CARNAVAL

CARNIVAL

- Alegría - Colores - Desfile -

There is a saying “We want to be in a relationship in Valentine’s, but want to be single for Carnivals.” Today, we are going to talk about carnivals, not the Carnival Cruise but the authentic carnival!

Carnival roots back to the ancient Egypt. The Spanish brought “carnival” to South America! And now, South America rocks on having the best carnivals!

Rio Jainero

Panama

Argentina

Peru

These pictures show so much fun, joy, fun, culture and meaning! In Central America, carnival was originally a festival celebrated by the Catholics, who lent (fasting and abstinence) six weeks before Easter. In order to lent, they have to consume all the good food and drinks. To do so, the entire community throw a huge party, Carnival. 

Carnival used to be a religious party, one that did not involved much "God." Today, we celebrate carnival not because of religious but because of culture. Many might not even know the reason we have carnival. We just know that it is a week of fun, costumes, parades and more fun! Special shout out to my mother land, Panama for having the world's second best carnivals! But since I'm here in the Austin now, I will have to go call it "Mardi Gras." Carnival this year is going to start on Friday, February 28, 2014 and end on Tuesday, March 4! Those dates fall in Spring break for some schools. 

If you want to celebrate carnival but don't want to travel, you should invite some of your friends over to celebrate it! You don't need to celebrate it for five days!

Step 1 - Date

Let's start by setting a date. Saturday, March 1 would be my top choice. I will have all day in the morning to prepare the food and can wake up really late tomorrow. It is always wise to pick a date that most of your friends or at least the people you really want to be there are free. 

Step 2 - Venue

Where do I want the party to be? What time? What would it be? I will pick my home! I'm planning to serve dinner and then have some fun together! 

Step 3 - People

List the people you want to invite! Knowing how big your place is, you can't invite all your friends! The more, the merrier but having some moving space is always better! 

Step 4 - Budget

Parties are expensive! Sometimes you get too carried away and end up spending more than planned. You should set your budget and determine how much you want to spend for this dinner! I would spend 150 for my friends. P.S. I'm just a college kid, lol Obviously, a normal person might spend more. 

Step 4 - Invitations

Nowadays, people invite friends to their parties via Facebook. I love the traditional physical invitations more! I enjoy making the invitations. I will spend 15 dollars for all the invitations here. 

Step 5 - Food

Preparing the food is very tricky and usually the most important and stressful thing for a dinner. You will want the best food but at the same time don't want to spend too much! We are celebrating Carnival, so we might want to serve some Hispanic dishes! Remember that carnival is about "eating up all the food." 

With a limited budget, I decided to make empanada de boroña con tres carnes, sopa de pollo, pure de papas, parillada de carnes y chorizos, orejas de faile and filloas

Empanada de Boroña

Sopa de Pollo

Parillada de Carne

Orejas de Faile

Filloas

Here, I have attached the links for the recipes.
Food
Soup
Desserts

Step 6 - Drinks

You can have some soda, juices, wine or champagne for adults. But you should always have a signature drink, whether with alcohol or not. To make it very Hispanic, you can have a table of Corona Beer with lemon. Make it beautiful! To make it very carnival, you should have some colorful drinks like strawberry, orange and grape sodas for the kids. 

Step 7 - Decorations

Make it fun! Carnival is about being colorful and loud! To match our colorful Jarritos soda, we should decorate our house colorfully! Mardi Gras is more into purple, green and gold, but carnival in Central America is about all the colors.
I will give each guest some bead neckless (Where to get them)
Use orange dinner plates (Where to get them) yellow cups (Where to get them) purple napkins (Where to get them) green utensils (Where to get them) blue dessert plates (Where to get them) red soup bowls (Where to get them)

Step 8 - Music

Select your favorite songs! Remember that there's always some friendship "theme" song that you can not miss playing! Here is a song named "Carnaval" (In Spanish we say canAval, not carnIval)

Step 9 - Entertainment

Have some boardgames ready with you! If you don't want to play, you can always chill and talk!

Step 10 - Enjoy

The most important part of a party is to enjoy it! You organized it not for others to enjoy only, it is for you too!

Al ruido del tamboril, carnaval, carnavalera, me dijo que era feliz. Por eso con su canción, carnaval, carnavalera, se agranda mi corazón.

-Homero Manzi