Holidays + Seasons

The 4th of July: As American as South Asianly Possible

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You don’t really end up celebrating holidays overseas unless you make it happen. There’s no decor at Hobby Lobby or Target to remind you of what’s coming up or work calendars with the day marked “Holiday.” It’s really up to you.

When you live overseas, you have to remember holidays, initiate, plan, and create so the day doesn’t come and go without you even celebrating it. 

So, the hubs and I decided to host a 4th of July Party.

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But I had no decorations

… except for 2 little American flags I inherited from someone who went back to the States and left it for some other American to enjoy (which ended up being me).

I naturally hopped right over to Pinterest to look for ideas and ran into a few roadblocks:

  • hot dog bar —————————————————————-no hotdogs
  • chocolate dipped Rice Krispies———————————– no Rice Krispies 
  • fruit cake with strawberries and blueberries ————- no strawberries. no blueberries
  • smore’s———————————————————————– no marshmallows
  • cheese and cracker tray———————————————– I guess we have cheese but its the fake packaged-by-the-slice kind
  • hamburgers—————————————————————–no beef
  • red white and blue veggie tray with cherry tomatoes— no cherry tomatoes
  • fireworks——————————————————————–no idea where to get those

Anyway… you get the point. It wasn’t easy. I don’t say this to make you feel bad for people who live overseas but rather to give people a realistic picture of what holidays look like over here. Also, it’s a wake up call to me as well. As Americans, we (myself included) are used to being able to get whatever we want whenever we want. For example, we have access to endless amount of produce (even produce that’s not in season). Our end product might not look like Pinterest but we can at least get the items to make the Pinterest inspired craft or food item.

Most of the time it’s a huge blessing to be able to celebrate overseas without commercialism, materialism, and all the craziness of American merchandise.

You get to celebrate how you want without other people telling you how they think you should. But it definitely calls for a level of thinking-outside-the box and of creativity to celebrate in a way that is fun and meaningful with fellow Americans who have also chosen the expat life and live near you.

CREAM SODA BAR

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I came across one idea online for a red, white, and blue cream soda bar. My friend who recently visited loves soda water and even when we were in a small village-city, she found it. Since then, I’ve started drinking it too and it adds a little variety to the usual plain water beverage. For the cream soda bar, all you need is ice, heavy cream, soda water /club soda, flavored syrup and optional colorful paper straws. There was a glimmer of hope since I realized we could probably find all the ingredients and even the cute straws to add a touch of festivity.

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When I recreated it, I also included lemonade since I knew kids would probably want lemonade and summer just makes me crave it. There were also ideas online for lemonade bars with flavored syrup so I figured people could just choose whatever they wanted. When I purchased the tiny baby lemons that exist here, I pretty much bought the fruit seller completely out (1.5 KGs of lemons). I used Pinch of Yum Blender Lemonade recipe because it’s super easy and doesn’t include juicing every lemon, especially since there are what seems like a thousand tiny seeds in these mini lemons.

The cream soda and lemonade bar ended up being a huge hit. Strawberry syrup was by far the favorite. It tasted delicious and was just super fun to mix the flavors, sip cream soda bubbles, and talk to whoever was next to you mixing there 4th of July drink too.

PHOTO BOOTH

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The last point was essential since switches are randomly put in the middle of walls, instead of near the floor where you can’t usually see them.

I love photos and photo booths.

Photo booths are an automatic way to foster fun, laughter, and encourage guests to take pictures so they can look back on the celebration.

I knew I wanted to have a photo booth but since I didn’t have any decorations, I knew whatever I created would need to be simple. I’m no artist but I do like to craft.

The first thing that came to mind were yarn tassels. I have been wanting to make them for a while and already had turquoise (they don’t sell royal blue in the store I went to) and white yarn. One of my national friends was over who also loves to craft so we plopped down on the couch and started wrapping thread around my moleskin language notebooks so our yarn tassels would be the same length. I found a yarn tassel tutorial here. I tracked down some red since the only other color I had was pink and added those to the pile later. When the time came to hang them up, I threaded them on battery operated string lights.

I’m terrible at bubble letters so I brought card stock bubble letters (bought at a scrapbooking store in America) with me to South Asia. So glad I did! I also had felt in my craft bin and used it to cut out letters for the photo booth. Next sewed them on to some twine and their ya have it.

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Thankfully we had 5 sheets of white cardstock and a printer so we also ended up printing a few fun free props for the booth.

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FOOD

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An amazing friend volunteered to coordinate food so we didn’t only eat desserts for our 4th of July dinner. This was what we ended up eating and it was delicious.

  • pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches
  • toppings (cheese, onions)
  • veggie tray (with ranch packet dip brought to you from the America)
  • deviled eggs
  • chips
  • potato salad
  • baked beans
  • watermelon
  • cheese quesadillas (for the kids)

 

  • brownies
  • cookie cake
  • strawberry boxed cake (from America) with banana pudding

 

We hear fireworks go off for wedding ceremonies so we know they exist here but had no idea where to get them. I think next year we’ll need to buy fireworks during the huge South Asian holiday in October and save them for July.

You don’t have to have fireworks to still have a fun and festive 4th of July party.

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