ice cream trucks here don’t sell the packaged bars.
It is home made ice cream and nieve,
Served out of big metal milk cans
In flavors of mango, limon, guayabana, pina, chocolate.
When in season, there are the unusual flavors,
Zapote, chirimoya, and others.

Kevin hogs the ice cream cup
While Ramon patiently waits,
A worried look on his face,
Wondering if he will get some too.

Little Lupita loves hers and shows me what flavor.

Everyone is quiet, for a moment
while they eat their ice cream. 

While this is going on, the musicians arrive.
This time, four of them.
The father, accordian player,
Two sons, on guitar and drum,
A friend with the bass fiddle. 

They walk right in,
Set up along the back wall,
Under the white balloons and streamers
Which Barbara spent the morning setting up.
You know the rest.
They started playing at 5pm today.
And ended at 5am tomorrow.
Everyone kept chipping in by the hour
So they could dance all night. 
It was the all out baptism,
That’s for sure. 

At 11 pm
I went home to rest  a while
John returned from a trip to the states at midnight.
We returned so he could eat some mole,
Send his good wishes to the family,
Ended up dancing until 2:30 am,
When we pooped out.
The party went on until 5am
When everyone either ran out of money
Or lost steam, I’m not sure which. 

Parents of little Diana, the first dance

Grandma Petra and uncle Nabor, 
The second dance 

Grandma #2

And the movie…..