Birthday fun and traditions!

No I am not talking about 5 de Mayo LOL! I just celebrated my birthday here in Mexico and I wanted to share all the fun things we do here that are similar and different! First, we started like a week ago, everyone always starts celebrating before or makes it a week-long celebration. IT IS GREAT! (Not that I get presents but you gotta love the love, you know!?) One of the big themes here is that people celebrate several times with different groups. For example, when we celebrate someone's birthday, it is one party with the family, then another with friends, then work, then church, then somebody else. (no joke) So, that's most likely why it lasts a week or always starts before the actual birthday. We sing a different song. It's actually better than ours and super sweet. I am not going to write out but you can look it up, they are called ''las mañanitas''. After the song (which I will post an amazing video of my small group in San Marcos singing them to me), you have to bite the cake! Usually, when you go to bite the cake somebody smashes your face into it! Yes, this is tradition and super funny! Luckily everyone was nice to me this year! OH, and this cake is always very fancy and very expensive. They will you run you 25 to 40 dollars easy. OH, we also have this wild firework like candle that everyone uses and it is so fun!! Something I really love about birthdays is that everyone sends you a message. Not sure about you but my family is always good about calling or sending a nice note and it makes me feel loved. In Mexico, it is the tradition to send a long message about you and why they love you or how thankful they are for you. It is really cool! Are you surprised?? This culture is very warm, welcoming and loving so makes sense! Presents are not really a big big thing here, most people give clothes or something small OR they give what they have, or they cook for you or they give what they are good at like The Marichi band in San Marcos sung for me. It really depends on where you are like a city, pueblo, rancho or type of people. Most times it is a party and everyone brings lots of food and then there are games. I always try to give books, bibles or something symbolical to be different. I have noticed I now never get clothes haha, people get me coffee or cake without lactose haha! So, apparently my American gift giving is rubbing off! So, what am I saying, the people here take birthdays seriously! The examples above are from my experinces but I have seen some really over the top parties and celebrations which actually seems to be the norm. We are talking 100 people, two different bands, blowup kids playground thing, catered food, professional photographer and on and on. LIKE, I said just depends on where and who but Mexico does not play games with birthdays! So, I am guess I am saying I like birthdays and Mexico does too. Culture is so fun and God is so creative to give this culture a special feeling for celebrating birthdays and loving others.