Piñata Creating. Mayo es, ¿verdad?

So I'm a little late.

The day before Cinco de Mayo, I saw a picture of a friend making a pinata with her daughter and it occurred to me that we didn't have a thing to do that afternoon. Paper mache is easy to manage and the kids would love it. I texted my neighbor for her leftover newspaper (she receives, we don't) and grabbed those up before mixing up a batch of flour and water for the afternoon indoor fun activity (since it appears it may never get warm in the Midwest ever).

Jumped on the bandwagon and the kids mostly enjoyed he process. Claire wasn't a fan of the mess (though typically she's ALL GOOD with coloring herself in full arm sleeve tattoos with marker). Benjamin kinda took the bull by the horns and jumped right in. I ended up finishing it, like almost all projects, because attention span was lacking after 30+ minutes. I'd say Benjamin tackled 60% of the paper mache solo, so I consider it a success.

It wasn't dry in time for a Cinco de Mayo celebration smash, so we had it laying on the deck in the sunshine to bake for some days. And finally, on May 16th, we decorated with pieces of colorful tissue paper and the hot glue gun. I stuck some twine in the sides and we popped popcorn on the stove to add to the inside as confetti/treat. The kids stuffed it before we hung it. Benjamin received some fairly negative marks from his teacher via email that day, so there was no chance I was putting anything sugary in there.

I hung it from a tree in the backyard and Benjamin took some major whacks to it and eventually we gave up on our incredibly sturdy construction and dumped the popcorn in bags and snacked away.

Sometimes it really is all about the process, as the product lay there, somewhat forgotten for ten days before we picked it back up and continued on (when I was just ready to send it out for trash pickup instead). Believe it or not, the breaking was rather anticlimactic.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that every single Easter while growing up, my adorable husband and his equally adorable family would make these very same balloon pinatas and break them open as an Easter celebration activity with the cousins. The tradition lives on.